The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

(AT, DK, GB, IT)

German premiere

Improvised music doesn’t get much more exciting and visceral than The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, a year-old international foursome whose music is packed with high-energy blowing, slathered with viscous textures and driven by shape-shifting beats. The group was organised by British turntablist Mariam Rezaei, who has emerged as one of the most original and creatively restless musicians in improvised music, blazing new pathways for the instrument. The ensemble features the remarkable Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen – who performs on the opening night with drummer Sun-Mi Hong –, the Italian trumpeter Gabriele Mitelli (Rob Mazurek’s partner in the trumpet duo Star Splitter) and the ubiquitous Austrian rhythm machine Lukas König (of Mopcut fame).
 
The hard-blowing frontline knows how to ease off the pedal, providing space for Rezaei to unleash slippery electronic textures, wildly manipulated samples of seemingly every sound in the universe and ear-bleeding noise, but rather than functioning like a slicing-dicing extrovert she serves numerous vital rolls: reinforcing or redirecting rhythmic episodes, acting like a bassist in how she delivers a structural framework, to say nothing of her freewheeling ability to paint in brushstrokes broad and fine with her sampled material.

Line-up

Mariam Rezaei – turntables
Mette Rasmussen – alto saxophone
Gabriele Mitelli – piccolo trumpet, electronics
Lukas König – drums, electronics

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23:30

Jam-Session

On all four days of the festival, the daily jam sessions at Quasimodo will revive an old Jazzfest Berlin tradition. Musicians from the festival programme will be invited to improvise together in entirely new constellations in a relaxed atmosphere until late at night.