A very special night of Experimental Javanese Gamelan, Percussion & Drums from Will Guthrie’s Nist-Nah Ensemble. Two sets of hypnotic melody, suspended temporality & rhythmic complexity.
And as if that wasn’t enough we’ll have a selection of Indonesian Food & Drink including vegan options prepared by Kambuja (Specialists in traditional and modern South East Asian Cuisine).
We will also be hosting a limited number of Javanese Gamelan workshops on Sunday led by two members of Ensemble Nist-Nah who have lived and studied in Indonesia and have a wide knowledge of the culture as well as a prolific background in Western music and teaching.
Saturday tickets - £16 Adv / £18
Sunday Workshops - £35 including Concert tickets / £25 Workshop only! (Lunch Included)
Ensemble Nist-Nah is a contemporary Gamelan / percussion ensemble led by France-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie. Nist-Nah explores Gamelan instrumentation, using the metallaphones, hand drums and gongs of Indonesia alongside drum kit, other percussion and objects, found and junk. Bringing together 9 of France’s finest, Ensemble Nist-Nah hosts a wealth of experience and expertise, with it’s members coming from eclectic and mixed backgrounds, from traditional musicians, contemporary percussionists, to noise and free jazz fanatics.
After more than two decades of Guthrie exploring the extremes of experimental drums and percussion (with the likes of Oren Ambarchi, Roscoe Mitchell, Mark Fell, Jean-Luc Guionnet), the music of Ensemble Nist-Nah aims to combine the rich, bright and lush sounds of Gamelan with his interests in free jazz, electro-acoustic music and diverse experimental music practices, exploring temperament play, extended techniques for percussion, and interlocking polyrhythmic and polymeric non metered pulse.
The music is grounded in Guthrie’s travels in Indonesia and his appreciation of various forms of Gamelan music, from the stately suspended temporality of the courtly Javanese Gamelan Sekatan, to the delirious, thuggish repetition that accompanies the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan, to the shimmering acoustic glitch of contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat. Far from an exercise in exoticism, Ensemble Nist-Nah includes various members with extensive study history of Indonesian musics, namely Mark Lockett who studied with Sri Hastanto, I Wayan Loceng, I Nyoman Partha Gunawan and Arno Tuikman who studied with Ki Widodo Wilis a dhalang from Wonogiri and his son Whayu Thoyyib Pembayun.
Ensemble Nist-Nah will release their first collaborative album, entitled ‘Elders’ early 2022 on Black Truffle Records.
Will Guthrie is an Australian drummer / percussionist living in France. He plays solo using different combinations of drums, percussion, amplification and electronics, and leads the contemporary hybrid percussion / gamelan group ENSEMBLE NIST-NAH. His music has been released on labels such as Black Truffle, Editions Mego, Erstwhile, Clean Feed, Gaffer Records, Hasana Editions, 23five, iDEAL and his own label Antboy Music.
Guthrie first made a name for himself within the Australian jazz scene, establishing himself at a young age as a major presence by winning the Wangaratta National Jazz Awards for drums in 1997 and going on to perform with many of Australia’s most celebrated jazz musicians such as Mark Simmonds, Julien Wilson and Ren Walters. In the new millennium, his work took a long detour away from the drum kit through junk electronics, extreme amplification and electro-acoustic techniques, documented on a series of solo and collaborative recordings from these years.
Alongside continuing his electro-acoustic work, in the last decade, Guthrie has returned to the drums with a vengeance, developing a series of solo works marked by a radical single-mindedness, from relentless rhythmic workouts to earth-quaking explorations of the bass frequencies of gongs and other metal percussion instruments. In the crowded world of free jazz/improv percussion, Guthrie’s work is distinguished from the delicately pointillist approach of much European improvisation by its rhythmic sophistication, unashamed virtuosity and undeniable physicality, touching on aspects of world musics from Javanese gamelan to South Indian Carnatic music.
As a dedicated grassroots and DIY concert organiser, while still a student in Melbourne Guthrie (alongside Ren Walters) established the weekly concert series ‘Improvised Tuesdays’, now known as the Make It Up Club, Australia’s longest running performance series for improvised and experimental music. On moving to Nantes, Guthrie joined the collective CABLE#, curating and organising regular concerts and an annual festival.
Guthrie has released over 50 Albums, as both soloist and in collaboration, on labels such as his own Antboy Music, and also Black Truffle, Editions Mego, Gaffer Records, Ideal, Ipacac and Clean Feed. He has performed at countless venues and festivals all over the world including Lieu Unique (Nantes), Cafe Oto (London), Berghain (Berlin), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), SPRING Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht), Meta House (Phnom Penh), MONA FONA (Hobart), Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montreal), Lampo (Chicago), Oct Loft Jazz Happening (Shenzhen) and the Geometry Of Now (Moscow).
Regular collaborators past and present include Oren Ambarchi, Container, Sarah Hennies, Mark Fell, Roscoe Mitchell, Ahmed Ag Kaedy, James Rushford, Ghassen Chiba, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Erell Latimier, Chulki Hong, Mark Simmonds, Jérôme Noetinger, Keith Rowe, David Maranha, Ava Mendoza, the film maker Hangjun Lee and choreographer/dancer Mette Ingvartsen.
Black Truffle Records is an Australian experimental/improv/noise/abstract/etc. music label, founded in 2009 by Oren Ambarchi.
The French black truffle is considered the finest of the edible fungi and has a place in gastronomy alongside saffron, caviar, foie gras and the finest of wines. Widely considered as the jewel of French cooking it is prized for its unique flavour and intoxicating aroma. The resident chef at Black Truffle Records has found that the best method for finding the "diamond of the kitchen" requires the use of a divining stick and facing into the sun.
Eroteme is a Manchester based concert series championing experimental music from the hinterlands. Home of the Uncategorizable. Foraging new sonic territories in electronics, improvisation and beyond.