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davidleahy

About Me

Goto http://www.seethrewmusic.com/pioneersvideoblog.htm to find out what I am doing at the moment (on tour in New Zealand). ____________________________________________________________ _______________'Musicofdaf' is the music of David Leahy, which may be me solo on the double bass playing loopy improvisations or me playing free-improvisation or contemporary folk with friends. ____________________________________________________________ _______________ Although I live a little out of London I tend to spend a lot of time in the city playing on the free-music scene in a number of different groups. These include; London Improvised Orchestra (30 piece orchestra with some of the UK's leading players on the scene), Akafree (A free jazz/improv quartet), FoA (free duo with Aaron Robertson in Paris), A free trio with Angeline Conaghan (of Barkmusic) and Jamie McCarthy (dogheadme) and a few others. ____________________________________________________________ _______________ On the more folky and acoustic side of things; I have been playing a very long time with Deirdre Starr (irish pianist/singer based in Wicklow) and we are planning to record in November in preparation for another tour of Germany in 2007, Dha (indian fusion group based in London) and again with Angeline Conaghan and a guitarist Ben Brewer, and we are working on a sort of musical documentary that we hope to get on the road some time in 2007. ____________________________________________________________ _______________ The solo material has just been released on a cd entitled 'finger painting' and is available now through my website. The music on the cd has been influenced a lot by the work that I do with contemporary dance and theatre. I have a number of other releases available through me and also through Emanem (free improv stuff) and yelloweye (cd's from my new zealand past). ____________________________________________________________ _______________ Aside from the music I also enjoy Contact Improvisation and I am constantly trying to blend my movement and musical interested together. ____________________________________________________________ _______________ Leahy's section was the most dynamic, impressive in its physical abandon (from a review for the LIO. Martin Longley The Independant Jan 2006)

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 02/07/2006
Band Website: www.dafmusic.com
Band Members: London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) Up to 35 -40 people including Evan Parker, Steve Beresford, Dave Tucker, Tony Marsh, Terry Day, Lol Coxhill, Paul Rutherford, Philipp Wachsmann, John Edwards, Christoph Irmer, etc. + ----- http://www.myspace.com/londonimprovisersorchestra ____________________________________________________________ _______________ FoA (Fate of Animals) A collective with a floating line-up that comprising of Aaron Robertson (guitar) Angeline Conaghan (vocals) Ashley Wales (electronics) Jamie McCarthy (violin) Javier Carmona (drums) and myself (db) ----- http://www.myspace.com/fateofanimals ____________________________________________________________ _______________ Aka Free Chefa Alonso (sax), Ashley Wales (electronics), Javier Carmona (percussion) and myself (db) ____________________________________________________________ _______________ Pioneers A new music in theatre work that is already generating quite a level of excitement. Booking now for Autumn. Angeline Conaghan (voice and guitar), Ben Brewer (guitar and voice) and myself (db and voice) ----- http://www.myspace.com/3pioneers
Influences: Charles Mingus, Barre Phillips, Dave Holland, Danny Thompson, Eberhard Weber, Andrew Hill, Greg Brown, John Prine, They might be Giants, Primus, Tim Buckley, Dave Dobbyn, Six Volts and all the fantastic musicians around me.

Finger Painting Review

From the Double bassist - spring 2007.
David Leahy (db, pf, mbira, bullroarer)

Ex-pat New Zealand bass player David Leahy is now a regular fixture on the UK's improvised music scene. Finger Painting is his debut solo album, and treats the double bass as the still point of a turning world that incorporates his piano backings and the occasional droll vocal. It's a good-natured jaunt that demonstrates Leahy's versatility and the breadth of his stylistic affiliations. He has christened his bass 'Nigeria' and in an amusingly penned cartoon, Leahy shows how Nigeria was linked to various gizmos in the recording process including a digital looper, Mbox and Pro Tools. On the first track, Bathtime, the bass becomes reinvented as something approaching a finger-piano and percussion orchestra; I'm not qualified to say exactly what kind of ethnic music Leahy is referencing, but his melodic material has a strong personality and the interaction between parts is effortlessly relaxed and loose. Later bass textures are nudged towards mesmerising looped patterns, as the digital looper picks up one of Leahy's phrases and does its thing. Looping can be a blunt tool for creative music, but Leahy shows great discernment in the placement and duration of his loops. My Relationship with Driving finds him exploring funky slapped bass figurations that wouldn't be alien to Milt Hinton; while elsewhere background piano riffs support Leahy's nimble fingered, melodically percussive bass patterns. Finger Painting is a very enjoyable and conceptually sophisticated Leahy primer.

PHILIP CLARK


Sounds Like:Musicians I play with and images from some of my travels
Record Label: dafmusic
Type of Label: Indie

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