Marey
Marey is an Icelandic duo that plays improvised experimental music mixed with electronics and poetry, where contemporary classical music, sound art, spoken word, and folk music meet.
They are two sisters: Anna Sóley and Lilja María. Anna Sóley plays the violin and sings, exploring soundscapes and extended techniques, using her voice at times between spoken words and singing. Lilja plays an instrument she designed called Hulda. They both design the electronics. For that, Anna mainly uses samples from Hulda, while Lilja works on a conceptual basis, taking inspiration from the poems and prose.
Lilja María is a composer, performer, and visual artist based in Iceland. She completed a PhD in composition from City, University of London. Her works have for example been performed at the festival eavesdropping in London, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage in Germany, Dark Music Days in Iceland, and New Music Dublin in Ireland. She is a member of the group Hlökk, and their album Hulduhljóð (2019) won the Kraumur Awards and was nominated for the Icelandic Music Awards. Lilja María released the audio-visual album Internal Human in 2022 in collaboration with dancer Inês Zinho Pinheiro.
Anna Sóley studied music and literature in Iceland and the Netherlands, graduating with a BA in jazz & pop vocal performance from the ArtEZ Conservatory in Arnhem and a Master’s degree in literature from Utrecht University. She released her debut album, Modern Age Ophelia, in 2022. Anna has performed around Europe both as a vocalist and violinist.“Composer of the repertoire, she sings in English and Icelandic, and leaves space for moments of improvisation and poetic-lyrical flights.” Matthieu Jouan for Citizen Jazz, writing about Anna Sóley’s Modern Age Ophelia Concert at the Reykjavík Jazz Festival.
Matt Clark
Matt Clark is a guitarist and improviser based in Brighton.
His work sidesteps traditional notions of harmony and melody, instead exploring the random and unexpected within improvisation around twelve tones, and the sonic possibilities of unorthodox techniques.
Long standing projects Simian Carbuncle (with Adrian Southby) and MC3 (with Charlotte Keeffe and James Edmunds) have proved fertile breeding grounds for experimentation, whilst recent collaborations with Annie Kerr and Toma Sapir as Larker, Gus Garside and Mark Wastell have led to ideas for frameworks, leading to more structured improvisations.
He regularly performs in Brighton and London with a number of collaborators and ensembles, and is a regular participant and member of Brighton’s Safehouse collective and London’s Mopomoso Improvised Music series. His music has been played on both local and national radio stations, including Resonance FM and BBC Radio 3
“Brave and experimental as if the boundaries have shifted somehow – anything is allowed, and as long as it makes sense – which this album does totally – it is okay.” – Sammy Stein (Review of Sounds of The City) on Free Jazz Collective
“This trio produces a version of free playing which uses familiar traces of music to give a frame to its more radical elements . This brings an appealing warmth and humor to the work, and is a far cry from the usual forbidding stereotypes given to free music...” – Jerome Wilson (review of Sounds Of The City) on allaboutjazz.com