Sam Ospovat's Expressive Olympics - Blight Music release at Donau115
Schedule
Sat, 01 Nov, 2025 at 08:30 pm
UTC+01:00Location
Donaustraße 115, 12043 Berlin, Germany | Berlin, BE
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LISTEN:www.samospovat.com
https://samospovat.bandcamp.com/album/blight-music
https://samply.app/p/9JcoJrXvPutOButcuoII
Sam Ospovat - drums
Tim Dahl - fretless electric bass
Rieko Okuda - piano
Jeremy Viner - tenor saxophone
Michael Attias - alto saxophone
The NYTimes has called drummer Sam Ospovat's music “...prismatic, oddly seductive...inspired by the 12-tone modern classical composers, the snarled energies of math rock and the rough-riding vigor of jazz improvising.”
His transatlantic ensemble Expressive Olympics returns to Berlin supporting a new album - Blight Music - out October 31st on Eclipse Music.
This Donau115 performance will feature some of the fiercest voices on the NYC and Berlin scenes, inlcuding bassist Tim Dahl, pianist Rieko Okuda, and saxophonists Jeremy Viner and Michaël Attias.
The new release - Blight Music - is uncompromisingly visceral jazz, recorded in a burned out waterfront warehouse in Brooklyn’s Bush Terminal where New York’s monumental past, combustible now, and polyrhythmic future collide in the reverberations from the concrete pillars and six meter ceilings.
An excerpt from pianist Matt Mitchell’s liner notes offers a primer for the evening's music:
’’People discuss “intensity” in music as if this quality is self-evident—and often it is. This music is definitely intense, and in many of the obvious ways: volume, density of information, texture. It “goes.” But Sam’s music also has intensity of purpose, a concept that I am pretty sure is inherent to all music that I value —the aforementioned urgent mission. Rigor is definitely present here, especially on the rhythmic front; this is a predilection Sam and I have long shared, one that drew us together in the first place. Paired with this is the need to blast through any preciousness perceived within rigor…Obviously this is where the improvising comes in. One of the draws for me with Sam’s music is the wide berth it grants the musicians amidst the interplay of his novel compositional conceits and the way he exhorts us to spontaneously engage with them via his multidirectional and powerful drumming. Intense, and also intense. On top of all this is the opportunity to do all this with a collection of the most unremittingly bad mofos around. This sort of intensity of purpose can seem rare, even when music is your life and you’re devoted to consuming, contemplating, or creating it. Regardless of the depth and breadth of one’s personal pantheon, there is always a feeling of having found a treasure when hitting upon something that intersects with one’s aesthetic values. This “goes.”
Thanks.
-Matt Mitchell
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Where is it happening?
Donaustraße 115, 12043 Berlin, Germany, Donaustraße 115, 12043 Berlin, Deutschland, Berlin, GermanyEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
