....to the homepage of Alex Bonney, London based trumpeter, producer and composer

I run a blog type site called earconnector with lots of interesting recordings available to stream for free here

Please download my quartet album for free here

News

July 20th 2010

I'm playing a duo set tomorrow (Wednesday 21st July) with amazing drummer Javier Carmona the Vortex supporting Dave Morecroft / Leafcutter John / Gina Southgate. Would be great to see you!

Thanks to Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Tony Kofi, Andy Chapman, Tom Cawley, all the amazing students at AYM (Aldeburgh Young Musicians) and to Serious for a seriously inspiring 5 day workshop residency! Nothing like some teaching to make me want to go back to the 'shed

June 2 2010

Some nice gigs on the horizon:

24th June: Dylan Bates' Waiting on Dwarfs at the Vortex

26th June: Nostalgia 77 in Greece

July 6th: Bonney/Hanslip/Brice/Sanders @ The Oxford/Kentish Town

19th April

Leverton Fox tour supporting Humcrush was a great experience. Hopefully a new Fox record to come out of it, watch this space!

9th March  2010

Knuckle Biter duo gig at the Vortex on Monday March 22nd and Friday March 26th in Edinburgh 

The Ayler set at the Loop Festival was great fun, I'm going to release a recording of it, watch this space!

Very excited about FORTHCOMING LEVERTON FOX AND HUMCRUSH TOUR :

MONDAY 12/04/10 - EDINBURGH - VOODOO ROOMS
TUESDAY 13/04/10 - TBA
WEDNESDAY 14/04/10 - BIRMINGHAM - HARE & HOUNDS
THURSDAY 15/04/10 - BRISTOL - ARNOLFINI
FRIDAY 16/04/10 - LONDON - THE VORTEX
SATURDAY 17/04/10 - TBA
HUMCRUSH
Humcrush is a collaborative project featuring percussionist Thomas Strønen and keyboard player Ståle Storløkken, both stalwarts of the legendary Norwegian label Rune Grammofon, and perhaps best known for their work with Food and Supersilent respectively. The duo's live performances consist of a thorough, phrenetic deconstruction of free jazz, improv, and electronica idioms, executed with mesmerising precision and inventiveness. Superstructures are turned inside out as they are fed through the seemingly telepathic interplay of rhythms and tones. There appears to be a vast vocabulary at their disposal: at times the effect is glacial, austere and hypnotic, like a rawer Pansonic; elsewhere the sheer percussive maelstrom rivals the nervous complexity of Autechre, or the rhythmic density of Don Caballero. These disparate touchstones are united through an erudite approach which belies an in-depth knowledge of contemporary live improvisation, and seeks to drag it forcibly into the future. The sheer creative force which drives the constant progression and mutation of Humcrush's music demands to be experienced first-hand.

LEVERTON FOX
Leverton Fox's  music is by turns meditative, abrasive and enigmatic. Plaintive melodies and subtle timbres are buried beneath layers of chugging electronics and skittering percussion, emerging occasionally like buds forcing through tarmac. The music exudes a tension between pastoral and urban; acoustic and electronic, which is a source of endless sonic invention and variety. Alex Bonney (electronics, trumpet) also plays in Plummer’s World Sanguine Report, and leads a quartet exploring the music of Albert Ayler. Tim Giles (drums)’s other projects include the 'BBC innovation award'-winning Fraud, Golden Age of Steam, and Koby Israelite (signed to Tzadik). Both are members of the London-based Loop Collective. Sam Britton (electronics), of electronic duo Icarus, has recently joined Leverton Fox, having previously released music on Output Recordings, Temporary Residence, Domino and The Leaf Label. His input has been evident in recent live shows, with a dense floor of bass and abrasive clouds of fragmented sound lending a new intensity and richness to the overall texture. The groups debut recording 'Country Dances' on label Gravid Hands has met with considerable critical acclaim (Wire Magazine/Plan B/Subba-Culture/Jazzwise).
 

15 Feb 2010

I playing a tribute to Albert Ayler set at the Vortex this Wednesday 17th  as part of the Loop Collective festival- can't wait!

22 Jan 2010

Just been recording a new album with my quartet. More details to follow in a few weeks.....

 I've been contributing to a new Loop Collective blog which should become pretty happening this year. Lots of info about the forthingcoming Loop Festival there.

On Jan 23rd Leverton Fox play Cafe Oto with some great other bands

December 09

Wow, last month was amazing. The duo gig at the Strasbourg Jazz D'Or Festival was great fun. What an amazing place Strasbourg is too, I hope to return soon. Touring with Andrew Plummer's World Sanguine Report around the UK has been fantastic, still one more gig to go in Bristol on the 17th December. Also I was very privileged to produce a recording session with Hans Koller's ensemble with very special guest Bill Frisell . What an hip record it will be when it's finished!

Bring on 2010 - lots of nice gigs and projects shaping up, especially with Leverton Fox .

November 09

Off to Strasbourg Jazz festival for gig with Dave Kane on the 11th - can't wait!

Knuckle Biter on Earconnector

Looking forward to World Sanguine Report at the Purcell room on the 14th. Buy your ticket here!

Just done a gig with Mark hanslip, Ollie Brice and Mark Sanders at The Oxford, Kentish Town- great fun, new band, rock!

Also just done my first gig with Somedectet at the Vortex :

Nick Malcolm, Alex Bonney, Gail Brand, Ntshuks Bonga, Mark Hanslip, Alex Ward, Shabaka Hutchings, Alison Blunt,
Hannah Marshall, Alexander Hawkins, Olie Brice, Dominic Lash and Javier Carmona.

It worked great, everyone listens hard in that band.

October 09

New Mini Loop records release 'Tweleve tales from Abbey Road'. Check it out/buy here

I've put up some mp3s of a recording I did for Resonance FM, 104.4 FM on Saturday 3rd October, playing  duo with masterful American drummer Jeff Williams. We played some Ornette/Ayler tunes and something of mine. Check it out here

I've been enjoying some duo recording with saxophonist Christophe de Bezenac, which promises to become an album sometime in the not too distant future.

Looking forward to playing at the Belfast festival with Steve Davis' Toy Army on the 28th October.

August 09

I have enjoyed very much a series of gigs with Nostalgia 77 in Dijon, Viennes, Paris and recently Standon Calling festival. More to come in Nantes and Brighton at the end of the month. In Standon Calling, we played before the amazing Sun Ra Arkestra, check out some photos I took of them (and some other random festival goers dressed as spacemen and klangers) here

June 09

Just returned from an excellent entire week in the studio up in Huddersfield with P.A Tremblay (bass, electronics), Dave Smith (drums) and Robin Fincker (sax, clarinet). Album (possibly plural) to follow....

More nice reviews for Leverton Fox's debut record including this:

Plan B
 
'...full of the edgy joy of discovery.'
 
Despite its folksy title, there is little that's rustic about London jazz/electronics trio Leverton Fox's debut album - but there is much that's organic, if we take organic to mean the dances of cells meeting and dividing or the rhythms of fractal fern growth. Alex Bonney, Tim Giles and Matt Groom use live percussion and brass alongside processed field recordings and pure electronics to create tense, exploratory pieces that recall both early Radiophonics Workshop experiments and, particularly on 'Spume', the meld of acoustic and electronic sound that shapes Herbie Hancock's Sextant. The album's first half is scuttling and gently abrasive, each player poised to contribute clicks, scrapes, brief drones and a grab-bag of modulated electronic sounds used to similar effect by Supersilent. Comparisons to the Norwegian improvising group make more sense as the longer, gentler but noise-inflected 'N4 Comedown' surges into a complex, infectious rhythm. Like them, Leverton Fox stake out the relationship between more idiomatic improvised music, noise and electronica, but do so using a deeply enjoyable vocabulary that, despite the impressive pedigrees of all members, seems at all times full of the edgy joy of discovery.
Plan B - May 2009 - Frances Morgan

May 09

Youtube Video of Dave Kane and I at a recent gig - thanks Cormac!

April 09

Interview with Dave Kane on Jazzwise magazine website. Read here

Also in Jazzwise this month a review of my duo CD woth Dave Kane (available to buy to your right)

After a cool release gig at Dalston's Cafe Oto, Leverton Fox's debut album is available to buy from our Myspace page

 'as if Autechre had formed a band' - Resonance FM

Feb 09

Some nice new photos from my last Vortex gig

Broadsheet reviews of duo with Dave Kane from Feb 09 Loop Collective festival at London's Vortex jazz club .

From the Telegraph:

'In all it was a feast of wonderful music-making. But if I had to fix on one band that captured the weekend’s spirit, it would be the duo of Alex Bonney and Dave Kane. Never did I think such fascinating complication and sly humour and sheer joie de vivre could be conjured from a double bass and a pocket trumpet.'

From the Financial Times:

'It took time to adjust to the next set’s spartan intimacy – bassist Dave Kane’s improv duet with trumpeter Alex Bonney. Each piece was strong in mood, sustained by muffled pluckings, quietly ferocious two-handed assaults and elegiac bowing, with trumpeter Bonney a spiky toned and empathetic partner. '

Full reviews here and here

From Jazzwise magazine:

Continuing in a more off kilter but no less impressive way were bassist Dave Kane and trumpeter Alex Bonney in a charming duet. Mixing energetic free improv with quirky melodies and lopsided rhythms Kane and Bonney’s interaction was mesmerizing, packed full of innate hunour and off hand virtuosity their dialogue was a joy to behold.

Full review here

Duo recording with Dave Kane (bass) was released on Mini Loop records as part of Loop Collective fantastic festival at London's Vortex jazz club on Friday February 13th 2009. You can buy from the paypal button on the top right (no paypal account needed)

Happening first gig with "Knuckle Biter": Alex Bonney (trumpet, electronics) Steve Davis (drums) and Simon Jermyn (bass, electronics) at Belfast's Black Box on March 29th 2009. I look forward to more and an album soon.

December 15th's World Sanguine Report gig at the Vortex London was great. Looking forward to happening WSR 2009!

photo by Russ Escrit