On December 1st, 2023, Christoph Gallio and my album Curses and Spirits was released by the Glaswegian label scatterArchive. This album was recorded on 21 September 2022 at Goldsmiths, University of London, mixed by Alex Ward in London and mastered by Michael Brändli at Hardstudios in Switzerland. scatterArchive is a digital platform for recordings of improvisation and experimental music.
This is an album of free improvisation and experimental compositions by all three of us: Christoph Gallio, Alistair Zaldua, and Lauren Redhead. Beginning with six short curse tablets by the British experimental composer Lauren Redhead, this is a set of graphic scores that combine ancient historical images with text fragments; she writes: “Curse tablets are petitionary prayer offerings found in Roman (and other) archaeological sites, and can be considered devotional – and sometimes magical – texts and objects.”
The Jekyll and Hyde-like character of Christoph Gallio’s two-part Happy Sad Nothing is a piece that contrasts a long and meditative cantilena with a shorter and rougher-edged unisons, rather like the repeated chorus of a song.
Albert’s Bells is a dedication to Albert Ayler, and Alistair Zaldua’s Davis, is dedicated to the US American activist Michael Ryan Davis (1946-2022).
Left Lift From Next Door, SingSongSing, and Abstract are all duo improvisations, performed with little or no preceding discussion.
Christoph Gallio lives and works in Baden, Switzerland. As a musician, he practices free improvisation and interprets mostly his own music. He always enjoys working on an equal level with representatives of other disciplines such as dance, fine art and poetry. In addition to composition commissions (including from Christoph Brunner, Mondrian Ensemble with Robin Adams, See Siang Wong and Petra Ackermann), he writes for his bands and his own projects. Christoph Gallio led several bands, currently the trio DAY & TAXI with Silvan Jeger and Gerry Hemingway. He has been running the PERCASO label since 1986. Tours have taken him to Canada, the USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, Japan, China, Argentina and Chile. He gave and gives concerts throughout Switzerland and in neighbouring countries. Christoph Gallio helped instigate the Workshop for Improvised Music ( WIM) in Zurich. He is also a member of the Swiss music association SONART.
Gallio’s music is distributed by the labels PERCASO, UNIT Records, HatHut, Creativ Sources, Nendo Dango Records, PLUS TIMBRE, Impro! Ritual, INTAKT, Vexer Verlag, Isospin Labs, Snowdonia, Youth Inc., THE WIRE tapper 52, Leo Records, Ayler Records, RAPID MOMENT, SLAM Records, Atavistic
Lauren Redhead is a composer of experimental music whose work is published by Material Press (Berlin) and by Firehead Organ Works (UK). Her music is released on the pan y rosas discos and sfz music labels. She is also a performer of music for organ and electronics, often working in a duet with Alistair Zaldua. When not making music, Lauren also writes about the aesthetics and socio-semiotics of 20th and 21st Century musics.
