ABSTRACT CONCRETE
EU-UK
AVAILABILITY ITALIAN SUMMER 2024
Collaboration with El Borracho Booking
after the successful tour ended this week, we are happy to let you know that the band is available for festivals for the rest of the year!
A.C. is the latest project from UK underground icon Charles Hayward (This Heat, Camberwell Now…), who is joined by some of the most exciting and forward-thinking young London players from a diversity of European underground and experimental scenes: Agathe Max, Roberto Sassi, Yoni Silver, and Otto Willberg!
Charles Hayward: Drums & Voice
Agathe Max: Viola
Roberto Sassi: Electric guitar
Yoni Silver: Keyboards
Otto Willberg: Bass
Sound is now, Sound is here
ABSTRACT CONCRETE is another big step for UK underground heavyweight Charles Hayward on his music journey (This Heat, Camberwell Now, Quiet Sun, Massacre).
ABSTRACT CONCRETE is music which spans a wide emotional landscape focussed on connection and communication using a genre fluid sound world of song, groove and fire with all the lyrical intensity the world demands right now.
ABSTRACT CONCRETE brings together some of the most exciting and forward-thinking young London players from a diversity of European underground and experimental scenes.
CHARLES HAYWARD
Charles Hayward is an English drummer/singer/composer and was a founding member of the experimental rock groups This Heat and Camberwell Now. He also played with early European improv group Mal Dean’s Amazing Band and gigged and recorded with Phil Manzanera in Quiet Sun as well as a short stint with Gong. Since the late 80’s he has concentrated on solo projects and collaborations, including Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith), Monkey Puzzle Trio and Albert Newton (with Pat Thomas and John Edwards).
The project This Is Not This Heat has recently completed a 3 year series of performances in UK, Europe, US and Japan.
Throughout a nearly 50 year career Charles has developed idiosyncratic attitudes and insights into a wide range of soundwork, spanning improvisation, song, sound as sound, using order and chaos as creative energies. He curates a six monthly series of performances, workshops and installation called Charles Hayward Presents on behalf of Lewisham Arthouse for Albany Theatre. Recent releases include ‘Objects of Desire’ cassette on Blank Editions and the piano centred song cycle ‘Begin Anywhere’ on Klanggalerie & God
Unknown Records.
AGATHE MAX
Graduate in Electroacoustic Composition, violinist Agathe Max, besides her collaborations with KURO, Mésange, Papivores… works on different projects including music and sound design for documentaries, animated movies, short movies, theatre, contemporary dance and art exhibitions/sound installations. After training in classical music for 1O years, she graduated at the Bourgoin-Jallieu School of Music, France, in 1995. Later on, she was exposed to improvised music and to the experimental scene. Inspired by a world both enchanting and draped in darkness, she has developed a wide range of sound textures, unique and melodious, creating unconventional and magnetic musical pieces reflecting a personality in constant search of rareness in music.
ROBERTO SASSI
An active member of 90s Italian underground rock scene (Cardosanto, Anatrofobia), after relocating to London he has been part of a number of bands and projects including Vole, Snorkel, Forebrace, the Glenn Branca Orchestra and the Cholmondeleys & the Featherstonehaughs dance company.
Throughout the years he has been developing a musical language that has brought his guitar playing from the noise rock beginnings to working within experimental music and free improvisation alongside an interest in sound design for video installations and dance theatre.
As an improviser he has been a regular member of the London Improvisers Orchestra and he has worked with several musicians including Roland Ramanan, Ricardo Tejero, Pat Thomas, Alex Ward, Steve Beresford, Steve Noble, Alan Wilkinson, Rachel Musson, Terry Day, John Russell, Xabier Iriondo, Claudio Lugo, Marcio Mattos and Javier Carmona.
YONI SILVER
Bass-clarinetist and multi-instrumentalist Yoni Silver’s activities include hyper-spectral adventures with Iancu Dumitrescu’s Hyperion Ensemble; a bass clarinet and percussion duo with Steve Noble; a bass clarinet/violin and possessed vocals duo with Sharon Gal; Denis D’or with Grundik Kasyansky and Tom Wheatley; bass clarinet and drums duo with Crystabel Riley, and solo performances on amplified bass clarinet.
He has appeared on labels such as Creative Sources, Confront Recordings, Wasted Capital, Chocolate Monk and Edition Modern.
OTTO WILLBERG
Otto Willberg is a improvisor who lives in London and plays the Double Bass and Bass Guitar. Otto currently plays with include Ashley Pauls trio (ray), Yes Indeed (with Laurie Tompkins), and the band – Historically Fucked.
Otto maintains a website called www.bootlegspatialrecall.net which is an open/publicly sourced archive of public space reverbs. He also has a solo recording ‘Barbaric Mystical Bored’ which is released on Why Eye. www.ottowillberg.com