Coming together in 2017 to explore the music & influence of the great Canadian pianist Paul Bley, Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash & Tony Orrell, in the familiar jazz trio setting of piano, double bass & drums, released BleySchool to critical acclaim on the New York-based 577 Records with a further live release from London’s Cafe OTO. 

The trio’s third record presents a remarkable shift in momentum and approach. Released on Sheffield’s Discus Music, Lifeline, has more in common with the steel city’s Cabaret Voltaire. Shifting industrial clangs, bleeps & electronic static with warping sheets of metal summoning factory furnace heat. 

Lifeline drives on the unrelenting edge of de/construction. Distorted noise, cold glacial reverberations & a glitched techno throb that echoes the approach of Pat’s 1997 solo release New Jazz Jungle: Remembering, a wild sound of Amen-break drum’n’bass, mutant funk and post - Western atonality or Tony’s cut & spliced animated video work. Fractured electronic body music for a backroom club night with Front 242 & Liaisons Dangereuses.

"It’s fertile, enchanting territory, the music one moment verging on the ruminative and melodic, the next, angular and fragmentary...it’s a hugely imaginative album." - Dominic Rivron, International Times.

Opening the evening will be a debut performance between John Bisset & Dan Johnson.

Double 8 lap steel & drums collide in a frenetic ride of sound. John’s lap steel sparks & shimmers whilst Dan’s typically propulsive drum work is given space to roll, crash & surge ever forwards. Early demos of the duo suggest a filmic hum soundtracking a punk sci-fi Western, full of whirling menace, claustrophobic tension and noir threat.

On the musicians:

Pat Thomas modestly describes himself as ‘a traditional player who’s just open to things’, that openness has seen him celebrated as ‘one of Britain’s most distinctive pianists, as well as an electronics wizard and visionary composer’ (Stewart Smith, The Guardian). He became a Sufi in 1990, drawn to the traditions of scholarship and social justice, and this spiritual and intellectual foundation informs his searching music. Pat is a virtuoso who has collaborated internationally for decades with improvising masters like Lol Coxhill & Derek Bailey to celebrated contemporary operators such as Thurston Moore & Moor Mother.

Dominic Lash is a double bassist, guitarist, author & film theorist. A prolific & renowned collaborator has performed & recorded with Modern Nature, Angharad Davies, Alexander Hawkins, Steve Noble & Apartment House, among countless others. He has performed internationally, participated in multiple residencies & festivals including Manchester Jazz Festival & Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Notable collaborations include performing with the late violinist Tony Conrad, recording with Chris Corsano & having a solo double bass piece composed especially by Éliane Radigue.

Tony Orrell is a wonderfully inventive percussionist & drummer. A celebrated presence amongst the Bristol Jazz scene and was the in-demand house drummer of famed Bedminster jazz pub The Albert. An extensive collaborator, Tony has brought his distinct shuffle to countless collaborations & recordings, including performances with Andy Sheppard, Evan Parker & Elton Dean. His drumming has sparkled on numerous recordings including collaborations with Paul Dunmall, Will Gregory & Adrian Utley and even Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain.

John Bisset is a musician and visual artist based in London. He co-founded the Manchester Musician’s Collective in 1977 which has opened out a life time of improvisation, visual arts & collective activity. Living in London over the last 40 years he has been involved with improvisation groups such as The London Electric Guitar Orchestra and the annual Relay events beginning in 1993 and including a celebrated two day performance in the Museum of Modern Art in New York with Pauline Oliveros in 2005.

John has collaborated extensively with artists such as Rhodri Davies, Maggie Nicols, Luigi Marino & Phil Minton.

Dan Johnson is a percussionist working in improvised sound and expanded composition. Undermining conventional notions of drumming, his experimental work manifests across a wide range of projects; from eight-hour solo improvisations responding to audience instruction, to invite-only performances in rail tunnels, lifts and public toilets, to non-hierarchical group improvisation project Ecstatic Drum Beats.

Dan is a certified Deep Listening Facilitator with the Centre for Deep Listening at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York and is co-writer and facilitator of the ‘Musical Responses & Collaborative Experiments’ creative development program with Annie Gardiner. Dan has been a revelatory presence in a number of celebrated groups including Run Logan Run & EP/64 with Dali de Saint Paul alongside charged collaborations with Moor Mother, Maggie Nicols & Valentina Magaletti.