David Birchall and SA Malley - NW and NE sonic pioneers combine forces to explore new territories, tooled up with electric guitars and short films.

David Birchall

David Birchall is a guitarist, free improviser, guitar teacher and organiser living in Manchester, UK.

He has performed in the UK, Europe, Russia, Palestine, USA & Japan. He has undertaken artist residencies at The Penthouse (2014, Manchester, UK) and Beppu Project (2017, Beppu, JP). His work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 6 Music, SWR in Germany, WFMU in the US & ABC in Australia. See performances for past live work.

He organises the Curious Ear series for improvised music in Manchester which he co-founded with Andrew Cheetham in 2017.

He worked as part of sound art duo Noise Orchestra with Vicky Clarke developing light to sound electronics for performance and installation. Noise Orchestra installations & workshops have been shown at Manchester Science Festival (Manchester UK), The Museum of 20C. Art (MAXXI Rome IT), The V&A (London, UK) and The National Media Museum (Bradford, UK). They have undertaken artist residencies at Q02 (Brussels, BE) STEIM (Amsterdam, NE) Pervasive Media Studios (Bristol, UK) and Fondazione Media Digitale (Rome, IT).

He was educated at Longslade Community College in Birstall, Leicestershire and has a BA in English Literature from The University of Manchester, a PGDE in post 16 education from The University of Bolton and an MA in Music (by Research) from The University of Huddersfield

He's still convinced the practical musical experiences of free improvisation and consensus/dialogue social forms it models offer us one of the best ways through all this.

Steve Malley

Steve Malley is a self-taught guitar player and singer from Northumberland in the North East of England. He plays electric guitar and sings in the avant-rock trio The Unit Ama. He also plays acoustic finger style and sings under the name The Horse Loom. Recent years have seen him take his love of improvised music and free-form expression to perform and record as SA Malley.

Steve has released recordings across the last 4 decades, has a couple of peel Sessions under his belt and he has toured extensively across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.

He has shared a stage with Fugazi, Martin Carthy, No Means No, Michael Chapman, Raymond MacDonald, Lungfish, Sir Richard Bishop, Daniel Higgs, Six Organs of Admittance and many, many more.