Berlin-based Australian Sam Dunscombe is a performer-composer who explores the multi-dimensional perception of time using clarinet, synthesizers, computers and microphones as tools and by means of free improvisation, field recording and electro-acoustic music.

Dunscombe’s first major solo release, ‘Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco’, appeared recently on Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle-label. The two pieces on this album came about due to a chance encounter at a specific geographic location: Dunscombe explored the Mojave desert in California together with a friend and made the unlikely discovery of a jumble of ¼”-tape that was tangled around a cactus. The digitalised version of this tape, edited and manipulated in various ways, together with Dunscombe’s own transcription and performance of some of the material on Hammond organ, forms one of the main ingredients of 1 side of the album. The other is a field-recording from the area outside the ghost town of Ludlow, where the tape was found. Sam has a Doctor of Musical Arts from UC San Diego, with a dissertation on the clarinet works of the French-Romanian composer Horațiu Rădulescu.

 

John Also Bennett is an American composer, flautist and synthesist from Brooklyn, New York, who currently bases himself in Brussels. His music can best be described as avant-garde, atmospheric or minimalistic. His solo-debut album ‘Erg Herbe’ was released in 2019, on Shelter Press and under the name JAB. On it he made use of flutes, microtonal synthesis and field-recordings. Aside from composing and performing solo under his own name, he is also a member of the trio Forma and the duo Zeebat. He has worked with the likes of Jon Gibson, Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison, American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), Theatre Of Voices, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Peter Burr and Zin Taylor.

In the AB Salon, John will present 2 works: ‘Semper Dolens’ by Mary Jane Leach, a solo for flute and tape, and a new piece he is currently working on and in which he makes use of minimal lap steel guitar, field recordings and electronica.