Archive for August, 2009
Hello World
http://www.mrghosty.net/
http://www.pomoproject.com/
Project Description
For LOLA 2009 mrghosty -who performed at LOLA 2007, will be returning with with his partner video artist PO-MO, who together form Hello World. They will be creating customized video sets interpreting and responding to the music on the Rogers Mainstage. They will create these solo and collaborative sets live, based on their interpretation of each band’s sound and image- in some cases collaborating directly with the bands themselves.
Artist Biography
Hello World is the collaboration between Winnipeg VJs PO-MO and mrghosty. Recently they have pooled their different skills and backgrounds to create a live Tandem VJ mix unlike any other. Where PO-MO’s background is in animation and design, mrghosty’s is in video editing and found footage manipulation. Together they create a live video mix that incorporates live programmatic animation manipulation mixed into colour saturated video footage and backgrounds, as well as live camera feed mixing and manipulation. Alone and together, PO-MO and mrghosty have VJed for national and international acts including the Stanton Warriors, Vitamins 4 You, MSTRKRFT, Moses Mayes and many more.
Stop Die Resuscitate
http://www.myspace.com/stopdieresuscitate
Call The Office: Friday, 11:15pm – 2:00am
Riderless
Call The Office: Friday, 11:15pm – 2:00am
Artist Biography
(a touch before 2000 into 2001)
- gatherings and playing at the old forest city gallery, home of the nihilist spasm band
- fractured big-band get-togethers with no “agenda” or “idea”
- name lifted from a william s. burroughs rant (popping up in other reads as well)
(2002 and ongoing)
- solidified our live and recorderly lineup
- kinghaxi records is established as guerrilla micro label
- recorded seven albums independently (our folk art) with andy magoffin at his house of miracles
- collaborated and improvised twice with the master vocalist damo suzuki
- duotone records helps release the kinghaxi catalogue in japan
- our label co-operatively stretches out to include cailen dye (oblq), figure and ground, fujita scale, and talugung
- worldly and home-made instruments are collected for recording
touring finds us a new canada
- a northern chorus, absent sound, akron/family, as the poets affirm, below the sea, bloemfontein, domakesaythink, don caballero, explosionsinthesky, from fiction, holy fuck, mahogany frog, no birds, people for audio, polmo polpo, sing that yell that spell, what seas what shores, all sell more merch than us at shows
- we befriend liverpools’ loka (ninja tune) and embark on an 8 day mini tour throughout south western ontario and quebec
- friend in life and sound, wil byrick leaves the group
Colorlist
Call The Office: Friday, 11:15pm – 2:00am
Artists Biography
Colorlist is a saxophone/drums duo that uses live sampling and modern digital instruments to extend the harmonic and textural possibilities of their improvisations. The band strives to maintain organic sound and form, and to create a cohesive sound often abandoned in improvised music.
Charles Gorczynski: saxophones, harmonium, monome
Charles Rumback: drums, synth, electronics
Photo Credit: Jacob Hand
Growing
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Growing/58350543664
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Saturday, 7pm – 8pm
UWO Percussion Ensemble & The Collaborative Piano Ensemble
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 1pm – 2pm
Performance Information
The ensembles will be performing works by seminal ‘minimalist’ composer Steve Reich. the works to be performed are Six Pianos, two parts of Drumming, and Nagoya Marimbas
Michael Snow w/ Jesse Stewart
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Friday, 7:15pm – 8pm
Artist Biography
Michael Snow is considered one of Canada’s most important living artists, and one of the world’s leading experimental filmmakers. His wide-ranging and multidisciplinary oeuvre explores the possibilities inherent in different mediums and genres, and encompasses film and video, painting, sculpture, photography, writing, and music. Snow’s practice comprises a thorough investigation into the nature of perception.
Michael Snow was born in Toronto, Canada in 1929. He studied at Ontario College of Art. Among his many awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Order of Canada, and two Los Angeles Film Critics Awards. Snow has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; XXV Venice Biennale; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Kunstmuseum, Luzern, Switzerland; List Gallery, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The Power Plant, Toronto; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montréal; and Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, among others.
Thinkbox
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Saturday, 5pm – 6pm
THINKBOX MANDATE
Thinkbox is a self-curating media collective, created to explore technological works and contemporary media in relation to both gallery and commercial distribution networks. Thinkbox reflects the varied interests of its members. As an enterprise, it is centred on the exploration and innovative use of material and technique to produce works that develop complex questions to simplified answers about art, technology, and the nature of multi-media creation.
Many of the strategies employed by the artists involved question preconceived notions of the categorical limitations of music, audio, noise and sound, often in relation to video, film and the moving image. The primary aim of Thinkbox is to promote and advance the new media artist as content provider / cultural producer in the changing art landscape of the new century. The members of the collective are dedicated to the production and dissemination of non-categorical contemporary art creations.
Through the initiative of member artists, Thinkbox intersects with mass culture through gallery installations, performances, festivals, and the release of audio/video products.
Artist Biography
Thinkbox is a loosely structured Windsor based sound and visual art collective.
Current members include:
Christopher Bissonnette, a sound artist and graphic designer whose installations have been exhibited in both Canada and the U.S. Since 1996, Bissonnette’s audio performances have been programmed into many festivals and events, and he has performed live alongside experimentalists such as Scanner (UK) and Thomas Brinkmann (Germany). In September 2002, he participated in The Digidome Festival, in Saskatoon SK. Two full-length CDs of his work have been released by Kranky.
Mark Laliberte, an independent curator, project-based artist and experimental poet currently based in Toronto. Primarily an exhibiting artist, Laliberte’s complex installation works & independent objects have been shown in exhibitions throughout Canada and the U.S. Laliberte is the Managing Editor and Designer of Carousel Magazine.
Christopher McNamara, a Windsor-based video artist, writer and DJ, who teaches new media at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He and collaborator, artist Dermot Wilson have worked collaboratively under the corporate art moniker Machyderm Inc since 1994, and together they have shown extensively in both Canada and the U.S. (most recently at Mercer Union, Stride Gallery and The Western Front). In October 2002, McNamara exhibited at Stiftung BINZ 39, in Zürich, Switzerland.
Cailen Dye w/ Ed Matthews
http://www.myspace.com/cailendye
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Friday, 4:15pm – 5pm
Artist Statement
I have been composing and creating music with the use of computers for over 11 years. Though I am a multi-instrumentalist, the computer is my main instrument, one that allows me to gather, generate, organize, and structure the sounds, rhythms and melodies that become my compositions. One of the latent advantages of working in this way is that the resulting compositions can be heard immediately- without having to translate my ideas through notation. My fluency with my instrument and the immediacy of the compositional response allows me to also develop works in real time. During the past five years I have been developing a series of live performances with collaborating musicians. Often improvisatory, these live works have allowed me to develop new directions in my work as well as reach new audiences.
Leafcutter John
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Saturday, 3:30pm – 4:15pm
Artist Biography
Leafcutter John is a London based Songwriter, Electronic musician, and Artist. 2009 is my 9th year making music and releasing records.
Photo Credit: Vicki Chruchill | http://www.vickichurchill.com/
Tim Hecker
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Saturday, 9pm – 10pm
Artist Biography
Tim Hecker: is a musician and sound artist, born in Vancouver. Since 1996, he has produced a range of audio works for Kranky, Alien8, Mille Plateaux, Room40, Force Inc, Staalplaat, and Fat Cat. His Harmony in Ultraviolet received critical acclaim, including being recognized by Pitchfork as a top recording of 2006. Radio Amor was also recognized as a key recording of 2003 by Wire magazine. His work has also included commissions for contemporary dance, sound-art installations, minimal techo works under the name ‘Jetone’, as well as various writings. Hecker, has presented his work in a live settings around the world, including performances at Sonar (Barcelona), Mutek (Montreal), Primavera Sound (Barcelona), Victoriaville (Quebec), Vancouver New Music Festival (Vancouver), and Transmediale (Berlin). He currently resides in Montreal.
Laura Kikauka
Project Description: Guided by voices
Guided By Voices: Illuminated Still Lives is a group exhibition of small discrete light emitting artworks. In Guided By Voices light doubles as a material presence and as a trigger for meaning, suggesting purity, knowledge, and the shifting play between light and darkness. The exhibition features works by Tony Matelli (New York), Wyn Geleynse (London), Laura Kikauka (Berlin/Meaford) and Ooma Haru Mooma (London). Guided By Voices is curated by Jason Schiedel and Paul Walde.
Forest City Gallery: September 11 to October 16, 2009
Gallery Hours
Tuesday to Saturday, 12:00pm to 5:00pm.
Opening Reception
September 11, 2009, 7pm to 10pm
Contact:
Jason Schiedel, Director
Forest City Gallery
258 Richmond Street,
London, Ontario,
N6B 2H7
(519)434-5875
forestcitygallery@gmail.com
http://home.golden.net/~fcg/
Artist Biography
Laura Kikauka’s body of work over the past twenty-five years encompasses various mediums including site specific installation, mixed media, electronic sculpture, drawing, photography, video, performance, music, text and costume creations. Kikauka’s installations establish a highly specific visual (and often audio) language that blends the increasingly overlapping worlds of high and low art forms. In general Laura’s ‘excessive aesthetic’ is comparable to urban archeology and addresses issues of consumer culture, and the question of good and bad taste. It also celebrates failure in a humourous and ironic manner.
Kikauka’s work is inspired and derived from decades of on-going collecting of found objects. Employing the formal strategy of meticulously sorting and organizing these objects, as well as modifying or transforming them, she then creates specifically themed and coded installations that transform gallery and exhibition spaces into densely packed, highly detailed installations.
Laura’s categorization speaks of similarities and differences. The Funny Farm studios in rural Meaford and in Berlin are living and working spaces treated as on-going installations that exemplify, through a density of detail her interest in low class consumer culture. It is with a sense of sarcasm and empathy that she explores this reoccurring theme.
In addition to Kikauka’s long term ongoing projects recent solo exhibitions include: Celebration of Failure at SpaceX in Exeter, England, FOR THE LOVE OF GAUD/ Damien’s Worst at gallerie DNA, Berlin, Exactly the Same, but Completely Different at the Power Plant in Toronto, and M.A.N.I.A.C. at MAK (Museum fur angewandte Kunst) in Vienna, Austria. Her performances and studio work have been the subject of numerous texts and group exhibitions, and garnered many accolades including awards from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Laura Kikauka lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Meaford, Ontario.
Kaki King
http://www.myspace.com/kakiking
Rogers Main Stage: Friday, 8pm – 9pm
Artist Biography
“When Kaki King went into the studio in upstate New York to record the tracks for her fourth album, Dreaming Of Revenge, her producer, Malcolm Burn, had one condition: “He said, ‘If someone can’t be sawing a log in half and whistling along to the song, I don’t want it on the record,’” King recalls with a laugh. And so the bar was set. Burn’s mandate was just the push King needed to make her most accessible CD yet. “Even though half the tracks are instrumentals, I feel like I’m writing pop songs,” she says. “We really concentrated on the melodies. Everything I write tends to be dense and chordal, but this time the idea was to layer the challenging guitar work under very simple, beautiful melodies. I really wanted them to be memorable.”
That strict attention to song craft is a logical step for King, whose previous album, 2006’s …Until We Felt Red propelled this dazzling young guitar player and composer, known to instrumental music fans for her finger-picking, fret-slapping, and percussive thumping style, into previously uncharted indie-rock territory. Produced by post-rock kingpin John McEntire (Tortoise, Sea and Cake), Red was filled with lush, ambient soundscapes that “sound like the abstract, dreamy, and hypnotic end of alternative rock,” as the New York Times noted in its review.”
excerpt from myspace.com/kakiking
Jesse Stewart
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Saturday, 2pm – 2:45pm
Artist Biography
Jesse Stewart is an award-winning artist, percussionist, composer, improviser, instrument builder, and writer dedicated to reimagining the boundaries between artistic disciplines.
As an artist, Stewart has exhibited audio-visual installation-based work in solo, group, and juried art exhibitions at a variety of private and public galleries. Two major solo exhibitions have resulted in the publication of catalogues about his work: Wheels of Time (2003) shown at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre in Guelph and Waterworks (2005-6), shown at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, the Glenhyrst Gallery of Brant in Brantford, and the Thames Gallery in Chatham. In the summer of 2005, he contributed a performance and a sculptural work to a group show titled Demons Stole My Soul: the Rock and Roll Drum Set in Contemporary Art at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto.
As a musician, he works primarily in the areas of jazz, new music, and free improvisation. He has performed with many internationally acclaimed musicians including Michael Snow, George Lewis, Roswell Rudd, William Parker, Bill Dixon, Joe Mcphee, Maggie Nicols, David Mott, Evan Ziporyn, and many others. He has performed at music festivals across the country and made numerous compact disc recordings.
Much of his creative work crosses disciplinary boundaries, exploring the links between the visual and the sonic arts. For example, in the year 2000, he was commissioned by the Guelph Jazz Festival to create a ‘jazz opera’ entitled Passages with celebrated Canadian jazz poet Paul Haines and Governor General’s award-winning video artist David Rokeby.
After majoring in both visual art and in music as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph, he went on to complete two Master of Arts degrees concurrently at York University in Toronto: one in ethnomusicology and another in music composition. His composition teachers included James Tenney and David Mott. In 2008, Stewart completed doctoral level studies at the University of Guelph where he was the first recipient of the Brock Doctoral Scholarship, the university’s most prestigious graduate award. He is now a professor in Carleton University’s School for Studies in Art and Culture.
Jesse Stewart
Project Description: Pyrophonic Harmonics
Jesse Stewart’s video installation “Pyrophonic Harmonics” explores the phenomenon of thermoacoustics: using heat to create sound. As blow torch flames dance inside glass tubes of different lengths, drones of different pitches are elicited; the longer the tube, the lower the pitch of the drone. Having two tubes of slightly different lengths (and therefore slightly different frequencies) results in the acoustic phenomenon of beating: periodic variations in volume that results from the interference between the two sounds where the rate of the beating corresponds to the difference between the two frequencies involved.
The sense of alchemy in this work–turning one form of energy intoanother–serves as a metaphor for the act of adapting an essentially acoustic phenomenon into the visual medium of video. It also reinforces the synaesthetic aspects of Stewart’s creative practice in general, which routinely blurs the lines between the visual and sonic arts.
Artist Biography
Jesse Stewart is an award-winning artist, percussionist, composer, improviser, instrument builder, and writer dedicated to reimagining the boundaries between artistic disciplines.
As an artist, Stewart has exhibited audio-visual installation-based work in solo, group, and juried art exhibitions at a variety of private and public galleries. Two major solo exhibitions have resulted in the publication of catalogues about his work: Wheels of Time (2003) shown at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre in Guelph and Waterworks (2005-6), shown at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, the Glenhyrst Gallery of Brant in Brantford, and the Thames Gallery in Chatham. In the summer of 2005, he contributed a performance and a sculptural work to a group show titled Demons Stole My Soul: the Rock and Roll Drum Set in Contemporary Art at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto.
As a musician, he works primarily in the areas of jazz, new music, and free improvisation. He has performed with many internationally acclaimed musicians including Michael Snow, George Lewis, Roswell Rudd, William Parker, Bill Dixon, Joe Mcphee, Maggie Nicols, David Mott, Evan Ziporyn, and many others. He has performed at music festivals across the country and made numerous compact disc recordings.
Much of his creative work crosses disciplinary boundaries, exploring the links between the visual and the sonic arts. For example, in the year 2000, he was commissioned by the Guelph Jazz Festival to create a ‘jazz opera’ entitled Passages with celebrated Canadian jazz poet Paul Haines and Governor General’s award-winning video artist David Rokeby.
After majoring in both visual art and in music as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph, he went on to complete two Master of Arts degrees concurrently at York University in Toronto: one in ethnomusicology and another in music composition. His composition teachers included James Tenney and David Mott. In 2008, Stewart completed doctoral level studies at the University of Guelph where he was the first recipient of the Brock Doctoral Scholarship, the university’s most prestigious graduate award. He is now a professor in Carleton University’s School for Studies in Art and Culture.
Tony Matelli
Fuck It Free Yourself, 2006
Project Description: Guided by voices
Guided By Voices: Illuminated Still Lives is a group exhibition of small discrete light emitting artworks. In Guided By Voices light doubles as a material presence and as a trigger for meaning, suggesting purity, knowledge, and the shifting play between light and darkness. The exhibition features works by Tony Matelli (New York), Wyn Geleynse (London), Laura Kikauka(Berlin/Meaford) and Ooma Haru Mooma (London). Guided By Voices is curated by Jason Schiedel and Paul Walde.
Forest City Gallery: September 11 to October 16, 2009
Gallery Hours
Tuesday to Saturday, 12:00pm to 5:00pm.
Opening Reception
September 11, 2009, 7pm to 10pm
Contact:
Jason Schiedel, Director
Forest City Gallery
258 Richmond Street,
London, Ontario,
N6B 2H7
(519)434-5875
forestcitygallery@gmail.com
http://home.golden.net/~fcg/
Artist Biography
Known for his hyper realistic sculptures, Matelli often depicts characters, or things that are barely getting by; things nearly dead, hopelessly lost or otherwise, totally unwanted. His interest has always been in the underdog.
Serving as metaphors for our own social malaise and general struggle for survival, Matelli’s sculptures mimic inner states of desolation, panic, ambivalence and despair. These states are often associated with trying to locate ones self within our social world. Formerly his works have addressed an inescapable sense of doom. In this particular work; however, Matelli has introduced a glimmer of hope.
Tony Matelli has exhibited extensively in the US and in Europe. His work was most recently seen in “I am as you will be,” the Skeleton in Art, Cheim & Reid Gallery, and “Baroque Biology” at the CAC Cincinnati, and currently in “Undone,” at the Whitney Museum, Altria. Tony Matelli lives and works in NYC.
Represented by Leo Koenig Inc.
Kelly Mark
Project Description: Moonshot
Moonlight sets the scene for many film and television dramas. In Moonshot, Kelly Mark continues her series of found footage video collages by collecting hundreds of these establishing shots of the moon. Romance, horror and adventure are some of the themes suggested by this material which is projected onto the London cityscape transforming the landscape and setting the scene for the spectator’s own drama to unfold.
Artist Statement
I have always had an intense preoccupation with the differing shades of pathos and humour found in the repetitive mundane tasks, routines and rituals of everyday life. Hidden within these spans of time can be found startling moments of poetic individuation, and an imprint of the individual within the commonplace rituals of society. Individuation, especially within this uniformity, although subtle and frequently paradoxical, is something I find myself returning to again and again. Through my ‘will to order’ and my frequently inane sense of humour my objective is the investigation, documentation and validation of these singular ‘marked’ and ‘unmarked’ moments of our lives…
Artist Biography
Born: Welland, Ontario 1967. Currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Completed Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (w/ a Minor in Art History) in 1994 at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (N.S.C.A.D.).
Has exhibited widely across Canada, and internationally (including the United States, Australia, & Europe). Such venues include: Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), The Power Plant (Toronto), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Saidye Bronfman Art Center (Montreal), ZieherSmith Gallery (NY), Leadbased (NY), Museum of New Art (Detroit), University of Houston (Texas), Real Art Ways (Hartford), Ikon Gallery (UK), Lisson Gallery (UK), the Physics Room (NZ) and the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle) etc…
Represented Canada at Sydney Biennale, Australia (1998) and Liverpool Biennale, UK (2006)
Recipient of numerous Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council & Toronto Arts Council grants. As well as the KM Hunter Artist Award (2002), and Chalmers Art Fellowship (2002)
Works in a variety of media including: drawing, sculpture, photography, installation, sound, multiples, video & public interventions.
Represented in the public collections of: The Victoria & Albert Museum (Wallpaper Collection). London, UK; National Gallery of Canada; Canada Council Art Bank; Museum London, Ontario; Winnipeg Art Gallery. Winnipeg; Hamilton Art Gallery. Hamilton; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; Agnes Etherington Art Gallery (Queens University), Kingston; Art Gallery of Mississauga. Ontario; Art Gallery Of Ontario, Ontario; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery. Halifax; Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery. Halifax. As well as numerous private and corporate collections
Represented by: Diaz Contemporary, Toronto
Nihilist Spasm Band
http://www3.sympatico.ca/pratten/NSB/
Heineken TransMedia Stage: Friday, 5:45pm – 6:15pm
Artist Biography
The Nihilist Spasm Band is a unique experimental collective generally known as “the first noise band.” Formed in 1965 in London, Ontario, the Canadian group has since improvised on a number of instruments, including homemade creations such as the violin created by bandmember Art Pratten, the “Pratt-a-various.” Bandmembers include John Boyle (artist) kazoo and drums, John Clement (MD) guitar and drums, Bill Exley (geezer/latinist) vocals, Murray Favro (artist) guitar and Pratten (pensioner/gentleman of leisure) Pratt-a-various and Waterpipe. Former members include: Greg Curnoe (deceased), Hugh McIntyre (deceased) and Archie Leitch (permanently retired) Their first concert took place in early 1966 and their debut recording, No Record, followed two years later. Another decade passed before their next album, Vol. 2, was released, but despite their sporadic recording, the band remained busy with live performances. For over 30 years, NSB has performed every Monday night at the Forest City Gallery in London. They have also performed at N.Y.C.’s Knitting Factory, the FIMAV music festival in Quebec and other creative music festivals, and toured Japan in 1997. Many of the Nihilist Spasm Band albums have been reissued on the Japanese label Alchemy Records by fan and noise artist Jojo Hiroshige (of Hijokaidan).
Polar Bear
http://www.polarbearmusic.com/
Rogers Main Stage: Saturday, 6pm – 7pm
Artist Biograpy
Seb Rochford (drums)
Pete Wareham (tenor saxophone)
Mark Lockheart (tenor saxophone)
Tom Herbert (double bass)
Leafcutter John (mandolin and electronics)
Polar Bear are London based avant jazz quintet. Led from the back, by Seb Rochford ,they are part of long great jazz tradition of drummer led bands stretching back through Art Blakey and Chick Webb. Seb is well known as drummer in the Hendrix inspired jazzers Acoustic Ladyland. He has played and recorded with a remarkably diverse range of people including Joanna McGregor, Adele, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Patti Smith and Yoko Ono. He also drummed in an early incarnation of Pete Doherty’s Babyshambles playing on their first single. This wide range of collaborators is matched by the breadth of his musical taste that includes not only the jazz giants but also other artists such as grime artists Skepta,Devlin, Durrty Goodz,dubstep geniuses Burial and Kode 9 and awe inspiring singer Kaushiki Chakrabarty
Their new eponymous album is their first since 2005’s Mercury nominated Held On The Tips Of Fingers, which also got a place in Jazzwise “100 Jazz Albums that changed the World” and The Guardian’s “1000 albums you must hear before you die”
Sometimes described as post-jazz, linking them to the post rock of Sigur Ros, Talk Talk and Radiohead. Their sound appeals as much to jazz traditionalists as to people who don’t normally do jazz like hip-hop and indie rock fans. Celebrity admirers include Vic Reeves,Portishead and the Mighty Boosh, The Boosh, a combination prog jazz fanatic Julian Barratt and the glam punk kid and Jagger fan Noel Fielding, have personally selected Polar Bear to star in the Mighty Boosh festival in Kent in July 2008.
In Polar Bear you can hear echoes of the whole of the jazz tradition from the fusion of Bitches Brew-era Miles to Free Jazz of Coltrane and Albert Ayler. From the Hard and Be-Bop of the 40s and 50s to the frenetic ensemble playing of early jazz. But alongside the American tradition, there is also something that suggests the English pastoral sensibility of Neil Ardley, Kenny Wheeler, John Surman, Keith Tippett . There are also elements in the Polar Bear sound that suggests they have gone beyond jazz and have been listening to avant garde classical composers like, Stockhausen and Steve Reich, the punk funk of Pil and Rip Rig and Panic, laptop glitch of Fennesz and the quirky Anglo-French prog of Gong. . While you can hear elements of all these types of music, Polar Bear transcends these genres to make a form of British jazz that is uniquely their own and reflects UK music and life in the twenty first century.
