Presenting an evening of improvised music with a keen focus on traditional instruments, cross-cultural dialogue and creative collaboration.
Entry: £2 for musicians, £5 for everyone else
Upaj (oo-paj: in hindi it means to improvise) is a night run by Sarathy Korwar and IKLECTIK that aims to showcase experimental music and create an inclusive space for artists from different backgrounds to come together and feel comfortable playing music spontaneously.
The night hopes to connect like-minded artists and serve as a platform to further collaborations and music-making.
While the focus is on traditional musics, everyone is invited to share the space equally, from guitarists to guzheng players, poets to per…cussionists, bagpipers to balafon players, fiddlers to…
Running order:
Kamura Obscura – 8:15
Kamura Obscura is the current nomenclature of Atsuko
Kamura. Kamura started out in Mizutama Shobodan (Polkadot Fire Brigade), one of Japan’s first allfemale punk bands, whose second album was produced by Fred Frith. On moving to London at the end of the eighties she joined Frank Chickens and toured North America, Japan, and Australia, as well as copresenting Kazuko’s Karaoke Klub with Kazuko Hohki on Channel 4 television.
After a long musical hiatus she teamed up with songwriter Robert Storey and a fivepiece band to form I Am A Kamura, and recorded an eponymous album. Moving back to Tokyo for four years she formed a new band there and performed that material, and in the process recorded the new material with British and Japanese musicians that make up the new album. Her music incorporates enka, chanson, Japanese punk, and vocal improvisation. Her new material is inspired by the Fukushima disaster.
Atsuko Kamura (vocal/keyboard),
Robert Storey (guitar),
Natalie Mason(Viola, accordion, piano)
HAT JAM – 8:45 pm onwards
The way the jam works is anyone who wants to play puts their name down on a piece of paper that in turn goes into a hat (if someone remembers to bring one). Anywhere between 2-4 names are randomly picked from the hat and those people get to play together for between 5-10 mins. Once everyone has played the jam opens up completely to anyone that wants to share the stage.
