Backstage at The Garage, London

Backstage at The Garage, London, 3rd November 2018, before Acid Mothers Temple gig.
This time I played with them in Brighton, London, Norwich, & Hastings.

Acid Mothers Temple Review

                    Nice review of Acid Mothers Temple in Brighton 2nd November 2018. 
Click on header for link.

Acid Mothers Temple

Happy to have spent a few days playing / hanging out with AMT last week.....gig at Cafe Oto on Monday 23rd July, recording session on Wednesday 25th, and Standon Calling Festival on Saturday 28th.

Leigh / Kawabata live review from "The Wire"

Geoff Leigh & Makoto Kawabata – Review from “The Wire” May 2018

Flautist/soprano saxophonist Geoff Leigh and guitarist Makoto Kawabata too have colourful backgrounds, and each of them has vast discographies behind them. Leigh has played with Henry Cow, Faust, and The Artaud Beats, while Kawabata is the founding member of Japanese psychedelic rockers Acid Mothers Temple. The first time that Leigh and Kawabata played together was in 2014 in Kyoto, Japan.

The recording of that performance was released by the Acid Mothers Temple label two years later as Spatial Roots : a performance that develops slowly, the players sounding uncertain of each other, with Kawabata's guitar often fading in the mix. Having worked together on several occasions since then, tonight's performance sees Leigh and Kawabata both confident and loud.

The players start without hesitation. Leigh samples his flute, processing the arabesque notes through a laptop. Kawabata mirrors Leigh's fluttering notes with nimble dashes across the fretboard his black headless guitar, approaching the instrument like a sculptor might approach clay.

An experienced sarangi player, Kawabata then draws his curved bow across the strings to produce textures that are malleable and forever shifting. He tells me later that the size and shape of the sarangi bow allows him to easily alternate the tension of the bow hairs, which makes for better control over the sound.

There is virtually no low end, but both players work hard to fill up empty spaces. Leigh's close miked flute puts an accent on each suck of air, giving the impression that a vacuum is forming inside the venue. Because his setup is coming through the PA, but Kawabata's guitar is not, an interesting spatialisation occurs. The flutes bounce around the venue in stereo, while Kawabata's controlled use of overdrive force the soundwaves into different corners of the room, meaning that the reflections from the guitar amp arrive with a slight delay into each ear.

In the second half of the performance Leigh and Kawabata move onto soprano saxophone and electronics respectively. Kawabata's pocket piano and effects chain bring additional nuance, while Leigh's looped microphone taps and mouth clicks impart a syncopated rhythm track.

The sound remains at a constant intensity throughout the concert. It would have been preferable to experience a greater dynamic shift between the two players – Leigh's singing bowls and cowbells can barely be heard – but being hit by a wall of sound can be just as satisfying.

Ilia Rogatchevski.

Concert was at Iklectik, London, UK, 2^nd March, 2018

Part Two -Interview on Radio Panik, Brussels

Part One - Interview on Radio Panik, Brussels

Ex-Wise Heads CD's / Downloads

Still quite a few cd's still available - everything downloadable

Lots more new material now available 

Click on header for link

Radar Favourites Digital Re-release

Recorded in 1974, released on Reel Recordings in 2010, now available as download only.

Includes two previously unreleased tracks.

Click on header for link.

Geoff Leigh & Yumi Hara - Upstream

Released 2009 on MoonJune Records, now available as cd or download.

Click header for link.

Geoff Leigh, Makoto Kawabata, & Aogu Tanimoto

 

  New CD / download release now available on Bandcamp. Live concert recording from Japan 2016. Click on header for direct link

Geoff Leigh & Makoto Kawabata : Villa K

New CD-R / Download release. Recorded live at 
Villa K, Den Haag, Netherlands, on June 28th 2017. 

Available from Bandcamp - click on header for link.

Geoff Leigh & Makoto Kawabata Europe 2018

Free download.... or send us some $$'s!  

https://geoffleigh.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-fire
 

We have confirmed dates now for March 2018 >>

2nd Baba Yaga's Hut @ Iklectik London UK

4th Extrapool Nijmegen NL

8th OCCII Amsterdam NL

9th DNR Film Festival Den Haag  NL

10th Les Ateliers Claus Brussels BE 
11th Paris or Rotterdam NL (TBC)

More dates to follow 

Our 1st CD : https://geoffleigh.bandcamp.com/album/spatial-roots 

Jump For Joy "Keeping Score"

2nd cd release "Keeping Score" from Jump For Joy - now available through Recommended Records. Here's what they have to say :

Limited Edition. Released by the band (Jean-Herve Peron, Zappi Diermaier, Geraldine Swayne [all from Faust], Geoff Leigh, Yumi Hara and Chris Cutler) – a good quality recording of a concert (edited) from the 2016 RIO Festival in Carmaux. Neither flesh nor fish nor good red herring, this is an occasionally fierce, occasionally dreamlike unfolding of doldrums, tides and maelstroms filling 42 shared minutes with events, music, noise – and things that just happen, sometimes all at once. So it’s not like a conventional concert, I’d say. At times it sounds like a band, and at times it doesn’t – but, I’d like to say, it’s 40 minutes spent in interesting company. The CD comes with the unique score (a new one is made for every concert immediately beforehand), which is made up of a sparse chain of words, drawings, indications and occasional pitches, sellotaped together to make an irregular map. You’ll see, if you buy it.