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Alex Ward

Alex Ward was born in 1974. He is a composer, improviser, and performing musician. His primary instruments are clarinet and guitar, and he has also performed in public and on recordings on alto sax, piano/keyboards, bass guitar, and as a vocalist. He was based in Oxford from 1992-2000, and since then has lived in London.

His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. As an improviser, he was initially principally a clarinettist (sometimes also playing alto sax), but since 2000 he has also been active as an improvising guitarist. On both instruments, hIs longest-standing collaborations in this field have been with the drummer Steve Noble.

From 1993 to 2001, most of his activity as a composer took place in collaboration with Benjamin Hervé, mainly in the context of the rock band Camp Blackfoot. From 2002-2005, his writing was mostly done solo, and was primarily focused on songs. Since 2006, he has been heavily involved in both solo and collaborative composition, predominantly (though not exclusively) of instrumental music. Much of his writing and performing during this time has been done with Dead Days Beyond Help, a duo with drummer Jem Doulton. He has also led a number of bands including Alex Ward & The Dead Ends, Predicate, and his current ensembles Forebrace, The Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet, and Items 4 & 10.

He has been a member of many other groups including ensembles led by Eugene Chadbourne, Simon H. Fell and Duck Baker, and has also done various work as a session musician and in collaboration with other media. Since 2005, he has co-run the label Copepod Records with composer/performer Luke Barlow. He does the recording, mixing and/or mastering of most of his own music, and for many of the groups he plays in.

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7
Album Review

Alex Ward Item 4: Furthered

Read "Furthered" reviewed by John Sharpe


Is there anyone else who doubles on clarinet and electric guitar? Multi-instrumentalist Eliot Sharp perhaps, but it is an otherwise fairly exclusive arena, one which Alex Ward has occupied since 1989 when he was already performing with Derek Bailey's Company at age 15. While the guitar remains his axe of choice for the rockier end of his activities, he wields both instruments in his free improv encounters and also in forays into jazz and contemporary music adjacent composition.

5
Album Review

Dominic Lash, Alex Ward: Antonyms

Read "Antonyms" reviewed by John Sharpe


Can an album's contents be any less summed up by its title? While Antonyms suggests opposition, the collaboration between bassist Dominic Lash and clarinetist & guitarist Alex Ward evidences rather more empathy than contradiction. That is unsurprising given regular appearances in each other's bands as well as collective arenas going back at least to Barkingside (FMR, 2008). If the title is not referring to the principals, then perhaps it is the form of their encounters? Not really, as each brings ...

12
Album Review

Alex Ward: Gated

Read "Gated" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


British multi-instrumentalist Alex Ward plays everything but the kitchen sink on this thrilling solo effort, where he plays guitar, woodwinds, keys, electric bass and uses various software-based mechanisms, including drums. Well-known as a free improviser, the artist fuses electro parts with peppery horns choruses, wily solos on several instruments, jumbling drum patterns and clamorous distortion-laced guitar riffs. Ward is an avant-garde sound designer via odd metrics, and geometrical configurations that pounce on you and deflect off walls at ...

3
Album Review

Dominic Lash Quartet: Limulus

Read "Limulus" reviewed by John Sharpe


The third outing from British bassist Dominic Lash's Quartet continues in the vein of its predecessors, Opabinia (Babellabel, 2013) and Extremophile (Iluso, 2017), in respect of its eclecticism, but if anything is even more cohesive and successful as a result. Lash's crew remains unchanged comprising Alex Ward on electric guitar, and the Spanish pairing of Ricardo Tejero on alto saxophone and Javier Carmona on drums. The album, presenting a 2019 live performance from north London's Cafe Oto, constitutes the inaugural ...

3
Album Review

Pascal Marzan Alex Ward: (VU)

Read "(VU)" reviewed by John Eyles


Although (VU) is the first album on which guitarist Pascal Marzan and clarinetist & guitarist Alex Ward have collaborated as a duo, it comes as no surprise as (until Covid-19) each of them was a well-established repeat visitor to the late, great John Russell's monthly Mopomoso improvised music sessions at London's Vortex. (The YouTube clip below shows Marzan and Ward performing there together, in 2015, in a trio with cellist Alice Eldridge). In 2017, they were both among the musicians ...

2
Multiple Reviews

Three very different sides of Alex Ward

Read "Three very different sides of Alex Ward" reviewed by John Eyles


Having released his first album back in 1991--recorded when he was fifteen--clarinetist, saxophonist, guitarist, composer, improviser and band leader Alex Ward has kept up a steady and eclectic stream of releases ever since, averaging five a year since 2018. Among other things, he plays guitar, sings and co-writes the material in the duo Dead Days Beyond Help with drummer Jem Doulton, leads the bands Forebrace, Items 4 & 10, the Alex Ward Quintet and Sextet. Despite such productivity, Ward manages ...

1
Album Review

Alex Ward Item 10: Volition (Live at Café Oto)

Read "Volition (Live at Café Oto)" reviewed by John Eyles


Although he was already a member of a lengthy list of ensembles, led by himself or others, when composer, improviser, clarinetist and guitarist Alex Ward put together his Item 10 band he had new ideas in mind; the ten musicians would be a pool from which ensembles of various sizes could be drawn for different musical ends. In choosing the personnel of past groups Ward has shown an excellent knowledge of the players at his disposal from different backgrounds and ...

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Furthered

577 Records
2023

buy

Antonyms

Copepod Records
2022

buy

Limulus

Spoonhunt
2021

buy

Distinctions

Spoonhunt
2021

buy

Gated

Discus Music
2021

buy

(VU)

Copepod Records
2020

buy

Videos

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