PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE #12: SIMON POPP W/ BEX BURCH & JJ WHITEFIELD

Percussive Maintenance is an initiative by drummer Simon Popp aimed at forming new ties through improvisation. At Import Export Munich, Simon invites fellow artists to engage in an open-format collaboration. For each evening, new formations are created, playing exclusively improvised music, making each concert a truly unique experience. For this special event, joining Simon Popp will be percussionist and instrument-maker Bex Burch (UK) and guitar player and musical explorer JJ Whitefield (GER).

Bex Burch

Whether combining the rhythmic timbres of wood, metal and audience claps or duetting with the atmospheric and elegiac echoed sounds of water dripping into a metal basin, Bex Burch is a composer, percussionist, producer and improviser who emphasises space, repetition and aspects of chaos. These themes characterise an ongoing approach she describes as “messy minimalism”. A restless, questing spirit has informed her career since, from the open-hearted collaborations of her musical releases to the creation of a new xylophone she handmade under Jamie Linwood’s mentorship, tuning its harmonics to maximise the resonances she wanted to hear. – Bex’s music continues to evolve. More is to come as Bex’s wide-eyed approach continues to break new musical ground.

JJ Whitefield

Having plied his trade around the world for more than three decades, German guitarist, bandleader and musical explorer JJ Whitefield has always instilled in his craft a natural aesthetic of authenticity, a key component which has seen him amass a sizeable and varied catalogue of material which has remained timeless where some of his contemporaries have faded away. An avid music lover, explorer and record collector extraordinaire, Whitefield’s music has effortlessly absorbed his expanding interests along the way, particularly drawing influence from Ethiopian Jazz and West African funk and highlife, as well as Kraut-rock and ambient via his Rodinia alter-ego. More recently, Whitefield has begun to venture into the astral planes of what’s now commonly referred to as ‘spiritual jazz’. Whitefield achieves that exceptionally rare feat of creating music that is not only worthy of sitting alongside that of his overarching influences, but will also stand up with it against the tests of time.

Simon Popp

Exploration and play are at the core of Simon Popp’s creative process. Classically trained in jazz drumming and polyrhythm, the Bavarian-born artist draws from a vast array of percussive instruments to build his expansive sound palette. Learning the drums and listening to a wide range of genres from a young age instilled in him a ravenous musical curiosity that resonates throughout his various projects. Popp’s debut album ‘Laya’, as well as his follow-ups ‘Devi’ and ‘Blizz’ make use of rhythms as storytelling mechanisms. Contrasting light and dark, organic and synthetic sounds, his compositions are filled with subtle complexities which demand close listening. The Line Of Best Fit have praised Popp’s work with “this is music you can get totally lost in, where the lines between organic and electric are blurred so as to be indistinguishable."

This project is funded by the City of Munich - Departement of Arts and Culture