westport sound

FRIDAY 23rd

7pm – The Hayloft
Thorn Wych + Tuisovivi Rokotuni Enlli (with enys mottet) + Zheng Hao

Thorn Wych + Tuisovivi Rokotuni Enlli (with enys mottet) + Zheng Hao

Terror Management are delighted to announce that we have teamed up with Westport Sound to curate the opening night of their annual, alternative music festival. Operating in the small town of Malmesbury, this will be the festival’s third year running, bringing to the area another weekend of awe-inspiring experimental music.

Headlining this lineup of anti-genre magics is instrument maker and musician based in the Lancashire town of Bacup, ‘Thorn Wych’. With unique instruments, crafted from tree branches in her backyard workshop, she creates music that evokes memories of an unknown world – out of sync with time and place and beyond the boundaries of the material realm. Her pieces consist mainly of bowed string instruments, flutes and percussion, which she loops round, and grinds through pitch-bending glitches and delay pedals; strange devotional songs sung in tongues, mashed up, chewed and spat out.

Prior to this, we are honoured to be hosting the debut musical outing from ‘Tuisovivi Rokotuni Enlli’. Formally part of alternative Hip-Hop duo ‘DEBRA’, Enlli is a vocalist and writer based in Bristol, whose sound spans all the way from the uncompromising ethos of ‘By Storm’ to the raw emotionality you might find on an unearthed ‘Tirzah’ record – expect intimate lyricism and warped beats courtesy of long term collaborator ‘enys mottet’, as Enlli reveals the first iterations of his sound to the world.

To kick off the night, there will be a solo improvisation from the ever-amazing ‘Zheng Hao’. A spectacular improviser and composer, working with electronics to create a variety of thought-provoking atmospheres and narratives:

“Born in Wuhan; based in London. Zheng Hao uses electronics for solo and group improvisation, while other times also makes unpleasant computer dance music. Enjoys gritty and gnarly textures as well as delicate, amorphous qualities in different sound and space.”

Thorn Wych
Tuisovivi Rokotuni Enlli
Zheng Hao

SATURDAY 24th

2pm – The Hayloft
Grigg/Webster

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Grigg/Webster
ARTIST
“It amazes me what you can do with a guitar and an alto saxophone and how beautifully you can sin against the laws of beautiful playing—genius.” – Nieuwenoten, the Netherlands

“Colin Webster (alto & baritone saxophones) and Matthew Grigg (guitar & amplifier) – documented on duo rec Good to be Back in Reality (New Wave of Jazz, 2022), and trio releases The Silence Of Which The Universe Is Made (Soundholes, 2025 w/Jason Kahn) & Ad Lib (Unknown Tongue, 2026 w/Camila Nebbia),
Webster & Grigg “connect at the level of dramatic subtleties, weaving a self-winding narrative from particles of broken glass… and chase scraps of expression… dark and ambiguous, but saturated with twisting melodies.” – Spontaneous Music Tribune.

Matthew Grigg (website)
Matthew Grigg (video)

Colin Webster (website)
Colin Webster (bandcamp)

3.30pm – The Hayloft
Dunmall 4tet – Paul Dunmall / Percy Pursleglove / James Owston / Jim Bashford

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Dunmall 4tet - Paul Dunmall / Percy Pursleglove / James Owston / Jim Bashford

Paul Dunmall
“Ever since I heard UK sax colossus Paul Dunmall with Keith Tippett’s Mujician quartet, I knew that there was something special and spiritual about his tenor sax playing. Nobody has a sound like him; he is in a class of his own!” — Bruce Lee Gallanter, Free Jazz Collective

“A robust and heavy-hitting performer who has gone on to concentrate largely on free improvisation without sacrificing a rigorous melodic logic, a sparing lyricism, and the technique to drop in on bebop occasionally.”
— John Fordham, The Guardian

For 30 years, Paul has carved out a reputation for himself and is now widely recognised as one of the most uncompromising and talented reed players on the international jazz and improvised-music scene.

Whether playing in small or large groups, his musical sensitivity and imagination, combined with a powerful sound, make him one of the most distinctive improvisers playing today.

He has performed with Alice Coltrane, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Danny Thompson, LJCO, Mujician, Henry Grimes and Andrew Cyrille, as well as in a duo with Chris Corsano.

Percy Pursglove is a multi-instrumentalist, trumpeter, double bassist, educator, improviser, and composer, working internationally across a broad spectrum of jazz, contemporary classical, and creative musical settings.

“Somehow Pursglove created a completely whole musical world all of his own. That is a rare achievement.”
— Jazzwise

James Owston is a double and electric bassist based in Birmingham. He is an active performer in his third year of study at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. As well as running his own groups, James is currently playing with the Clark Tracey Quintet.

Jim Bashford is a drummer and composer who resides in Birmingham, UK. He is one of the most in-demand drummers on the UK jazz scene and is a faculty member on the Birmingham Conservatoire Jazz Course, where he studied in 2004.

Jim is currently a sideman for numerous projects across the UK and leads his own quartet, consisting of Hilmar Jensson, Tim Harries, and Robin Fincker.

James Owston is a bass player from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. His first experiences of jazz came on electric bass, playing with his friends at school and in his county youth jazz orchestra.

In 2015, James took up the double bass and joined the jazz course at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, studying with Arnie Somogyi and Mark Hodgson. He is an in-demand bassist who plays all over the UK with the Clark Tracey Quintet, Xhosa Cole, and Paul Dunmall.

James was a finalist for the 2018 BBC Young Musicians Jazz Award.

Mark Sanderss (b. 1960), a renowned drummer and percussionist of British-Belizean heritage, has been at the forefront of improvised music worldwide for the last 30–40 years.

Known for his unique playing style in the fields of free jazz and free improvisation, as well as his skill and versatility in other genres, he has worked with an impressively broad range of artists.

He has performed with a host of renowned improvising musicians, including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Joëlle Léandre, Roswell Rudd, Myra Melford, Henry Grimes, Sylvie Courvoisier, Charles Gayle, John Butcher, and Evan Parker.

He has also worked with contemporary artists such as Christian Marclay, Henryk Hakensen, and Sam Belinfante, as well as artists in the opera and classical fields, including Sarah Sarhandi, Lore Lixenberg, David Ryan, and Elaine Mitchener.

Paul Dunmall (bandcamp)

Percy Pursglove (website)

James Owston (bandcamp)

Jim Bashford (bandcamp)

5pm – URC
Philip Sheppard / Scott Flyn / David Le Page

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Philip Sheppard / Scott Flyn / David Le Page

Philip Sheppard is a composer, producer, virtuoso cellist, inventor, public speaker, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, and a creative innovator who has worked with some of the biggest names in music, technology, sport, and film.

Philip has composed more than 65 film, gaming, television, and theatrical scores, including Sony PS4’s highly acclaimed video game Detroit: Become Human and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

He has also written for and performed with Odesza, Pretty Lights, and UNKLE, and has been featured as a guest artist with rock ’n’ roll legends including Scott Walker, Grace Jones, Jimmy Page, Jeff Buckley, David Bowie, Sia, Suzanne Vega, and Jarvis Cocker.

Born on the Channel Island of Guernsey, David Le Page began playing the violin at the age of seven. He was offered a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School at the age of twelve and has since forged a diverse career as a performer, composer, producer, and arranger.

He appears regularly as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader, and has formed his own groups: the Le Page Ensemble, the Harborough Collective, Subway Piranhas, and Mysterious Barricades. He is Artistic Director and Leader of the Warwick-based Orchestra of the Swan.

Scott Flynn has performed, toured, and recorded with Grammy-nominated artist ODESZA, Pretty Lights, Lauryn Hill, Jimmy Heath, Adam Deitch, Big Daddy Kane, Disney Media, Chris Karns, The Nth Power, The Black Seeds, Dana Colley, Kebbi Williams, Tom Rainey, Billy Drewes, Michael Ray of Sun Ra, Michel Camilo, Bob Mintzer, Marcus Miller, and many more.

Originally from the New York area, Scott Flynn has quickly become one of the most sought-after trombone players in the country. Scott attended Berklee College of Music, where he majored in Performance, Production, and Orchestration. He has also studied with horn legends Joe Lovano and Hal Crook.

Throughout his professional career, he has toured extensively in the US, Australia, Asia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa, Europe, and South America.

This trio will be performing on Saturday afternoon at the United Reform Church alongside Stick in the Wheel. Double-bill tickets are available for this exclusive concert within the wider festival.

Philip Sheppard (website)

Scott Flynn(website)

David Le Page (website)

6.15pm – URC
Stick In The Wheel

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Stick In The Wheel

Nicola Kearey & Ian Carter have been making music as Stick In The Wheel since 2013.

The radical East London duo are known for their intense live shows exploring the raw holler of folk, synths, spoken word and intricate guitar fuzz. They present full-force reworkings of centuries-old work-songs with fragments of ancient texts that speak to contemporary issues of class – an inherently political act. Their relentless approach to questioning traditional music forms is matched only by the energy that they bring to it. Full of hope and resistance, they continue to push forward contemporary roots music, whilst celebrating music from our collective histories – conjuring the past to point toward the future.

“If there’s anyone who deserves their props amid this surge of attention directed towards radical folk, it’s Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter of Stick In The Wheel, who’ve been bringing an energy, political urgency and experimental drive to traditional music for a decade.” The Quietus

“Stick In The Wheel approach folk music with satire and guile…weaving together sounds and histories of the cultural palimpsest of London…directly engaging with both the discourse and sound of tradition” The Wire

“A remarkable psychogeographic voyage into a thousand years of London culture” 9/10 UNCUT

“Absolutely brilliant” Marc Riley BBC6 Music

Performing Saturday afternoon at The United Reform Church, this is a seated event as part of a double bill headline with Philip Sheppard, Scott Flynn and David Le Page.

Stick In The Wheel (website)
Stick In The Wheel (youtube)
Stick In The Wheel (banddcamp)

7.45pm – The Hayloft
Graham Dunning

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Graham Dunning

Graham Dunning is self-taught as an artist and musician, having studied neither discipline academically. His work explores sound as texture, timbre, and something tactile, drawing on bedroom production, tinkering, and recycling found objects.

He has performed solo and in ensembles across the UK and Europe, and shown solo sound installations in the UK, New Zealand, and the USA. He teaches Experimental Sound Art at the Mary Ward Centre in London and also gives various independent workshops. Dunning has released through Entr’acte, Seagrave, Tombed Visions, and more.

Dunning performs as part of a double bill with Voka Gentle on Saturday night in The Hayloft at The Three Cups Inn.

Graham Dunning (website)

Graham Dunning (youtube)

9.15pm – The Hayloft
Voka Gentle

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Voka Gentle

With three albums already under their belt, the London band (William J. Stokes and twins Imogen and Ellie Mason) have long been associated with a restless strain of experimental pop, balancing melodic instinct with a taste for disruption. Leaning into motorik electronics, psychedelia and experimental sound design, their songs rarely settle where you expect them to, favouring left-turns over neat payoffs – pop music that never quite finds its footing.

That approach is clear across their latest album Domestic Bliss, which leans into eccentric choices and moments of deliberate friction. Textures feel unstable and off-kilter, with stray sounds and found details (a binaural recording of Morris dancers, anyone?) folded into the songs. ‘Cheddar Man’ and ‘K Sees The Deal Go Down’ sketch out a world that feels both playful and unsettled, while ‘Ultra Aura Glow’, featuring Scottish songwriter Hamish Hawk, introduces an unexpected vocal counterweight that works beautifully, Hawk himself on a strong run following 2024’s A Firmer Hand.

Its album less interested in statements than in friction – music that refuses to be tied in a bow. It’s a long-held approach for the band, and one that’s drawn a lot of praise from the likes of Loud And Quiet as well as their musical peers. That includes The Flaming Lips, who invited Voka Gentle to open for them in London, ahead of a Wayne Coyne collab shortly after.

Other recent collaborators include cult folk chanteuse BELLS, who both appear on Voka Gentle’s acclaimed second album WRITHING! co-produced with Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs guitarist Sam Grant.

“Ambition and self assured daring”
— MOJO

Website
YouTube
Bandcamp

SUNDAY 25th

12.30pm – Three Cups Bar
Alexander Hawkins

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Alexander Hawkins

Alexander Hawkins is a composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader who is ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’. Regarded as one of his generation’s most innovative thinkers, his own unique soundworld is shaped by a profound fascination with composition and structure, alongside a love of chance and open forms.

His writing has been said to represent ‘a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music’, and his voice one of the ‘most vividly distinctive…in modern jazz’. As a pianist, he has been described as “remarkable…possessing staggering technical ability and a fecund imagination.”

He is a frequent solo performer, and also appears in groupings ranging from duo (with the likes of Nicole Mitchell, Sofia Jernberg, Tomeka Reid, Angelika Niescier, Evan Parker, John Surman, Han Bennink, and Hamid Drake), through to large ensembles. His co-led quartet with the vocalist Elaine Mitchener ‘probably [sets] a new standard for improvised music with song’; whilst Togetherness Music, released by Intakt Records in January 2021, has been called ‘[a] masterpiece that can stand next to the best works of Mitchell, Braxton or Parker’. His Ensemble music, at the core of which often sits his long-standing trio, was said by The Guardian newspaper to sound ‘like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details.’

Hawkins can be heard live and on record with vast array of contemporary leaders of all generations, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, Wadada Leo Smith, Marshall Allen, Michael Formanek, Rob Mazurek, Chad Taylor, Taylor Ho Bynum, Harris Eisenstadt, Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Esperanza Spalding, Jonny Greenwood, and Shabaka Hutchings. For over a decade, he has also been noted for his performances in the bands of legendary South African drummer, Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke.

We are delighted that Alexander will be opening the Sunday for us in the main Three Cups bar playing an acoustic set on Keith Tippett’s piano.

Alexander Hawkins (website)

Alexander Hawkins (youtube 1)

Alexander Hawkins (youtube 2)

1.45pm – The Hayloft
Angharad Davies and Regan Bowering

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Angharad Davies and Regan Bowering

Angharad Davies’ approach to sound involves attentive listening and exploring beyond the sonic confines of her instrument, her classical training, and performance expectations.

Much of her work involves collaboration. She has long-standing duos with Tisha Mukarji, Dominic Lash, and Lina Lapelytė, and plays with Common Objects, Cranc, and Skogen.

She has been involved in projects with Tarek Atoui, Tony Conrad, Richard Dawson, Gwenno, Roberta Jean, Jack McNamara, Rie Nakajima, Tim Parkinson, Éliane Radigue, Georgia Ruth, and J. G. Thirlwell.

Most of her records are released on Another Timbre, but she also has releases on Absinth Records, allthatdust, Confront Records, Emanem, Potlatch, Ni Vu Ni Connu, and Winds Measure Recordings.

Her first orchestral piece, I ble’r aeth y gwrachod i gyd…? / Where Did All the Witches Go…?, was commissioned by LCMF in 2019. She has since been commissioned by Explore Ensemble for Sitting with Emptiness (2022) and by GBSR Duo for Empty Spaces II (2023). She will also be making new pieces for andPlay, Dominic Lash, and Heather Roche in 2025.

Regan Bowering is a percussionist, improviser, and sound artist based in London. Her solo work explores various combinations of drums and percussion, objects, amplifiers, speakers, and feedback.

Her debut album, Solos for Spaces (released in December 2023 on Bezirk Tapes), was described by The Quietus as:

“A play of contrasts, contradicting voluminous expressions with confined phrases, taming resounding feedback with faint percussive flutters, but one that feels driven by the desire to craft electrifying drama rather than pure autotelic dissonance.”

She is one third of a collaborative project with Li Song and Conal Blake, which has released 2 Movements (Feedback Moves, 2024) and Music for Snare Drums and Portable Speakers (Infant Tree, 2023).

Her debut LP, A Technology of Feeling, was released in January 2026 on Infant Tree.

Davies and Bowering follow Alexander Hawkins and will perform in The Hayloft at The Three Cups.

Angharad Davies (website)
Angharad Davies (video)

Regan Bowering (website)
Regan Bowering (bandcamp)

2.45pm – The Hayloft
Mark Sanders & Phil Durrant

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Mark Sanders & Phil Durrant

Mark has performed at every Westport Sound Festival thus far, and therefore we must keep up with tradition. Here, he is joined by Phil Durrant.

Mark and Phil met and started playing electronics and drums together many years ago, recently teaming up again at a concert in London. Phil now plays modular synth. He has played with Derek Bailey, John Butcher, and Mimeo—the International Electronics Ensemble—including Keith Rowe and Kaffe Matthews, among many others.

Mark is a drummer who has played with Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Shabaka, and Xhosa Cole.

Boundary-pushing improvisers Phil Durrant, on modular synths, and Mark Sanders, on drums, will perform in The Hayloft at The Three Cups Inn on Sunday at 2:45 p.m.

Mark Sanders (website)
Mark Sanders (youtube)

Phil Durrant
Phil Durrant (facebook)
Phil Durrant (sowarimodular)

3.45 – Westport Music Studio
Josh and Therine

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Josh and Therine

Joshua Arnold and Therine are a folk duo from the North West consisting of multi-instrumentalist Joshua, and vocalist Therine. They perform their own droning versions of traditional folk songs of the British Isles showcasing the dark and the macabre alongside historically accurate examples of charms, prayers and original experimental music from their first album; a dark folk concept album about 1612’s Lancashire Witch Trials.

Joshua Arnold and Therine (bandcamp)
Joshua Arnold and Therine (youtube)

4.45pm – The Hayloft
Dali de Saint Paul

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Dali de Saint Paul

Dali de Saint Paul is an experimental vocalist, performer, composer, producer, curator, and cultural organiser active within Bristol’s experimental music scene.

Her distinctive use of voice and effects blurs sonic boundaries, challenges gender stereotypes, and destabilises spatial and linguistic conventions. As a lyricist, she merges poetics and politics, bringing intensity and emotional charge to her performances.

Her long-term collective project, EP/64—The Ephemeral Project 64 (2016–2022)—reimagined improvisation as a communal practice within contemporary music culture.

A prolific collaborator, she has worked with Moor Mother, Valentina Magaletti, Mariam Rezaei, and others. She is the voice of the post-industrial duo Harrga and of the experimental film, light, and sound performance Penumbra. Under the alias Content Provider, she produces electronic music.

In 2024, she received an Oram Award. In 2025, she held a three-day residency at Café OTO and performed at the New Music Biennial in London, a PRS Foundation and Southbank Centre initiative.

Content Provider is an experimental music production project launched in 2025. The project moves into electronic production using an Octatrack to blend warped reggae, industrial chanson, and post-pop.

Dali brings Content Provider to Westport Sound on Sunday, performing in the Hayloft at The Three Cups.

Dali de Saint Paul (bandcamp)
The Ephemeral Project 64
Dali de Saint Paul (the wire article)

6.15pm – The Hayloft
Diabolus feat. Rachel Musson, Mark Sanders & Matt Davis

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Diabolus feat. Rachel Musson, Mark Sanders & Matt Davis

Diabolus is a trio comprising saxophonist Rachel Musson, percussionist Mark Sanders, and trumpeter Matt Davis. They first played together at the Supernormal Festival in 2024.

Rachel Musson is a saxophonist, improviser, and composer based in the UK. She is a current recipient of the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composer Award, which runs from 2024 to 2027.

She has spent the last decade immersed in improvised music and has gradually introduced composed elements into her work, drawing on text, field recordings, and sound processing.

Rachel is involved in a variety of improvisation projects and works regularly with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, Hannah Marshall, Julie Kjaer, Corey Mwamba, Olie Brice, Alex Ward, Alex Hawkins, and others.

She features on several releases, including a nonet featuring her composition I Went This Way on 577 Records; two releases with Shifa, featuring Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders, also on 577 Records; a release with Mark Sanders and John Edwards on Two Rivers Records; a trio with Liam Noble and Mark Sanders on Babel; and a collaboration with Corey Mwamba on Takuroku.

Matt Davis has been active in improvised music since the mid-1990s, performing throughout Europe and Japan in many different collaborations and small- and large-group ensembles, including Zeitkratzer and the La Sospechosa dance company.

From 2003 to 2008, he directed Field, a live art and performance project that investigated notions of space and collaborated with geographer Doreen Massey, author of For Space.

His sound and music work includes acoustic improvisation on trumpet and preparations, alongside an electromagnetic setup. These performance-based improvisations use custom-built, cracked electrical devices, often with a visual element, to create electromagnetic fields that are rendered into sound. The work draws on the immediate situation and radio space of the performance.

These elements are explored and improvised as spatial and material phenomena, as well as for their dubious potential as natural or constructed feral musical elements.

Matt is currently based in Bristol, where he regularly collaborates with, among others, Phil Minton, Luigi Marino, and Matthew Grigg.

His regular groups include Nodosus, with Angharad Davies, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dominic Lash, and John Butcher, as well as a trio with Rachel Musson and Mark Sanders.

Mark Sanders (b. 1960), is a renowned drummer and percussionist of British-Belizean heritage. He has been at the forefront of improvised music worldwide for the last 30–40 years.

Known for his unique playing style in the fields of free jazz and free improvisation, as well as his skill and versatility in other genres, he has worked with an impressively broad range of artists.

Rachel Musson

Mark Sanders

Matt Davis

7.15pm – The Three Cups Bar
Nika Beth

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Nika Beth

The Beth Veasey and Nika Ticciati Duo presents a personal blend of contemporary classical music and first wave free jazz.

Particularly referencing the extended works of Don Cherry, the duo’s compositions are an exploration of closeness and intimacy. Their relationship with experimental music is founded on these ideas, as an avenue for connection with both the audience and each other.

The way the duo performs and composes lets either player reference whatever musical world they like, in whatever tone they like, as well as dig for new tones and worlds. They might drift through clattering bursts of noise, rapturous spiritual jazz-isms and spacious modern chamber music in one sitting; the players’ hope is for audiences to be left with the sense of knowing them quite well.

This duo will close the Sunday at The Three Cups in the main bar on Keith Tippett’s piano.

Nika Ticciati (bandcamp)
Nika Ticciati (youtube)

Beth Veasey (instagram)
Beth Veasey (spotify)
Beth Veasey (soundcloud)

westport sound

Westport Sound 26

Westport Sound 26 Timetable

FRIDAY 23rd

7pm – The Hayloft
Thorn Wych + Tuisovivi Rokotuni Enlli (with enys mottet) + Zheng Hao