Electric Umbrella #12

Improvisation is not just another musical genre. It is a radical approach toward musical structure and human communication. Though all of the musicians performing here tonight have previously played together with at least a few of the others, the two trios we are presenting on this occasion are guaranteed to be 100% untested, having never existed before in these particular configurations. The musicians all share a curiosity for mind-altering encounters, but also the discipline needed to make some sense of all the moving pieces they will inevitably be confronted with. For the audience, the experience can be surprisingly accessible: all you need to do is leave your expectations at the door.

Quartet (Rotterdam-based foreign bodies)
Johanna Monk (also curating this edition) combines the extended techniques of the avant-garde and the harsh brutality of pure sound with a melodic sensibility that betrays her roots in folk music, often also incorporating content-based prose, poetry and storytelling with creative music and visual performance. Lucija Gregov is a cellist and sound artist whose visceral approach to improvisation proposes a distinctive way of creating, co-creating, thinking and performing in and about current sonic dynamics. Gonçalo Almeida is one of the most prolific and internationally successful performers in Rotterdam’s new music scene, playing in wide a variety of projects ranging from modern jazz, free jazz, jazzcore and free improvisation, while also frequently collaborating with audio-visual artists, modern dancers, poets and theatre makers. Friso van Wijck is a composer, percussionist and drummer with a remarkably diverse background in metal, jazz, contemporary classical music, and of course free improvisation; his broad knowledge and keen empathy expanding and contracting in real time to seize the moment, now viscerally powerful, then geometrically precise, always playfully timeless.
Monk on Bandcamp
Lucija Gregov website
Goncalo Almeida website
Friso van Wijck on Discogs

Trio (Amsterdam-Rotterdam connection)
Hugo Costa is a Rotterdam-based saxophone player working in the field between free improvisation and avant-garde music, exploring melodic abstraction and harmonic tonal shifting using textural material with a wide range of extended techniques. Wilbert de Joode is one of the most active and visible bass players on the European improvised music circuit; his individual style and musicality transforms the double bass into an equal partner in the most varied ensembles; a personal tone colour, exploration of the outer registers, quirky improvisations and the use of gut strings contribute to an instantly recognizable and intriguing sound. Onno Govaert’s drumming displays a combination of unbridled energy, sensitivity, fearless decision-making and orchestral awareness.
More about Wilbert
[Hugo Costa on Bandcamp
Onno Govaerts on Discogs