HESSION, WILKINSON, FELL – The Horrors Of Darmstadt (1994)

Label: Shock – SX025 CD
Format: CD, Album; Country: UK - Released: 1994
Style: Free Jazz, free improvisation
Recordings were from a live show at The Termite Club, Leeds 7th June 1993.
Artwork By [Cover Art & Lettering] – Gina Southgate
Mastered By – Denis Blackham
Photography – Jo Fell
Recorded By – Alan Wilkinson, Ben Watson


Excerpts from reviews:

"Distinctive purveyors of improvised music. The power and passion of their playing called to mind the spirit of 60s US free jazz; their ferocious abstraction had much in common with European improvisers like Brötzmann/van Hove/Bennink and Schlippenbach/Parker/Lovens."
_ Chris Blackford, THE WIRE

Improv trio made their debut at the Termite Festival in 1989 and has now toured UK four times. Appeared at Sound Symposium Newfoundland (Canada) in 1994. Toured with Joe Morris in 1996. 'Revolution in sound…the music of the real underground'
_ Ben Watson

"Spontaneous music of a scorching and unrelenting intensity.....conversational music of the most intuitive eloquence.....unquenchable energy.....There probably isn't such a thing as state- of-the-art free music, but as a term of convenient endearment, it's close enough."
_ John Fordham THE GUARDIAN

A trio that has consistently garnered superlatives from critics. The Penguin Guide to Jazz - notoriously sparing with its maximum four stars ("outstanding, demanding a place in any comprehensive collection") - gave its four star accolade to no less than three albums by Hession/Wilkinson/Fell. Although only Fell ’ s bass is amplified, the trio is famously loud. "Raging, exploding tumultuous improvisation music by one of the greatest groups in the music today. It ’ s an almost unique experience at a time when acoustic free-jazz has dropped many of its confrontational aspects: these men revivify the intensities of Ayler, Brötzmann and others in the small but noble tradition of great noise." Penguin Guide to Jazz. "A trio with a growing notoriety for a furious brand of free jazz."
_ THE GUARDIAN

Alan Wilkinson (b. London 1954) first made his presence felt as part of the burgeoning Leeds music scene of the 80s, founding the Termite Club and forming long-standing liasons with Hession and Fell amongst others, while developing a highly personal, vocalized and energetic approach to the saxophone. Re-locating to London in 1990 he currently works in trios with John Edwards and Steve Noble, James Dunn and John Bisset, as well as collaborations with Chris Corsano, Spiritualized, NY duo Talibam! and Spanish group Laxula; he also and runs the flimflam improvisation club in London. Other collaborations have included Derek Bailey, Peter Brotzmann, Willi Kellers, Alex Maguire's Cat o'Nine Tails, Sunny Murray, Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo, Eddie Prevost, Stefan Jaworzyn, Steve Hubback and Spring Heel Jack. He has appeared at many national and international festivals and is featured on numerous recordings.

Simon H. Fell is a composer and double bassist active in free improvisation and contemporary jazz and chamber music. He has worked in small or medium groups with John Butcher, Peter Brötzmann, Lol Coxhill, Billy Jenkins, Joe Morris, Keith Tippett, John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Joey Baron, Elliott Sharp, Billy Bang, Christian Marclay and numerous others, and is a founder member of London Improvisers Orchestra . Other regular groupings include SFQ , IST , The ZFP Quartet and many more. He has presented compositions for improvisers at the LMC Festival, the Termite Festival, the Frakture Festival, Leo Records' Unsung Music Festival, Freedom of the City Festival and on many other occasions. His discography includes over 80 recordings. "A major contemporary musician" - The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD.

Paul Hession was born in Leeds in 1956. After early singing experience as a boy soprano in a church choir and experiments with the guitar, he took up drumming at the age of 15 and since then has played and broadcast in many European & Scandinavian countries as well as Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, USA & Canada. He has played with many of the major figures on the free music scene (for example; Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford, Lol Coxhill, Sunny Murray, Marshall Allen, Frode Gjerstad, Peter Kowald, Joe McPhee, Borah Bergman, Otomo Yoshihide as well as his old friends Alan Wilkinson, Simon Fell, Mick Beck & Hans- Peter Hiby). Collaborators from a different scene include Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher), Bill Orcutt (of Harry Pussy) and techno musician/dj Paul Woolford. He is known to relish the interaction of collective music-making, but also responds to the challenge of solo performance.



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