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:
William Rees – 8:15 pm
William Rees is a composer and multi-instrumentalist currently based in London. Having spent six years in India studying Hindustani classical music on the sarod, as well as being classically trained on the viola, Rees has a keen understanding of both Indian and Western classical music. Rees’ music is an esoteric blend of his disparate influences, ranging from Indian and Persian music, to modern composition and free improvisation. He released a cassette of solo viola compositions on Night Ritual Recordings in 2013, entitled A Burial Shroud. His most recent release was a split cassette under the Curling Hands moniker for Skell Records.
“Chilled, resonating strings ebb and flow in a swarm of distant beauty. Imagine Bad Seed/Dirty Three Warren Ellis playing a noise showcase in a familiar basement and you’re mostly there. It’s a moving piece of gritted transcendence.” – Secret Decoder
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.
