“The animating spirit is Poppy’s protean musical imagination, as light as wings beating one moment, thunderous and dark the next. … It’s not just an archive [but] otherwise unreleased works caught in live performance and gently transformed in the editing suite into the components of four well-shaped albums. … Poppy’s music is like Madagascar — you discover species there you don’t find anywhere else.” — Brian Morton, Wire magazine, on ARK HIVE OF A LIVE “Whatever the details, whatever the situation he finds himself in at any given moment, whatever his temporary function, whatever company he finds himself in, whether he is on his own or with others, commissioned, contracted and sponsored or left to his own devices, the music is as elusive and compelling as ever, expressing a mysterious state of being rather than merely a form, creating space and time for both performer and listener. Some of his pieces are intensely exciting and uplifting and cheerful, a melancholy razzle-dazzle; some are very austere and serious and sober, a freaky, bittersweet unease. Exactly as they were, exactly as they will be, the same, but different, taking advantage of the ambiguity in the world.” — Paul Morley, from the introduction to Ark Hive of A LiveArk Hive of A Live is a set of recordings by Andrew Poppy, along with a 128 page PDF, including writing by Andrew Poppy, an introduction by Paul Morley, other writing by Leah Kardos, Nik Bärtsch and Rose English and archival photographs. Andrew Poppy developed Ark Hive of A Live as a place for unreleased music from the 80s 90s 00s and 10s. ‘Live’ in the title indicates these works originated in public performance as opposed to the recording studio — however, these live recordings have been processed, and while they remember their original acoustic vibration are now transformed, transplanted and almost the same. Ark Hive of A Live isn’t a box set ‘best of’ or mini series. Each disc has been ordered to play like an album, with an indelible ‘suite-like’ order, even if many of the pieces were written at different times and with different production details. Volumes 1 to 4 are focused respectively on: the orchestra with a soloist; a collection of vocal pieces, for ensemble or orchestra; music written for independent ensembles; and the contrast between acoustic music and music which creatively exploits electrical and electronic technology. The Ark Hive is an ironic meditation on the archive. It brings together element of biography and materials from a lifetime of creative endeavour in sonic, language and visual forms. Tracks, writings, performance photographs and scores: 1+1+1+1 = Ark Hive. The project holds it all together with some irony, because it is aware of the absurdity of the enterprise but plows ahead relentlessly anyway --- Performers include: 
Andrew Poppy, Sustaining Ensemble, Noszferatu, Crash Ensemble, CoMA Ensemble, Roger Heaton Group, John Harle, Simon Haram, Darragh Morgan, Tania Chen, Kädy Plaas, Margaret Cameron, Ashley Slater, Peter Sidholm, BBC Concert Orchestra, ROH Garden Venture Ensemble, Estonian Male Choir, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The live recordings in Ark Hive of A Live are connected with various images and writings collected in the PDF, which contains the following:— An introduction by Paul Morley, who helped release Andrew’s first albums on ZTT Records in the 1980s.— Invited writing by Leah Kardos, Nik Bärtsch and Rose English, responding to different aspects of the Ark Hive collection.— Writing by Andrew: introducing and reflecting on the Ark Hive project; overviews of each of the four volumes of music; writing on each composition, including programme notes, lyrics, poems, prose poems, librettos, performing instructions; and thoughts on his life and work as a composer, performer and creative artist.— The Image Ark: 38 photographic images, with complementary text by Andrew and credits/captions.— Discography Backwards: writing by Andrew, reflecting on each of his album releases.— Discography Forwards: summarising compositions and musician credits. --- “Freely drawing from the sounds of contemporary classical, experimental, jazz and pop music, and moving confidently between forms and formats, from concert music to pop records, operas and oratorios, dance and film soundtracks, Andrew Poppy’s diverse oeuvre resists easy categorisation … An elegantly generous (or stubborn), genre-indifferent (or should that be style-inclusive?) approach that flies in the face of putrefying compositional tradition, and any rules or anxieties over low vs highbrow, tonal vs textural, serious vs popular, acoustic vs electroacoustic; artfully dodging conspicuous intellectualism and side-stepping the class-political airs of contemporary classicism. Poppy’s denial of boundaries not only frees his music to be what it wants to be, it gives his music freedom to explore the uncanny territories and tensions that live in the in-between. Replacing polarities with multiplicities.” — Leah Kardos, from the Ark Hive of A Live book --- Music by Andrew PoppyWriting by Andrew Poppy, Paul Morley, Leah Kardos, Nik Bärtsch and Rose EnglishMastered by Stephan MathieuDesign by David Caines

“This is a most ambitious effort, two ensembles playing simultaneously on either side of the Atlantic ocean, connected through the internet and improvising through the airwaves … the sound and flow is seamless … Most impressive on all fronts.” — Downtown Music Gallery, NYCEvan Parker and Matthew Wright’s Trance Map project has included improvised live events across Europe and the US, involving other invited guest performers, with various Trance Map+ recordings released on psi, Intakt and FMR Records. Since 2020, Trance Map+ have undertaken ambitious streamed and networked performances, connecting with musicians around the world from The Hot Tin venue in Faversham, Kent, UK. In 2022, this resulted in Transatlantic Trance Map, a simultaneous performance between seven musicians in Kent and six musicians in Roulette, New York City, which is profiled on this album release. Transatlantic Trance Map helps to mark Evan Parker’s 80th birthday in 2024. It is the second Evan Parker release on False Walls, following THEN THROUGH NOW by Evan and Henry Dagg (2022). In November 2024, False Walls will also release THE HERACLITEAN TWO-STEP, etc., a 4 CD set of solo, improvised recordings by Evan Parker, along with a 128 page book, including writing by John Corbett, Richard Leigh and Stephen C. Middleton; an extended interview with Evan Parker by Martin Davidson; along with writing and visual artwork by Evan Parker. --- THE HOT TINFaversham, UK, 8pm GMT:Evan Parker: soprano saxophone
Matthew Wright: turntable, live sampling and processing
Peter Evans: trumpet, piccolo trumpetRobert Jarvis: trombone
Hannah Marshall: celloPat Thomas: live electronicsAlex Ward: clarinet ROULETTEBrooklyn, USA, 3pm EST:Sylvie Courvoisier: piano, keyboardMat Maneri: violaIkue Mori: laptop live electronicsSam Pluta: laptop live electronicsNed Rothenberg: clarinet, bass clarinet, shakuhachiCraig Taborn: piano, keyboard, live electronics

TRIM is an improvising quartet brought together by Dominic Lash (guitar) with Phil Durrant (modular synth), Steve Noble (percussion) and Rachel Musson (saxophones). After Musson was unable to make this show, Colin Webster was recruited on saxophone duties, resulting in two absolutely barnstorming sets under the freshly coined banner of TROM. You know how it is. Times are hard, things get stressful. Sometimes you’ve just got to blow off steam by blasting the doors off an unassuming Hackney music venue and sending the audience barreling down the street. Such was the case at OTO on 5th April this year, when Lash, Durrant, Noble and Webster summoned up the kind of utterly cathartic sonic scree that made a wonderful irrelevance of this having been their first ever performance as a quartet. Make no mistake, this is no one-note performance - the group cover a hugely varied amount of terrain over the two sets' combined near-80 minute run-time - but the sheer sense of exuberance on display here is hard to ignore. A rapidly rotating interplay sees all four musicians trading shapes that mutate and evolve with an almost breathless momentum. There's an exhilarating sense of new forms being created in realtime, forms that seem to blur and shift depending on your vantage point. Whatever angle you come at it, however, this one doesn't let up for a second. On this basis we look forward to welcoming back both TRIM and TROM here, with hopes for TRAM, TREM and TRUM too at some point in the future. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

Wonderfully visceral, deeply trippy set from Berlin-based polymath, Eleni Poulou, recorded at OTO as part of a bill with longtime friend Dave Huismans and Scottish artist, Fergus Jones in May 2026. Sometimes live performance can bring a new meaning to the present, sometimes it can elevate that present to a whole new level. And sometimes, perhaps more rarely, a performance can bring you through into a new reality entirely. Such is the case here. "It will be" proclaims Poulou at the start of this 37-minute long set, and straight away we're slipping through the cracks to some other place.. Tape loops warble and a ravelling tangle of synth notes growl and thrum, whilst in the background some seemingly mechanical apparatus ticks and flickers to an unknown purpose. Through the murk and hiss, Poulou's voice exhorts the audience as if with some vital knowledge to share, yet the meanings seem warped and distorted in the telling, with fragmented phrases repeating and circling back on themselves. There's a clear sense of urgency, an almost subconscious understanding that something profound is being shared, but the logic is that of a dream. Whatever the parameters of this dreamscape - and it is a dream that Poulou always deftly manages to keep tethered both to the room and the audience within - it's clear that the rules of this reality are subtly askew. The effect is deeply hypnotic and strangely transcendent. To get the most from a dream we must meet it on its own terms, surrendering ourselves to what it has to offer. It is no easy task, yet if we can do this the hidden messages contained within can seem not only revelatory but inevitable. It can be. It shall be. It will be. -- Thanks from Eleni to Dave Huismans, Fergus Jones and Felt Records for the invite, plus Tara Clerkin, Beth Arzy, Egidija Circaite, Mo, Thea, Dave and Oli. -- Recorded by Kevin ShoemakerMixed and masterd by Oli BarrettCover photo by Eleni Poulou

Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Billy Steiger on Saturday 18th November, 2023. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielesi. Artwork by Norman Wilcox-Geissen. Layout by Maja Larrson.First meeting of two incredible talents - Tyshawn Sorey on drums and Pat Thomas on piano. Recorded live back in 2023, we’ve sat on this for an inexcusably long time, and yet the music is as just fresh and explosive as we remember it in the room. Just a few hours prior to the duo, Tyshawn Sorey had given a deeply meditative solo piano performance in total darkness, windows boarded up and the piano in the centre of the room, Sorey directly facing the audience as he played for almost two hours. A reflective mood set into the room, and the prospect of him being replaced on the keyboard felt a bit off. “When I’d heard he was doing a solo piano set first I thought, well, that’s it,” laughs Pat Thomas. “I’m really going to have to play”. It doesn’t take long for the intensity to rise. A run of the right hand on the keys gives a warning, like the first few drops of rain before a thunderstorm. As Thomas’ left hand joins to plumb the bass notes, Sorey calls his metallics into play, whipping up the air around them before the humidity in the room breaks and the duo drop into momentary silence. Thomas reaches into the body of the piano - sounding some of the familiar language of Elephant Clock of Al Jazari before dropping some of those immense key clusters we’ve grown to know so well through his work in [Ahmed] and stacking them up into dense, rotating rhythms. Sorey mixes light brush work with aeolian tones, at some points striking just the air to meet Thomas’ palm muted rhythms. Midway through the set the two players are joined in percussive pursuits, Thomas’ string slides totally enmeshed with Sorey’s clinical snare work. When Thomas lifts off into more celestial territory as the set builds, Sorey marshals his shuddering field drum towards one extraordinarily clean clasp of the hi-hat - a sort of musical gasp which the crowd can’t help responding to. The pair are wildly dynamic, beautifully precise and in possession of innumerable talents. As Sorey’s mallet rush crescendos and fades, Thomas adds two single bass notes, as if to wryly say, ‘Ta-da!” You have to laugh - it’s ridiculously good stuff from two of the best at the peak of their powers.

Tracklisting: 1. Variation 1 - 4:162. Variation 2 - 4:553. Variation 3 - 7:334. Variation 4 - 8:055. Variation 5 - 5:036. Variation 6 - 1:277. Variation 7 - 6:128. Variation 8 - 4:549. Variation 9 - 5:4710. Variation 10 - 1:56Working both inside and outside the instrument's body, Pat Thomas presents a compelling vision of what the piano can do in the 21st century. At times playing with recognisable musical material and at others going deep into sonic abstraction, Pat's playing encompasses massive extremes: solidity and flow; seriousness and laughter; uproar and imperturbability. A major solo statement, Al-Khwarizmi Variations traverses the history and the physicality of the piano. Pat rules. "Thomas runs the gamut of techniques, splashing clusters, weaving contrapuntal lines and building elaborate structures from the inside out. Despite their variety, they share a fundamental quality – they truly sound like spur of the moment creations, not the final draft of ideas mulled over for weeks, if not months on end. Their impact is enhanced by one of the more effectively engineered piano sounds in recent memory, one that puts the piano right in your lap. The value of this is felt immediately, as the first variation is brimming with above-the-staves clusters that are wincingly bright. Conversely, Thomas creates china-rattling thunder when he plunges into the bass register." - Bill Shoemaker, Point of Departure  ---  Pat Thomas/ piano --- Recorded and mixed by Rick Campion at City University Music Studios on 19 June 2011. Mastered by Rupert Clervaux at Gray's Inn Road. Artwork from a 15th century Mamluk tile, adapted for print by Paul Abbott. With thanks to Trevor Brent  ---