Uneven Eleven

Featuring: Charles Hayward, Kawabata Makoto, Guy Segers

Uneven Eleven is an improvising power trio that should not, on paper, work as well as it does: Charles Hayward on drums (This Heat, Massacre), Kawabata Makoto on guitar (Acid Mothers Temple, Gong) and Guy Segers on bass (Univers Zero, X-Legged Sally). Three players from three different corners of the avant-garde, captured in full flight at Cafe OTO in London on 24 May 2013, in one of those rare meetings where the chemistry is immediate and combustible.

Live At Cafe OTO spreads four long collective improvisations across the record (Benevolent With Hybrid Shoes, Javelin, Dune 11 and Slow Sweep), each one a slow build toward controlled chaos. Hayward's drumming gives the music its structure and forward drive, Segers lays down a dark, insistent low end that links back to the bleak grandeur of Univers Zero, and Kawabata's guitar tears through the top, by turns howling and receding. Critics have reached for comparisons to the scorched free-rock of Last Exit and to Public Image Ltd playing with the reflexes of a free-jazz unit.

This is music made entirely in the moment, ferocious but never formless, and it rewards loud, full attention. Recorded live and mixed by Guy Segers at Laboratoire Central in Brussels.

- "...[Kawabata is] a genuine Guitar God..." --Pitchfork
- "Hayward's interest in all manner of world rhythms and percussion... lent the music an otherworldly quality..." --Pitchfork
- "Darker and more bleakly melodramatic, bassist Guy Segers... establishes a link between UZ and avant-art rocksters Magma." --All About Jazz