The shock of the new?

For a medium sized city Bristol is wonderfully blessed with live music of all kinds, from the biggest name tours through to aspiring newbies making sounds ranging from mainstream commercial through to the leftest of fields. Crucial to sustaining this vibrant scene, of course, are the dedicated audiences who flock to venues large and small. Some fifteen years ago a group of Bristol promoters realised that there was a bit of a scene of people interested in experimental music of different kinds from contemporary classical to free jazz and electronic experimentation. Seeing the potential to draw this together they formed a consortium and in 2014 Bristol New Music was born a biennial collaborative showcase bringing together some of the best groundbreaking stuff from around the world. This year sees its sixth edition, running from April 22-26.

The five days of this year’s programme offer 12 events involving 24 acts across 8 venues, ranging from Chinese contemporary classical music in the Victoria Rooms to layered processed saxophones at Strange Brew, avant garde bagpipes in The Cube, a West African film installation on Spike Island and scary avant-pop in The Lantern. It’s a kaleidoscopic journey through the unexpected and the common factor is an uncommon-ness of creative vision, with artists coming from New York, Egypt, Berlin and London. Some of it is pretty weird stuff but festival producer Al Cameron is fine with that, saying:”’too weird’ is never a thing!” That sentiment is echoed by Beacon curator Todd Wills, one of the Bristol New Music Consortium members behind the festival: “I don’t think I’ve seen anything too weird in the festival. The odd piece over the years could perhaps have been a little more ‘concise’…”

As always the programme has been pulled together collaboratively from suggestions by partner venues, with Al having a crucial role at the centre. Naturally, he has a hard job picking any favourites from the final line-up:  “I’m excited for every artist on the bill for this edition. We have a lot of international artists and collaborations visiting Bristol for the first time -like wonderful New York-based jazz singer and pianist Eliana Glass, who’s over in the UK for some shows for the first time and plays the closing show at Strange Brew on Sunday night, to Oakland-hailing saxophonist Cole Pulice who opens the festival on the Wednesday night – both of whose records from last year I’ve had on repeat since they came out.”

“We’re also bringing artists like Yunis coming over to the UK from Egypt first the first time to perform at Arnolfini on the Friday with two local cellists. Saturday night sees emptyset’s first Bristol show in many years – they memorably played the first festival in 2014. That should be super intense and they’re sharing the bill with Rian Treanor & Cara Tommie, FRANKIE & Kelman Duran and Ghost Dubs, all of who are making some of the most vital electronic music right now.

“Then, on Sunday, we have the premier of Bristol artist and composer Yas Clarke’s new ‘sequenced acapella’ piece The Palmhouse, which involves seven performers responding to an in-ear score.”

Liverpool-based quartet Ex-Easter Island Head is a treat that Todd is looking forward to: “ I saw them at Le Guess Who festival in Utrecht and found them mesmerising.  I had heard of them before but never seen them live. I really loved it and they are closing the festival – a great way to end the weekend.”

Other festival highlights include transformative audio-visual performances from Mark Knoop and the collaboration of Saint Abdullah with DJ Ian MacDonnell and artist Rebecca Salvadori, both at the Arnolfini. There’s the subtle deployment of harmonics and resonance from cellist Lucy Railton at St George’s Hall and the aforementioned Breton piper Erwan Keravec’s sonic architecture at The Cube. As with previous BNMF programmes it promises to be a mind (and ear) stretching experience to refresh your aural tastebuds.

Bristol New Music is at various venues across Bristol from Wed 22 – Sun 26. See the website for details.