St. John Sessions w/ Marginal Consort

St John Sessions proudly present an incredible group of artists that have been on our list of dream shows since we started in 2013 and the start of a series of events produced and curated by Thirty Three Thirty Three in celebration of Japanese composers across London. Known as Japan:London. Starting May 27th 2016.

Marginal Consort is a Japanese avant-garde improvisational collective made of sound and visual artists, who were all students of Takehisa Kosugi at the radical Bigaku school of aesthetics in Tokyo in the 70s. The group is a reformation of the East Bionic Symphonia, a large improvisation ensemble in the spirit of his Kosugi’s Group Ongaku and Taj Mahal Travellers projects, who released an incredible self-titled long-form drone record in the early 80s.

Marginal Consort is formed around musicians Kazuo Imai, (a student of Japanese free jazz lynchpin Masayuki Takayanagi and also member of both Taj Mahal Travellers and Takayanagi’s New Direction Unit), Tomonao Koshikawa, Kei Shii, and sound-artist Masami Tada (also in group GAP).

Renowned for doing only one concert annually, witnessing this collective is a rare delight. In 2013 the recording of a performance of theirs from Glasgow on 7 February 2008 caught the ears of PAN founder Bill Kouligas, which lead to the release of a very limited live record and a performance with South London Gallery organised in collaboration with Cafe Oto and Bill Kouligas.