Who & Why & How...and what
Clayton Thomas is a double bassist and grass roots organiser working in the broad spectrum of improvised and experimental music. He is Australian, but lives in Berlin.
I'm trying to work out a physical activity equally engaged in electronic and acoustic music aesthetics, while maintaining the kind of transitional and transformative energy of the music that changed my life. I draw inspiration from creative music of all eras, happily learning from and engaging with improvisers, sound artists, composers and thinkers alive and kicking in the 21st century.
I have been inspired and pushed by many great musicians, but would especially thank Jon Rose, Jim Denley, Andrew Meisel, Cooper-Moore, Tony Buck and Hollis Taylor for doing some real work on the topic.
All my music is dedicated to my first teachers, Wilber Morris and Peter Kowald.
Current Projects
Trio AUS with Johannes Bauer and Tony Buck
HAMMERIVER with Clare Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Tobias Delius, Christof Kurzmann, Werner Dafeldecker and TB
CODE with Ken Vandermark, Max Nagl & Wolfgang Reisinger
The Astronomical Unit with Matthias Muller & Christian Marien
Creoles with Jim Denley
Substation with Robin Fox
Morsal with Andrea Neumann
The Ames Room with Jean-Luc Guionnet and Will Guthrie
Truncador synthesiser duo with Chris Abrahams
Dafeldecker/Thomas Duo
Invisible Cinema with Jean-Luc Guionnet, Axel Dorner and Tony Buck
The Berlin Meeting with Johannes Bauer, Rudi Mahall, Uli Gumpert and Michael Zerang
The Tim O'Dwyer Trio with Darren Moore and TOD
All The Buttons with Clare Cooper
Momentum with Anat Cohavi, Michael Thieke and Christian Marien
The Fundamentalists with Wilbert DeJoode and Peter Jacquemyn
Berlin Noise Connective with Burkhard Beins, Thomas Ankersmit & Ignatz Schick
IWA with Asi Foecker, Andy Moor and Tony Buck
As well as collaborations with Paul Lovens, Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Simmons, Evan Parker, Anthea Caddy, Andre Vida, Steve Heather, Magda Mayas, Chris Heenan, Matthias Muller, Manon-Liu Winter, Hannes Loeschel, Sherif and Christine Sehnaoui, Franz Hautzinger and The Ex
Sydney
He is also the founder of the NOW now festival of improvised music and the leader of the 30 piece electro-acoustic ensemble The Splinter Orchestra .
Recordings
Broken River The Tim O'Dwyer Trio
Sonny Simmons Renegade Society with Brandon Evans & Andrew Barker
Creoles with Jim Denley
Artery with Jon Rose & Chris Abrahams
The Splinter Orchestra
MAP with Mary Halvorson & Tatsuya Nakatani
Substation with Robin Fox
Raw Square with Mathew Ottignon
Coming Soon
More Devils Than Bullets (solo)
Trio AUS - Konfrontationen 2007
Hammeriver