“…Minimalism that isn’t afraid to break into a sweat and get its hands dirty…” Guardian ‘Contemporary Album of the Month’ ****
“…Inventive, compelling, surprising…’ MOJO
“Spectacular, really gorgeous…” Tom Ravenscroft & Deb Grant, BBC6 Music
“Watch out. It’s a good thing.” Gilles Peterson
Very honoured that the estimable Bex Burch will play live at Futtle as part of her UK tour.
This is her only Scottish date and promises to be absolutely delightful. An amazing way to spend a Monday evening. We can’t wait!
ABOUT BEX BURCH
UK-born, Berlin-based composer, percussionist, producer and instrument maker Bex Burch has employed percussion and handmade xylophones to carve out a unique sonic space for herself.
Her restless creativity and desire to embrace new musical challenges across a range of percussive instruments has seen her recorded music straddle the divergent worlds of minimalism, avant-garde, post-punk, and improvisation with equal success.
Burch has previously released as part of Boing! with Leafcutter John, and with the critically acclaimed Strut-released Flock with Londoners including Sarathy Korwar and The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue. She also runs the band and label Vula Viel and has collaborated with artists from Thomas Sekgura, Peter Zummo to Dame Evelyn Glennie. Bex describes her sound as “messy minimalism.” Her debut solo album, 'There is only love and fear' (named The Guardian's Contemporary Album of the Month) was released in October 2023 via Chicago avant-garde label International Anthem.
Although rooted in avant-garde improvisatory practices, Burch’s sensitivity for natural timbres gives the album a delicate and elegiac atmosphere. Over 12 dream-like instrumental incantations, There is only love and fear creates a fluid sonic whole, woven together by the physical and spiritual resonance of her hand-made xylophone, and the autobiographical sounds she recorded in her journeys between. It’s a quintessential development of Burch’s self-described “messy minimalist” approach, recalling the ingenuity of Moondog, the open improvisational atmospheres of Carlos Niño, the obtuse arrangements of early Sun Ra Arkestra, and the neorealist aural storytelling of contemporaries like Claire Rousay, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer. Unfolding in quiet reverence, Bex finds calm in introspection, speaking to the whole album’s enchanting, uncanny ability to thread its improvisations into the fabric of the surrounding environment. There is only love and fear is a dynamic, soft-spoken and subtly arresting masterpiece.