KONK PACK is a hardcore trio made up of world class improvisers Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow, The Work, God, etc.), Thomas Lehn (Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra, and has also worked with Eugene Chadbourne, the Klangräumer, Paul Lovens, Shabotinski, Radu Malfatti, Gerry Hemingway, Günter Christmann, Evan Parker, etc. - "probably the world's best synthesizer player", Jim O'Rourke) and Roger Turner (who has worked with John Russell, Hugh Davies, Alan Silva, Phil Minton, John Butcher, Comforts of Madness, Steve Beresford, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor, etc.).
The sensitivity of British Improvised Music, represented via the crackling and snapping of the electronics (Lehn), the howling and roaring of reed and a table top guitar (Hodgkinson) and the rattling and rustling of the percussion (Turner) are melded with a trashy, overloaded attitude. Nasty! A heavy rocking swing echoes out of loose noise conglomerations. And when we say rock, we mean it.
KONK PACK is a working band that herewith presents their debut album, Big Deep.

  KONK PACK (also on GROB323, GROB654, GROB962)

Tim Hodgkinson

 Thomas Lehn   (also on GROB205, GROB206/7, GROB537)

Roger Turner

  back to GROB catalog

GROB103 Joseph Suchy - Smi²le 

The group met at Szuenetjel Festival in Budapest 1997. Tours in Italy 1998 and Netherlands 1999 followed. In 2000, Konk Pack are touring in UK, Germany and Canada and perform various other festivals.

From the first moment discovered the extremely effective rhythmic and clear energetic display involving all the body a very large quantity of fast actions and fast lack of actions poured out a dynamic varied all the time and detailed stream of sound events that gripped the imagination from start onwards in a very serious performance making unavoidable large smile

Thomas Lehn: analogue synthesizer; nervously twitching avant garde scientist using unique dirty sound.

Roger Turner: drums, percussion; famous improviser / totally visually compulsive bald player with unique "dirty" drum sound.

Tim Hodgkinson: washed-up 70's celeb bird-like hawaiian guitarist famous for unique dirty sound.

Concert Review

"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, 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

"Definitively the best fusion of acoustic and electronic sound of the festival."
Nicolas Tittley, Voir, Montreal, 25-31 May 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

- in rock:
Co-instigator and constant member of HENRY COW 68-78. - the greatest and most advanced of all progressive bands - Spanning the Globe 99.
Instigator of THE WORK 80-95 - experimental music at its most urgent and exciting - Time Out
Played alto sax in GOD 91-94 - hard-core non-jazz - a symphony of extremes- SPEX

- As an improviser:
played all over the world with a great many musicians amongst whom Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Lindsay Cooper, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Jim Staley, Catherine Jauniaux, Chris Cutler, Tom Cora, Charles Hayward, Valentina Ponomareva, Sainkho Namtchilak, Ikue Mori, Tenko Ueno, Albert Kouvezin, Fabrizio Spera, Iva Bittova, Hi-ah Park, Bolot Biryshev, Carlos Zingaro, Olga Mageres, Birgit Ulherr

- Also in more stable groupings -
Member of EUROPEAN IMPROVISING ORCHESTRA - performances include Warsaw Autumn Days Festival 1998.
KONK PACK with Thomas Lehn and Roger Turner - CD out on GROB, Dec 99.
Longstanding duo with Ken Hyder - THE SHAMS - numerous tours of Europe and, from 1990, Siberia.
Appear at David Thomas' Disastodrome Festival London. "Healthy Living" siberian film soundtrack CD scheduled for release on SLAM label, March 2000.
1997, set up Radical Transcultural Initiatives to take experimental art into remote rural communities. First step; tour with Hyder and Chamzyryn in Altai Republic summer 1998. Formed K-SPACE trio after recording with Chamzyryn in Kyzyl, Tuva.

- As a composer
has released 2 CD's of own compositions, currently completing third. Each in Our Own Thoughts 1994. - highly individual and tightly structured eclecticism -The Wire
- exquisitely composed, an intensity that can be frightening - Boston News PRAGMA 1998 - a unique form of electronic-but-acoustic music which has the excitement and spontaneity of improvisation tempered by the rigour of structured composition - ReR

Radio and international festival commissions include Stop Mortal, 50 min. suite for piano trio, sampler and voice (Dagmar Krause), in response to the work of Tadeusz Kantor, performed at Nancy Musique Action, Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Konfrontazionen Festival, Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, Ny Musikk, Bergen, and Nordlyd Festival, Trondheim.
EIXAM, for orchestra, performed by Banda Municipale de Barcelona, commissioned for 2nd European Symposium of Experimental Music 1997. SEVEN VOMITS RISING IN THE REAL BODY OF MUSIC, radiophonic piece, 35 mins, commissioned and broadcast by RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana, Dec 1996.
ALCESTIS for voice, electroacoustic instruments, flute, bass clarinet, percussion, performed with Ossatura and Dagmar Krause at Goethe Institute Rome, Oct 1996.

Since the early 1980s Thomas Lehn has been working as a performer, interpreter, composer and improviser of contemporary music. His individual style of musical expression is rooted in the experience of a broad spectrum of musical fields. After studying recording engineering at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Detmold (Germany), he moved to Cologne and studied both classical and jazz piano at the Hochschule fuer Musik Koeln.

As an interpreting pianist he has played concerts since 1982 - performing both contemporary new music including numerous first performances and traditional composed music of the classical and romantically period. In 1989 he initiated the chamber ensemble Trio Dario and four years later the Mengano Quartett. Focussed on performing compositions of the contemporary avant-garde, he is pianist of the Nova Ensemble Wuppertal.

Parallel to his work as a pianist, he concentrates on composing and performing electronic music. Based on his background as an interpreting and improvising pianist in classical-, contemporary and jazz-music, he developed his individually langguage in live-electronic music. The electronic equipment he uses consists of analogue synthesizers of the late 1960s. The facilities of these 'historic' instruments - e. g. to modify electronic sounds very directly as well as to combine and to control several parameters at the same time - allows him to spontaneously act and react in close contact with the process of tension, space and structure of the music during its performance.

Thomas Lehn has played concerts in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungaria, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, USA and Canada. He has repeatedly collaborated with a number of musicians of the international avantgarde, as there are among others John Butcher, Guenter Christmann, Axel Doerner, Phil Durrant, Alexander Frangenheim, Mats Gustafsson, Gerry Hemingway, Tim Hodgkinson, Paul Lovens, Radu Malfatti, Andy Moor, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Roger Turner and Peter van Bergen.

Lehn has been repeatedly invited to perform at international festivals and for TV and radio productions. He has been involved in projects promoted and/or supported by Goethe-Institutes in Budapest, London, Roma, Manchester, Marseille, York and Chicago.

Thomas Lehn lives in Cologne.

ensembles:
ANTASTEN
w/Hannes Loeschel (p), Josef Novotny (comp., electr.) [A/D]
BUTCHER/LEHN/MOOR
w/ John Butcher (ts/ss), Andy "Ex" Moor (g)
CHADLEHN
w/ Eugene Chadbourne (banjo/g/objects)
DIE KLANGRAEUMER
w/ Guido Hafner (b), Andreas Wagner (cl/ts) [D]
DURRANT/LEHN/MALFATTI TRIO
w/ Radu Malfatti (tbn), Phil Durrant (vl) [A/D/GB]
E-RAX
w/ Peter van Bergen (elec. windcontroller), Gert-Jan Prins (electr.) [D/NL]
GLASSBAND
w/ Phil Wachsmann (vl/electr), Evan Parker (ss/ts), Alexander Frangenheim (b), Roger Turner (perc) [D/GB]
HIRT/LEHN/THEURER TRIO
w/ Erhard Hirt (g/electr), Martin Theurer (p) [D]
KONK PACK
w/ Tim Hodgkinson (g/reeds/electr), Roger Turner (perc) [D/GB]
MIMEO (Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra)
12 musicians from 7 nations [A/CH/D/F/GB/NL/P]
THOMAS LEHN & MARCUS SCHMICKLER
duo with Marcus Schmickler (computer/synthesizer)
TOM & GERRY
duo with Gerry Hemingway (dr/perc)
TOOT
w/ Phil Minton (voc), Axel Doerner (tp) [D/GB]
VARIO-34
w/ Guenter Christmann (tbn/vc), Alexander Frangenheim (b), Mats Gustafsson (reeds), Paul Lovens (dr/perc), Christian Munthe (g)
VCO 1 (Voltage Controlled Oddities)
w/ Konrad Doeppert (an.syn), Joker Nies (computer)

discography
2000 THOMAS LEHN/MARCUS SCHMICKLER - Bart (Erstwhile Records, New York/USA)
2000 THOMAS LEHN, Feldstärken (Random Acoustics, Munich/D)
2000 CHADLEHN c inside (duetts w/ Eugene Chadbourne; GROB, Cologne/D)
2000 MIMEO electric (2CDs, GROB, Cologne/D)
2000 E-RAX, live at the bimhuis 1999 (X-OR, Amsterdam/NL)
1999 KONK PACK, Big Deep (GROB, Cologne/D)
1999 TOM & GERRY (double CD, Erstwhile Records, New York/USA)
       reviews
1999 MIMEO (Perdition Plastics, Chicago/USA)
1999 HIRT/LEHN/THEURER, Trinidad (Happy Few Records, Witten/D)
1999 DURRANT/LEHN/MALFATTI, beinhaltung (Fringes, Monza/I)
1999 VARIO 34-2 (concepts of doing, Stuttgart/D)
1999 SHABOTINSKI, (b)ypass (k)ill (plagdichnicht/charhizma, Vienna/A)
1999 LINGUAFONIE 3 (Goethe-Institut Rom & Cervello a Sonagli, Rom/I)
1999 CHRISTMANN/LEHN, temps duree (edition explico, Hannover/D)
1998 MIMEO, queue (GROB, Cologne/D)
1998 Humannoise Congress #7/#8/#9 (ARTist, Wiesbaden/D)
1998 HIRT/LEHN/THEURER, 2+2 sind 3 (Happy Few Records, Witten/D)
1996 DIE KLANGRAEUMER, Mangelware (hybrid music productions, Giessen/D)
1995 VARIO 34 (Blue Tower, Stockholm/S & edition explico, Hannover/D)

reviews
Thomas Lehn's ancient analogue synthesizer is an honestly electronic sound source, but he plays it with pianistic animation; a responsive improviser in an ever-shifting, fluid and powerful music.
Bill Smith, Coda Magazine, June 2000

...Thomas Lehn changed the parameters of his apparatus with greater speed and fluency than I have heard before. His hands almost seeming to burn with volatility on the keyboard.
John Corbett, SPEX, September 1997

The musician at the synthesiser displays the whole spectrum of sound gestures, timbral effect and atmospheric depth and accompanies these by his own particular gestures. Concert as an attempt to sensitise the contemporary listener in a world overflowing with sounds.
Dita von Szadkowski, Westdeutsche Zeitung, May 10, 1997

Thomas Lehn's synthesizer, built at an early age of the technology, and looking more like a physics device than a musical instrument, was able to bridge the contradiction between technology and nature. Indeed, there was something extremely natural about the sounds it produced.
Guenter Matysiak, Weserkurier, December 13, 1996

Lehn gives his analogue synthesizer the full treatment, untethered, performing with an impressive range of facial expressions and gestures, and it is this combination of visual and acoustic impressions that make up the charm of the music.
Daniel Schraad, Westdeutsche Zeitung, June 1997

Roger Turner grew up amongst the Canterbury musical life of the 1960s with a strong broad jazz root and also with local experience in blues and pop. He moved to London in 1968 and worked with the Ghanian drum ensemble Mask and toured with the experimental and innovative Ritual Theatre.

Since 1974, he has primarily concentrated on opening a more personal percussion language. Extensive solo work followed (including concerts at the Bracknell Jazz Festival and the Bruxelles Festival of Percussion) and he was also granted two Arts Council bursaries (1980 and 1983) for investigation into percussion and electronics. It was during this period that he recorded his solo LP The blur between, though it focusses on very specific aspects of percussion and certainly does not represent his wide current interests.

In 1984 and 1985, he undertook workshop residences at Alan Silva's INSTITUT ART CULTUR PERCEPTION in Paris. In the same period, collaborations with experimental rock musics and open song form included extensive duo work with Annette Peacock (1983-1985) and recordings with post-wave band THE NOSE Flutes (1986-1987).

Roger Turner has worked with numerous jazz-based ensembles including those of Elton Dean, Alan Silva and Lol Coxhill. Music making with European and international improvisors in ad hoc and group collaborations has over the years included Toshinori Kondo, Derek Bailey, Johannes Bauer, Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, and Otomo Yoshihide. His current main collaborations are THE PHIL MINTON QUARTET with Veryan Weston and John Butcher; THE RECEDENTS with Lol Coxhill and Mike Cooper; IN THE TRADITION with Alan Silva and Johannes Bauer; duos with John Russell and Phil Minton; and projects with Martin Klapper and the GUSTAFSSON/MUNTHE/STRID/TURNER QUARTET.

Performances in major festivals have included: Edinburgh; Actual, London; Setubal and Avante, Portugal; CRIM, Pisa; Bracknell, England; Ulrichsberg and Nickelsdorf Austria; Kongsberg, Norway; Philadelphia Free Music; Taklos, Switzerland; Chantenay, France; Budapest; Berlin Jazzfest; Camden Jazz Festival, London; Vancouver; Victoriaville; Sound Symposium, Newfoundland; Banlieu Bleu, Paris; Vandoeuvre; Copenhagen Voice Festival; Macau; etc.

Recordings
1979, Sunday best, Incus 32. Duo with Gary Todd.
1979, Artless sky, CAW 001. With John Russell and Toshinori Kondo.
1981, The blur between, CAW 002. Solo.
1981/1984, Forward of short leg, Dossier ST 7529. With various Jon Rose groups.
1984, Fringe benefits, Entropy Stereo ESR006. Jon Rose and the Relative Band; one track on compilation CD.
1983, Couscous, nato 157.
1984, Ammo, Leo LR 116. Duo with Phil Minton.
1985, Frog dance, Impetus IMP 28407, 2LP. With The Recedents.
1985, Sans phrase, Moers Music 02048. One piece on Vario LP.
1985/86, Sprung from traps, Re 0103. Piece on ReRcords Quarterly Volume 1, no. 3 (LP).
1986, Barbecue strut, nato 907. The Recedents.
1986, Take some risks, In situ 011. With Alan Silva, Misha Lobko, Didier Petit, Bruno Girard.
1986, Ruff, Leo LR 138. The Ferrals with Phil Minton, Hugh Davies and Alan Tomlinson.
1988, Zombie bloodbath on the Isle of Dogs, nato 112036. The Recedents.
1993, In the tradition, In situ IS 166. With Alan Silva and Johannes Bauer.
1993, Dada da, Leo CD LR 192. Duo with Phil Minton.
1994, Short in the U.K., Incus CD 27. With Steve Beresford and Shaking Ray Levis.
1995, AngelicA 1995, A1 007. With Lol Coxhill's Before my time.
1995, The comforts of madness, Durian 002. With Helge Hinteregger.
1996, Mouthful of ecstasy, Victo cd041. Phil Minton Quartet.
1996, Birthdays, Emanem 4010. Duo with John Russell.
1997, Recent croaks, Acta 11. Duo with Martin Klapper.
1997, Autism, Durian 008. The comforts of madness.