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| Torsten Müller | Alfred Harth |
Two German expatriates (Alfred Harth and Torsten Müller) living now in allies of America, adding to Grosse Abfahrt — a freely-improvising music continuum/community whose name means “great departure” — another departure of meaning. From out this departure of de-parts comes a salute to epic failure, a disaster in full-dress uniform, gold epaulets dangling off the corpse of Western culture. In solidarity the local American cultural-exile cohort of Grosse Abfahrt joins in:
Polly Moller – flute, bass flute
Kyle Bruckmann – oboe, English horn
Matt Ingalls – clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass garden hose, violin
Dana Jessen – bassoon
Tom Djll – trumpets, bandleader
John Shiurba – guitar
Gino Robair – electronics, percussion
Tim Perkis via the internet – electronics
Multi-instrumentalist (bass clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, and electronics), improviser, composer and visual artist Alfred Harth was born near Frankfurt in 1949. He first recorded at age twenty with the ensemble Just Music, with whom he recorded two LPs, one of which was issued on ECM.
Throughout the 1970s he worked with musicians like pianist Nicole Van Den Plas, drummer Sven-Ake Johansson, bassist Peter Kowald, trumpeter Michael Sell and others in West European free music. In the late ’70s, he became interested in punk music and in addition to a regularly-working duo with multi-instrumentalist Heiner Goebbels, he worked in punk / progrock / improvisation / modern composition combos like Cassiber and Gestalt et Jive.
Since moving to Seoul, South Korea in 2001, he has been involved with Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Orchestra and his own multi-media projects.
Torsten Müller (Born in Hamburg, Germany, 1957) is a free improvising bassist in Vancouver, Canada. He plays a 5-string double bass. He lived in Bremen and Hamburg from 1976 to 2001, where he started his musical career and worked as a radio host and producer at Radio Bremen, a public radio and television broadcaster.
He came into the free improvised music scene in the mid 70s, first playing with Free Music Communion (an ensemble with guitarist Herbert Janssen and pianist Udo Bergner) recording three LPs on their own Fremuco Records label. He was a member of the large improvising ensemble King Ubu Orchestra for 10 years.
He moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2001 where he has been performing at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and acts as co-curator of the annual Time Flies Improvised Music Festival. He plays in various ensembles, including Vancouver based drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff’s Bande X and his own ensemble, Hoxha, with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Dylan Van Der Schyff.