13 February 2024
Looking forward to 2024, with some lovely concerts together with Björn Meyer, Poesia Vocale, Isambard Khroustaliov, Giovanna Pessi, Marta Zapparoli, Michael Cina, Régis Huby's Inner Hidden, and more! See Events for details, and check the Shop page for recent Bandcamp releases with Björn and Isambard/Augmented Nature. With very warmest wishes!
22 October 2023
Augmented Nature: Zürichsee / Ufenau Edition, with Tom and Isambard Khroustaliov (aka Sam Britton) is now here. A very special installation-concert from the Ufenau island, in the lake of Zürich, is now released in an intimate binaural mix. We hope you enjoy it. Read more on the Bandcamp site directly!
https://augmented-nature.bandcamp.com/album/augmented-nature-z-richsee-ufenau-edition-binaural-headphone-mix22 April 2023
Six is here! Tom and Swedish Swiss-Based electric bassist release a one-take improvisation recorded in Summer 2022 in Bern's PROGR Cultural Centre. Digital release only - we hope you enjoy. Live performances will follow in Autumn, looking forward very much.
https://tomarthursbjornmeyer.bandcamp.com/album/six12 January 2022
2022 was a fantastic year, with performances mostly in beautiful churches and gardens with Giovanna Pessi, Isambard Khroustaliov, Miles Perkin-Benoît Delbecq-Jim Black, Marc Schmolling and Chorwerk Ruhr, and Régis Huby-Eivind Aarset-Bruno Chevillon-Michele Rabbia. Looking forward to more in 2023, also in duo with Björn Meyer on bass. Thanks all for these beautiful moments, and to all those who made this happen.
12 March 2022
In November 2021, I had the great pleasure to join the new quintet of French violinist and composer Régis Huby, with Eivind Aarset (guitar and electronics), Bruno Chevillon (bass and electronics) and Michele Rabbia (drums and electronics). You can see and hear a small taste here.
12 March 2022
A beautiful video has been released from May 2021, in the height of Covid 2.0, of Marc Schmolling's music, surrounded by renaissance vocal music and in the Salzlager of the UNESCO-Welterbe Zollverein in Essen, Germany. It features Marc on piano, plus Biliana Voutchkova (violin), Christian Weidner (saxophone), Antonio Borghini (bass) and the wonderful Chorwerk Ruhr under the baton of Florian Helgath. A special moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WABC4JKi7bg10 September 2021
Slowly back while things are possible, with a solo and duo with pianist Achim Kaufmann in Berlin, and with Régis Huby's new quintet in France. Bubbling in the background, a duo with wonderful harpist Giovanna Pessi in an exquisite, intimate and moving programme of hidden gems from Chile's Parra family, composers Kapsberger, Händel and de Macque, Ugandan field recordings, and sketches from Tom's own pen. Following microconcerts in Bern's Buchhandlung zum Zytgloggle (for audiences of three at a time) and Castello di Castagneto Carducci, we are getting ready to play more, and release this music to a wider audience. Looking forward to see you soon!
17 March 2021
Dear All
Some new projects gently simmering in private as the rest remains corona-cancelled.
Waiting for the real to return, and hopefully back soon!
Wishing you the best in these changing times,
Tom
28 May 2020
Inspired by a joint project with our fantastic MA Performance students at Bern University of the Arts, I made a response to these Corona times - a local Augmented Nature, an improvisation using binaural field recordings made only on my balcony during lockdown.
Please feel to download the file direct from my Dropbox below - you have to listen in headphones for the full immersive experience, and it's only in super high quality!
I do hope you enjoy it.
This recording is a gift for these times, but if you do wish to make a donation, there is a link in the "Shop" section, and I will donate all profits to good causes.
I hope everyone is doing well, and all best wishes until soon.
15 March 2020
Sadly many concerts are cancelled because of Corona - please check before travelling.
Wishing every one the very best health and positivity in these difficult times.
Let's work together and try to slow the curve as fast as possible!
31 October 2019
"Hangkerum" - with Isambard Khroustaliov (electronics) and Julian Sartorius (drums and percussion) is here! Finest improvised music released by the great Lisbon-based Clean Feed Records. Quite unique stuff we are very proud of... listen in here with the soundcloud link below. Also in the Shop, for a limited time, get 3/4 recent CDs (Hangkerum, Miles Perkin Quartet, Augmented Nature and One Year) for just 35€ inc. shipping - just in time for Brexit, or maybe even... Christmas...! With all best wishes.
https://m.soundcloud.com/notapplicable/arthurs-khroustaliov-sartorius-hangkerum-02-scharme18 April 2019
Delighted that the new Miles Perkin Quartet album "The Point in Question" will be out in May on Clean Feed records! Beautiful and intriguing music by Miles, with Tom, Parisian pianist Benoît Delbecq and New York / Berliner Jim Black on drums. We debut the band at the excellent Jazzdor festival in Berlin on June 5th. Looking forwards!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CqYudQlFCM7 December 2018
Augmented Nature is here and available to order online!
Released by the excellent London-based label Confront (home to artists including Axel Dörner, Benoît Delbecq, David Sylvian, Eddie Prévost and more), Augmented Nature is Tom's first solo recording, and the culmination of a year-long research project inspired by meditation, deep listening, and the persistent beauty of nature itself.
Starting with quiet, intense and personal solo improvisations in the forests of Berlin, monasteries of Athens and rolling fields of Tom’s native Northamptonshire, these moments of peace and clarity slowly developed into the wish to share and document the project… tipping a hat to Luc Ferrari, John Cage and Evan Parker along the way, and creating a sonic meditation that seeks to amplify the surrounding nature (and in this case, the city too). The improviser is embedded within each soundscape, lending subtle comment, drawing attention to otherwise unnoticed aspects of each sonic universe (sometimes almost imperceivable), and with a deep love and respect for all around.
Around the same moment that the project began, Tom coincidentally met with an old friend from London, who was working in Research and Development at the BBC, developing binaural and 3-D recording technology for classical concerts. Immediately impressed with these possibilities, he rushed to buy a pair of in-ear binaural microphones - and set about experimenting with different recording techniques - finally settling on a home-recording of the trumpet within an imaginary collage of 96k/24-bit field recordings collected during a 10-day trip to Portugal in December 2017. As a result, the recording should be enjoyed using headphones, in order to best appreciate the full 3-D effect of the music.
This recording then, was finally made in one take - and appears here unedited, only gently mixed by Lowswing Studio’s Guy Sternberg - and capturing a fleeting but somehow idealised and crystallising moment in this ongoing process.
The listener is invited to enjoy the results as they wish - as a soundtrack for an imaginary film of their own making, or, like, Cage would perhaps have suggested, to listen without any reference at all to the sound-sources - taking each sound from zero, simply accepting it as it is, just as it is.
We hope you enjoy it!
9 June 2018
After a change of scenery it's always interesting to feel the new music... and after 4 months of warm welcomes in Bern, and great trio concerts in London, Bristol and Berlin with the trio (with Markku Ounaskari and Marc Schmolling) comes the impending release of QUAIRÓS - a fortuitous improvised encounter with Finnish Guitarist Markus Pesonen, Canadian bassist Miles Perkin and another Finn, Janne Tuomi on drums (coming out on Jazzwerkstatt very soon). Indeed, the next months we go on with the trio, but welcome new collaborations with Bern's Julian Sartorius and Christian Kobi, as well as concerts with Ignaz Schick's Circuit Training Ensemble, and a new recording of Miles Perkin's excellent quartet music (with Benoît Delbecq and Jim Black). Watch this space... maybe even a curious solo is coming too... with thanks and hoping to see you out there soon...
27 January 2018
"One Year", Tom's first release under his own name in several years, will be officially released on February 7th (Ozella Music), and we are looking forwards so much to this music being out there! Featuring UK pianist Richard Fairhurst and Finnish percussionist Markku Ounaskari, vinyl and CDs are already available, artist-direct, from the Shop section of this website. Concerts are coming soon in the UK and Germany, and aside from all this, Tom is extremely excited to be beginning a new chapter at the Hochschule der Künste, Bern, as artistic leader of the Jazz and Contemporary Music department. Hoping to see you out and about soon!
23 November 2017
Delighted to announce that from February 2018, Tom will be Artistic Leader of the Jazz Department at Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland. Looking forward to deep and fantastic collaborations with all inspiring students and educators of the HKB, and very touched to follow in the footsteps of Valérie Portmann and to be so warmly welcomed into such a bright and forward-looking community of artists, educators and researchers. To the future...!
14 November 2017
Exclusive pre-release CD copies of One Year are here, alive and well, and available in the shop on this website! Featuring British pianist Richard Fairhurst and Finnish percussionist Markku Ounaskari, we are immensely proud of this music and extremely happy to bring this project to fruition. UK dates for March and May 2018 will be posted soon and excerpts from the first track, Evergreens, are already to be heard in the player above. We hope you enjoy the music. For vinyl-addicts... it's coming...!
http://www.tomarthurs.co.uk/online-shop/21 October 2017
A new video just in from Tom's duo concert with great Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen in Turku, Finland... just a couple of weeks ago. We enjoyed this a lot... Do take a watch and a listen here, (links to Youtube) and follow the channel if you are moved to do so!
https://goo.gl/Vrkn1R8 September 2017
Well, welcome to Autumn!
The release of One Year is getting ever-closer and we are super happy for that... the first concert of the trio in Berlin was a truly beautiful experience and we are looking forward to more. In the meantime though, some more solo concerts in special locations in Berlin and Brussels, a Finnish tour and radio recording with pianist Kari Ikonen, and the continuation of turntablist and composer Ignaz Schick's Circuit Training ensemble - new compositions (including one by Tom) with some of Berlin's finest improvisers and real-time composers. Looking forward to seeing you there and thanks for stopping by!
25 June 2017
A new wave of solo concerts for the Summer are up-and-coming - also the beginnings of 'Augmented Nature', a project of solo recordings in nature. We are preparing One Year (with Markku Ounaskari and Richard Fairhurst) for release on the excellent German label Ozella, and QUAIRÓS (with Miles Perkin, Markus Pesonen and Janne Tuomi) on Jazzwerkstatt Berlin. Tom will be close to New York in August for a residency at the prestigious Music OMI programme. Looking forward to seeing you out there!
10 January 2017
Welcome and best wishes for 2017!
Opening the year with a guest appearance on Julie Sassoon's album Four Tune and many other exciting plans - including Tom's first release under his own name since Postcards from Pushkin, coming soon with Richard Fairhurst (piano) and Markku Ounaskari (percussion). A collaborative improvised release from QUAIRÓS, a Berlin-Finnish quartet with Miles Perkin (bass), Markus Pesonen (guitar) and Janne Tuomi (drums) is also in the works, as is Berlin-based singer and composer Almut Kühne's Inbetween Skies. Looking forwards!
19 October 2016
New in the player is 'Irina Piperin' - a Calvino-inspired track from Vaucanson's Muse with electronic musician Isambard Khroustaliov. Already described by the Wire as comparable to the classic and pioneering work of Braxton and Teitelbaum and as "a limited edition to catch if you can", this release is joined by Real Time Sound Sculpture Vol. 1 with another dear friend and collaborator, Simon Vincent, also out now. A month for fresh new improvised electroacoustic music. Both new releases are now available in the Shop, and check out London Jazz News for an in-depth interview with Tom about these CDs, Jazzfest Berlin and more.
http://www.londonjazznews.com/2016/10/interview-tom-arthurs-two-new-cds-in.html31 August 2016
An action-packed Autumn awaits, with improvisational electronic releases in duos with Simon Vincent and Isambard Khroustaliov (aka Sam Britton), and concerts in Berlin, Wroclaw, Vienna and Rome. Projects include Marc Schmolling's Ticho, the Pichler Brothers, a Berlin Jazzfest collaboration between the Julia Hülsmann Quartet and Anna-Lena Schnabel and a new recording with Almut Kühne's new project Inbetween Skies. Looking forward very much and hoping to see many of you out there...
25 June 2016
Welcome to this very nice new website, thanks to Alice Cannava!
Simultaneously, Tom is very happy to announce some some new projects, which will be out and about in the coming months - one with Richard Fairhurst (piano) and Markku Ounaskari (percussion), and another with Sébastien Boisseau (bass) and Jon Fält (drums). Many older and harder-to-source albums are for sale in the new Shop, and dates until November are posted in Events. Stay in touch and watch this space....