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© Andy Newcombe

  KONK PACK

 Tim Hodgkinson • lap steel guitar, electronics, clarinet
Roger Turner • drumset & percussion
Thomas Lehn • analogue synthesizer

KONK PACK brings together three major figures in contemporary music. For about a quarter of century this group has amazed audiences at festivals and concerts all over the world with the sheer energy of its rapid-fire interplay, earning numerous critical accolades.

Since 1997, Konk Pack have toured regularly throughout Europe, completed four major tours of the US, and have been described by The Wire magazine's Lee Henderson as "one of the most exciting improv groups in the world." The group have released five compact discs, and performed at major music festivals from Vancouver to Belgrade. The musics they've made individually are reason enough to take note of this trio, but the music they make together leaves audiences amazed and inspired.



Budapest December 1997 @ Szünetjel Festival

CD RELEASES

Big Deep  [GROB.102] - Dec. 1999 - info
Warp Out  [GROB.323] - Oct. 2001 - info
off leash  [GROB.654] - Oct. 2004,- info
the black hills  [GROB.962] - Dec. 2010 - info
Doing The Splash  [kdr003] - Nov. 2013 - info

 discogs

cover artwork by Roger Turner

KONK PACK TOURS

1998: Italy
1999: Belgium, The Netherlands
2000: UK, Germany, Canada, France
2001: UK, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, USA, Austria, Netherlands, Czech Republic
2002: UK, Germany, Austria
2003: UK, Italy, Canada, France
2004: UK, France, Germany, Austria
2005 & 2006 : UK
2008: 10 Years Anniversary Tour: Netherland, Germany Italy
2009: Sweden, Germany
2010: France, USA
2011: France
2012: Scotland & England
2013: USA
2014: France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy
2015: France
2018: Canada, USA
 2022: Norway (supported by Goethe-Institut Norwegen), Austria
 upcoming: February 2023, Europe

FESTIVAL APPEARANCES

Victoriaville, FIMAV 2000
Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy/F, Musique Action 2000
Mhere/F, Fruits de Mhere 2000
Wels/A, Music Unlimited 2000
Bourges/F, Synthese Festival 2001
Nickelsdorf/A, Konfrontationen 2001
Prague, Alternativa Festival 2001
Bratislava/SK, NEXT Festival 2001
Utrecht/Rotterdam, Rumor Festival 2001
Belgrade, ring ring festival 2002
Mulhouse, Jazz a Mulhouse 2002
Mhere/F, Fruits de Mhere 2003
Vancouver, Dangerous Currents Festival 2003
Nottingham, Now 2006
Barcelona, LEM 2006
Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy/F, Musique Action 2007
Frankfurt, ROT Festival 2009
Caen/F, Interstice Festival 2010
Le Havre/F, piednu Festival 2010
Lille, Muzzix 2011
Dachau/D, Jazzherbst 2011
Tours/F, Total Meeting 2011
St. Etienne/FR, Musiques Innovatrices 2014
Paris/F, CRAK Festival 2014
Le Havre/F, piednu Festival 2015
Bologna, Angelica 2016
Oslo, Blow Out 2016
Brighton/UK, Fort Process Festival 2016
Festival Le Bruit de la Musique/FR, 2017
Guelph Jazz Festival, 2018

AUDIO/VIDEO

video

KONK PACK live at Area Sismica
Forli, Italy on Sun. November 16, 2014


audio

excerpts of:
KONK PACK – the black hills (CD)
1. The Welcome
3. The Grave
4. The Breakfast
5. Roof Party
6. The Trees
7. Gin Run

excerpt of:
KONK PACK – off leash (CD)
1. off leash

[all audio titles]


© Claudia Schmacke

PRESS REVIEWS


"Heading towards their 15th anniversary in 2012, the German-British trio Konk Pack continues to be the gold standard against which any band of electro-acoustic improvisers must be measured."
Ken Waxman | Jazzword | Toronto | 2010


"I've caught Konk Pack live a half dozen times through the years and have been knocked out on each & every occasion. What makes this trio special is that their music is so focused and intense, that you often feel exhilarated by listening. You can't do anything else or have any distractions while listening since you will be swept away."
Bruce Gallanter | Onsen | August 2010



"Konk Pack boasts a line-up that springs from diverse quarters, combining to make a gloriously intuitive barrage of sounds, both soft and savage. They've been together for 13 years, facilitating empathy without banishing unpredictability. To witness both of these gigs was to marvel at a band revealing completely different aspects of their ongoing vocabulary."
Martin Longley | All About Jazz | April 2010


"The free improvisation of the trio Konk Pack is like a blast of science — a kind of controlled chaos in the hands of experts. Being musically proficient is not enough for Konk Pack; the players feed off the collective energy and have an uncanny ability to collectively shape their abstract constructions with a keen understanding of the power of varied dynamics."
Ernie Paik | The Pulse | Chattanooga | April 2010


"I can't think of an improvising group more explosive than this European trio - percussionist Roger Turner, guitarist Tim Hodgkinson, and synth maestro Thomas Lehn bite down hard on whatever they play, confronting even delicate passages with taut intensity. …I've seen so much free improv that some of it feels as predictable as 'Chopsticks', but these guys keep me pinned to the wall, happily anticipating the next shock."
Peter Margasak | Chicago Reader | October 18th, 2007

"Grob label artists Konk Pack are utterly awesome. Featuring Thomas Lehn on the craziest old EMS synthi A, Tim Hodgkinson on flat guitar and Roger Turner on percussion, the show is awkwardly brilliant and defiant. With startling combinations of punkish nuisance, ingenious change-ups, and rolling, stumbling, tripping and flipping sound inventions, Konk Pack are one of the most exciting Improv groups in the world."
Lee Henderson reviewing Vancouver Electric City in The Wire, Dec 2003
 

"Heralded by a release on the Grob label - Big Deep, recorded in Rome, Tilburg and Brussels - Konk Pack's appearance at a central London venue attracted a sell-out crowd. The accelerated,interactive electronica of Roger Turner (percussion), Tim Hodgkinson (deconstructed tabletop guitar) and Thomas Lehn (analogue synth) arises from a scintillating heap of sonic detritus the way an artificial intelligence manifests itself in a Manga movie: a writhing mass of automobiles, arcade consoles, street furniture and mobile phones. Hodgkinson attacks his amplified strings with plectrum and bow, his specs glinting as he waits for the right awkward moment to kloodge a sonic shard on the side of one of Turner's amazingly vocalised motifs (at times you swear you hear collaborator Phil Minton's mucal snorts). Lehn restricts his pianism on analogue synth to pinched blurts, but still manages to resemble a switched-on Liszt. Although we itched to interrupt with applause, Konk Pack played an unbroken 45 minute set: fun debris, rollicking freakouts ... and one magical section of scrape and pling where the music seemed to play itself."
Ben Watson The Wire, April 2001



"Collectively improvised music comes in many forms, with as many degrees of success. Only some genuinely presses the envelope, pushing into a terrain where the unknown can happen and where even the best players encounter risk. On that transcendent scale, the trio Konk Pack - Tim Hodgkinson on table-top guitar and clarinet, Thomas Lehn on synthesizer, and the wondrous Roger Turner on percussion - fared best among the groups at this festival [Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville, May 2000], creating music in which a barrage of discreet particles bounced around, colliding in a universe in which chance and interactivity blurred into one another. Playing at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon in the festival's smallest venue, Konk Pack established a benchmark by which other improvisers' performances would inevitably be judged."
Bill Smith, Coda Magazine, June 2000


"As for pure total improvisation, the verdict on german-english trio Konk Pack was unanimous. Even listeners unreceptive to improvised noise (bending frequencies and sound-textures via an analog synth, manipulation of a guitar on a table, free percussion, etc) were won over by these subtle sonorities superbly segued, magnificent interplay."
Alain Brunet, La Presse, Montreal, 23 May 2000
 
 

BIOGRAPHIES

Tim Hodgkinson | Roger Turner | Thomas Lehn



© Sergei Kolosov

^  Tim Hodgkinson

Increasingly lauded as a contemporary composer, with works featured at international contemporary music festivals, and a set of pieces for ensemble out on the Mode label, Hodgkinson has also a powerful commitment to intense and highly energised performance practice. In over thirty years' work he has placed himself in a series of definitive projects, whether as cofounder of the seminal Henry Cow group, as saxophonist with influential avant metal band God, or as bass clarinet soloist in the spectral compositions of Iancu Dumitrescu. His lap steel guitar playing remains completely uncategorisable bringing subdued and not so subdued echoes of rock musics and other ethnicities.

www.timhodgkinson.co.uk
timhodgkinson.bandcamp.com


© Sergei Kolosov

 ^  Roger Turner

Over decades Roger Turner has brought the renowned volcanic power and finely honed precision of his drum work to ensembles that have often forged real connections with musicians both sides of the Atlantic. In addition he has worked extensively in the microscopic laboratory of the acoustic duo situation where he acquired a highly developed sense of detail and of dynamic control. One of that select group of world-class players who have collectively redefined the language of contemporary percussion. In Turner's hands minute inflections of tension can shape the group's musical direction and galvanise a new level of audience experience.

www.turners-site.com


© skanu mesz

^  Thomas Lehn

Schooled both as a concert pianist performing contemporary repertoire and as a recording technician, Thomas Lehn deploys a huge musicality through his unique chosen outlet the analogue synthesiser. This instrument allows him extremely close and immediate contact with all aspects of sound modification - a vast gamut of living electronic sound produced with unmatched speed and fluency. Thomas Lehn simply represents a coming-of-age of electronic sound production in the domain of concert performance that sets a standard for the entire medium. He is therefore unsurprisingly an essential member of many of the most active and significant projects in this highly international and dynamic scene.

www.thomaslehn.com


© Laurent Orseau

DOWNLOADS

Konk Pack Info (pdf)
Tech Rider (pdf)
 Press Photos
 Posters