Charles Hayward x LCO

For this show he’s joined by the London Contemporary Orchestra for a new collaboration. Hayward live set is a heady mix of drums, voice and electronics. There is music of physicality and fire alarms; lyrical collage of slang, catchphrase and defiance; ;strong beats, stark textures, simple tunes and controlled chance. No two performances are the same, and yet everything is structured and geared towards electric song. As he says: ‘I’ve been making this music all my life. It keeps changing in front of my ears.’ Hayward played with early European improv group Mal Dean's Amazing Band and gigged and recorded with Phil Manzanera in Quiet Sun as well as a short stint with Gong. Since the late 1980s he has concentrated on solo projects and collaborations, including Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith), Albert Newton (with Pat Thomas and John Edwards) and About Group (with Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. The project This Is Not This Heat recently completed a three-year series of performances in UK, Europe, US and Japan. Throughout a nearly 50-year career Hayward has developed idiosyncratic attitudes and insights into a wide range of soundwork, spanning improvisation, song and sound as sound, using order and chaos as creative energies. He curates a six-monthly series of performances, workshops and installation called Music is Social Space for Albany Theatre.