We call our communication wireless yet nearly everything we send to one another still crosses the ocean floor, through a vast hidden network of submarine cables. Koper8 turns that invisible infrastructure into music: improvisation as live transmission, with the noise deliberately kept in – the crackle, the interference, the sound of the ocean pressing on the line. Baritone and tenor sax run hot through hand-built pedals, drums cutting in and out of the signal, deep drones bending into psychedelia.

The eponymous debut album by Koper8, recorded at Figure 8 studios in Brooklyn, will appear this fall on Defkaz Records. This album presentation marks the group’s first appearance in Europe. Koper8 was founded by Italian baritone saxophonist Giuseppe Doronzo and Athens-based guitarist Jannis Anastasakis. Doronzo has been a mainstay in the Amsterdam improv scene for years, and has collaborated with the likes of Tilda Swinton and Hamid Drake. Anastasakis played with, among others, Savina Yannatou  and Arve Henriksen. Tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey, both from Brooklyn, have performed together at our venue before in various bands, for example with Mary Halvorson and Kris Davis.

Ingrid Laubrock tenor sax, Giuseppe Doronzo baritone sax/Iranian bagpipe, Jannis Anastasakis guitar/electronics, Tom Rainey drums