Introduction of JIM Festival 2017

Again, the festival is aiming to look for new sounds "off the beaten track" and musical explorings in the best meaning. Bands like Chat Noir, which started as a classical piano trio and felt during the years that they were looking for an extension of their musical expressions. So they started to work with effects and electronics and had a fresh and new sound, that was a mix of different styles like ambient, jazz and film music.

Or the Polish, Austrian, Swiss Band Hang Em High that is using new sounds with well known instruments, just by changing the musical perspective. And suddenly a drumkit, a bassclarinet and a 2 string bass sounds completely different from what we know and expect.

DJ Illvibe is a master of sounds, noises and melodies he uses for his tracks. He is creating a new track or piece on his turntables, using old vinyl with sounds from streets or voices etc. and immediately starts his improvisation. He started to play drums, but found all the possibilities to express himself on the turntables. Together with Aki Takase, the two will show their idea on fresh sounds in jazz and improvisation.

Furthermore Nelson Hiu, whose background is in music ethnology and Dickson Dee as MC, labelboss and composer will give a masterclass and improvised session.

All musicians will give some introduction, talks with the audience, masterclass for musicians to keep the exchange going on!

Last but not least I want to thank the musicians to come, the wonderful team with Dickson, Sonia, Jent, Iphen, Kitty, all the partners like Goethe Institute Beijing (Xiao Yu in specific), Dunhua Culture, 33 Art Gallery and all the many people that helped and are not mentioned here but do a lot of work in the background and are behind or in front of the stage. THANK YOU ALL for your great ongoing spirit and support!!

Constanze Schliebs

CHAT NOIR

CHAT NOIR, a young band from Italy and the USA, which has been based in Berlin for some years now, presents their music, which lies within the radius of film music, rock, ambient and jazz. They have already written the music for an Oscar-nominated film in one of their first productions and their career as a piano trio seemed predetermined. But they realized that they were too stuck in the classical piano trio and wanted to move musically in a different direction. Therefore, they decided to expand their musical universe by another variety and invited Daniel Calvi as a guitarist and electronics "nerd" in their band. As you can hear, very successful! Because Daniel sets new impulses, works with overdubs, sound samples and his extensive pedals to distort, to work with sounds and to give the bandsound a new direction. In recent years, they have been increasingly on tour, and success proves them right. They have created their own sound cosmos, which causes organizers to listen a second and a third time and to realize that it is something very own and new. High time to invite the band for the JIM FESTIVAL! Daniel Calvi will give an introduction to guitar and electronic support in Beijing through pedals and computers and explain how to use them well, what bandwidth of sound you can achieve with them. Interested musicians can exchange ideas with Daniel Calvi.

HANG EM HIGH

The other evenings will be opened by HANG EM HIGH, which also stands for its own direction in jazz, but achieves this with completely different stylistic devices. This trio plays semi-acoustic in the cast bass clarinet, 2-string bass and drums. All in all, a very deep sounding trio with a minimalistic attitude, but at the same time it has a great dynamic and at times is reminiscent of a rock band. A strict rhythmic composition of drums and bass lays the structure for Lucien Dubuis on the bass clarinet, which in turn lays almost meditative soundscapes that seem to stand against each other, but then come together again. Comparable to gamelan music, which sounds identical on first listening, it is noted that there are minimal rhythmic changes.

Aki Takase and DJ Illvibe

Another high range format this year will be Aki Takase and DJ Illvibe, who have been working on LOK03 for many years. Aki Takase, now a musical legend who has worked with all the great American jazz musicians, keeps putting up new projects with young musicians to try out their ideas and expand musically. Here there is no traditional care, but always a debunking, tracing, improvising with hints of classical or references to the history of jazz, which are then but again dismembered and put together to new material. Together with DJ Illvibe, she will tell new musical stories. As in LOK03, a musical trip around the world from Berlin by train via Eisenhüttenstadt, Berchtesgaden, Paris, London, Ulanbator, Istanbul, Bandung to Osaka. Illvibe, currently the most sought-after producer in Germany, who remixed Marteria, Miss Platnum and nuBox or Remixed Amy Winehouse as well as Seeed and Peter Fox, has all these sounds in his old, partly very scratched records and with these sounds he is able to make the cities in our imagination.