Mercury Over Maps 10

photo taken from video footage by Bill Thompson

I had a great time at Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton for Bill Thompson's Mercury Over Maps 10 event in June.  Thanks for the invite, Bill!  Graham MacKeachan runs a beautiful and very friendly gallery and cafe; this was my first visit, but it won't be my last.

Fantastic performances of improvisation from Bill and video-maker Gregory White, and a superb trio of  John Macedo, Brigitte Hart and Matt Atkins. I enjoyed performing with the guitar body and electronics set-up here; the gallery was nicely resonant; bright, which I think helps with the equipment I use. And the audience were very attentive and appreciative.

I had not been to Hoxton since being involved with film projects at The Lux when it was at Hoxton Square in the late 90s. My route from home in Sussex to East London was via leafy Forest Hill where I caught the Overground train; making me recall the concert Daniel Spicer and I participated in at V22's HQ there last summer, and the brief period I lived in the area many years ago...

photos by pkm

Big thanks to Ed

...from The Sound Projector website:

On the cassette Sepertae (LINEAR OBSESSIONAL RECORDINGS LOR117), UK improvisers Daniel Spicer and Paul Khimasia Morgan join forces to create tiny intimate sounds with a largely acoustic set-up. Paul happens to contribute writings to this magazine, and I assume “knows” quite a lot about the theory and practice of improvised music, but does not seek to position himself as some sort of “meta-musician” when he sets to performing. His chosen implement of late is a cannibalised acoustic guitar, stripped down to just the body which he uses as a cavernous oyster when playing his miniature live electronics kit. Rubbing the wooden body is permitted, but what we see and hear enacted in each performance relies on a mysterious bond between one man and his little pet.

Spicer does blow flutes, cornets, recorders, shenai, trumpet and other such puffers in the West Hill Blast Quartet (who play good energy jazz in the free high wind mode), but I personally value him more for his more idiosyncratic side which occasionally surfaces in performance. His work here on piano, bugle, violin and “bamboo sax” (an early form of Peruvian knitting rod) isn’t especially zanoid perhaps, but it’s out there – the work of one who is quietly taking risks and edging the music out into a certain space, a space as near the shoreline a man can go without actually standing in the ocean…although that might be the next phase of the plan. Indeed, both Morgan and Spicer could be said to be gently expanding the envelope of what is possible with their respective sound kits, and what is permissible between them as two collaborating individuals; for the latter, every move is made with great mutual respect and compassion, a spirit of “what if we try this?”.

In this context, small gestures and short repeated phrases go a long way, rather than the whirlwinds of sudden change and violent disruption favoured by other roaring-type musicians. At less than 15 mins a side, you will be left wanting more of this…from 22nd November 2018.

Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector, 27 May 2019