Ruth Goller is a bassist, vocalist, composer, environmentalist and one of the most in-demand musicians at the moment, performing bass alongside Alabaster DePlume, Shabaka Hutchings, Bex Burch, and Damon Albarn. Though it is with her personal project SKYLLA that experience, technique, and ambition merge into her defiantly unclassifiable new album SKYLLUMINA. Open your ears and heart to the bliss of de-tuned bass alongside a trio of interweaving virtuosic vocal lines and dizzying defiant drum patterns. Join us for far-out sibilant ice-age siren songs that haunt like something conjured in a fever dream - powerful and raw - prepare to be smitten!
The opening set features & Karybdis. Skylla’s pop-up warm up act.
You are between a rock and a hard place. Between speech & song.
Now on the other path are two cliffs, one of which reaches with its sharp peak tothe broad heaven, and a dark cloud surrounds it. This never melts away, nor does clear sky ever surround that peak in summer or in harvest time. Nomortal man could scale it or set foot upon the top, not though he had twentyhands and feet; for the rock is smooth, as if it were polished. And in themidst of the cliff is a dim cave, turned to the West, toward Erebus, even whereyou shall steer your hollow ship - The Odyssey, Book XII
& Karybdis is between a band and duet between Alexis Deese-Smith and Kat Peddie.
Oren Marshall is a pioneering player of acoustic & electric tuba who has collaborated with Derek Bailey, Charlie Haden, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Moondog, Radiohead, Hermeto Pascoal, The Pan-African Orchestra & the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
For Trio Pertubando he’s joined by two giants of the Brazilian music scene, Alua Nascimento (percussion) & Jansen Santana (percussion) to play new original compositions & arrangements drawing on influences from Afro-Brazilian culture, North African rhythms & jazz.
The opening set features experimental folk cellist Francesca Ter-Berg playing new solo material for the first time.
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Through music, movement, satire, slapstick & film, ‘Lady, Garden’ explores the natural & unnatural habitats of the Lady Gardener in an immersive, improvised performance which takes its inspiration from the 'happenings' of the 1970s.
Free Women is currently a seven-strong ensemble which includes tutors & alumni of the Margate School, the University of Kent & Christ Church Canterbury & local independent artists. Between them they specialise in movement, spoken word, music & theatre. They are a diverse group of experienced performers interested in creating eclectic, thought-provoking & humorous experiences which examine the world through the female gaze.
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A vibrant, disorientating collage of projected animations, short films, live drawing, poetry, live music & sound.
Students from the Visual Communication course at the University for the Creative Arts & the Free Range Orchestra curate a teeming happening of simultaneous performances. Previous events have involved dancers, multiple projections onto moving props, rock bands, specially designed costumes, a children’s book transformed into an installation & improvised cat voiceovers.
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An aslant tour of art practices, curation, and ways in which we are encouraged to audience or might audience differently. Descend with your docent, Kat Peddie, for an event that combines elements of poetry, experimental and immersive theatre, music and visual art and art-making.
This production is brought to you by Kat Peddie (poet and text performer), in collaboration with Kate’s Bush. Kate’s Bush is a loose troupe of travelling players in the traditions of Poet’s Theatre, Peter Quince’s ‘rude mechanicals’, and folk traditions of mummers plays and pantomime.
Dr FrankenSTEIM’s monsters play crackleboxes: open circuits connected by the very flesh of the living, rendered into sound by Tim Fletcher, Peter Coyte & Sean Williams.
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Two duets featuring four generations of the UK’s best experimental & improvised creative practice.
Saxophonist & composer Rachel Musson is a vital presence on the London free improvisation scene, playing regularly at Cafe Oto with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, Hannah Marshall, Julie Kjaer, Corey Mwamba, Olie Brice, Alex Ward & Alex Hawkins. Described as ‘a free-improviser sensitive to melody-like narrative & dramatic pacing’ (The Guardian).
Vocal experimenter Phil Minton has been performing for 50 years, appearing on over 100 recordings. His music uses all that the human voice is capable of. ‘This is the freest of free improvisation out there…hilarious, irritating, engaging, provocative, & utterly mind-blowing. From throat singing to burping, from duck calls to indescribable vocal acrobatics…Minton's art is not only profound—it's fun, full of humour & unpretentious glee’ (All Music)
Amy Cutler is a cultural polymath working with images, film, video, texts, sounds, speech, geography, design & music. She is also a producer, lecturer, academic & museum tour guide.
Sylvia Hallet is a solo improviser who performs internationally. In 1980 she was a founding member of Contradictions, one of several all-women improvising groups inspired by the subversive Feminist Improvising Group. She sings & plays violin, viola, accordion, electronics, folk harp, hurdy gurdy, bicycle wheel & saw.
The opening set features electronic instrument maker, sound artist & performer, Cutlasses. ‘Gorgeous, personal music with a raw aesthetic’ (Create Digital Music)
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Rachel Musson
Sylvia Hallet
Cutlasses
Composer, producer, harpist & electronic musician, Bethany Ley uses the evocative space & sonic detail of granular synthesis to create environments for Kath Robert’s solo violin to breathe amongst influences as diverse as birdsong, musique concrète & Indonesian Gamelan. Taking inspiration from iconic British electronic music pioneers such as Daphne Oram & Delia Derbyshire, these pieces were made by extracting fragments from a single note’s harmonic series & unfolding them to create ‘atmospheres’ that contrast with the emotive, melodic presence of the solo violin.
Bethany Ley (piano, synth, electronics, samples), Kath Roberts (violin), Hamish Mitchinson (modular synthesis, samples)
The opening set features the noise-makers Shastik Cret Menagerie with a chaotic musical character study.
Kit Slawson (drums), Toby Slawson (saxophone), Tim Long (objects), William Burroughs (bass frequencies).
Photo credit Birte Carelse
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If you’re interested in DIY underground culture amongst young people in East Kent, Bandit Bazaar is for you. Having started life as a zine fair, Bandit Bazaar has taken its emphasis on local DIY culture and expanded it to include musicians and performers of all types.
Bandit Bazaar Presents: "Offbeat and Track" a spotlight for local rap-scene contributors
Live MPC Beat-tracks performed by Lab Rat Records, who've been entangled with the Kent rap scene for just shy of a decade, Boom-Bap sample flipping for the old-school hip-hoppers. On vocals, we've got Char.b, Priest & Vapid adapting lyrics and freestyling their own flow.
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William Burroughs x SP-404MkII
Priest Adeyemi x Akai MPC One
Flyer design by Loose End
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Lab Rat Records
Char.B
Priest
Bandit Bazaar
Refugee Tales with Raga Gibreel, Fran & Flora, David Flusfeder
Refugee Tales is an annual walk in solidarity with detainees and refugees calling for an end to indefinite detention in the UK. It is a life-affirming embodiment of compassion and community with stories and music shared at the end of each day. This show is modelled on one of these evening events. Imagine you have walked a long way, made new friends, heard snippets of people’s lives and you arrive at Free Range ready to rest, get a drink and listen.
The first story, ‘The Stranger’s Tale’, will be told by Raga Gibreel. Raga is a journalist, a former refugee and founder of Green Kordofan, a charity providing opportunities through sports to children in Yida refugee camp in South Sudan.
You’ll then hear the ‘beguiling beauty’ (The Wire) of string duo Fran & Flora playing music from the traditions of Klezmer, Transylvanian, Romanian, Greek and Armenian music.
The final story, ‘Y’s Tale’ is from journalist, author and opera librettist, David Flusfeder.
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Refugee Tales
Fran & Flora