Highlights from the second night of the inaugural Late Junction Festival, with sets by O Yama O, CURL and This Is Not This Heat. The first-ever Late Junction Festival came into the world last week - two nights of music from leading lights of the left-field, presented on stage at EartH in East London by our triple-threat: Verity Sharp, Max Reinhardt and Nick Luscombe. This podcast features highlights from the second night. O Yama O was started by musician and artist Rie Nakajima and Keiko Yamamoto, the co-founder of London’s top experimental music venue, Cafe OTO. Nakajima’s performance focuses on the use of found and kinetic objects, using modest items such as rice bowls, toys, clockwork, balloons and small motors as instruments to create a “micro orchestra”. Elements are layered into impressive and immersive atmospheres. Yamamoto alternately floats and charges through this with body and voice; chanting, incanting, thundering, whispering, stamping on the floor. For this special performance they are joined by Billy Steiger on violin, Marie Roux on drums and David Cunningham on electronics. CURL was founded in 2016 by three individual voices on London’s underground music scene - genre-crushing producer and composer Mica Levi a.k.a. Micachu, versatile multi-instrumentalist and DJ Coby Sey, and MC and vocalist Brother May. As a label and performance collective they embrace grime, jazz, experimental soundscapes and hip hop and were joined on stage by Leisha Thomas (a.k.a. Alpha Maid) and George Ramsay. British avant-garde rock group This Is Not This Heat is the new reincarnation of This Heat, which was formed by Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward over 40 years ago. Unleashing their signature sound from three guitarists, two drum kits and a bass, This Is Not This Heat create juggernaut-sized driving rhythms surrounded by swirls of fuzz and chugging guitar.

Verity Sharp presents highlights from the first night of the inaugural Late Junction Festival, with sets by Chaines, Gazelle Twin, Pulled By Magnets and Hen Ogledd. The first-ever Late Junction Festival came into the world last week - two nights of music from leading lights of the left-field, presented on stage at EartH in East London by our triple-threat: Verity Sharp, Max Reinhardt and Nick Luscombe. This podcast features highlights from the first night. Manchester-based musician Chaines performs their fantastical electro-acoustic compositions live on stage, weaving together flute, vocals and electronics. Electronic artist Gazelle Twin has developed a unique voice in the British musical landscape. Her latest LP Pastoral digs deep into the English psyche, channelling its darkness and lacing it with satire, all performed in a costume which is half court jester, half football hooligan. Drummer Seb Rochford’s new band Pulled By Magnets perform their first major venue with a set of new songs exploring the margins of composed and improvised music. The group features his long-time collaborator, saxophonist Pete Wareham (Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland) and bass-player, Neil Charles. Hen Ogledd is a band that features singer Richard Dawson and harpist Rhodri Davies, and they bring a discombobulating mix of psych-pop, medieval lore and improvisation to the party.

Japanese vocalist Hatis Noit and producer Kevin Richard Martin, aka The Bug, in an exclusive Late Junction collaboration session. Hatis Noit grew up in the remote surroundings of Shiretoko National Park on the Northern island of Japan. Since moving to London she has been signed to Erased Tapes and her ethereal voice combines influences of Buddhist chants, Bulgarian choirs and the Japanese Gagaku Orchestra. Over the last 20 years Kevin Richard Martin has moved between jazzcore, industrial hip hop, dub, noise and electronics to create shifting atmospheres with a love for the low end. He’s worked under several monikers but is perhaps most widely known as The Bug and as part of the group King Midas Sound.

70 years on from the HMT Empire Windrush’s arrival in Essex, a one-off Late Junction collaboration session explores the sonic reverberations of the Caribbean diaspora through UK culture. British/Trinidadian poet, novelist and musician Anthony Joseph is joined by artists from other disciplines. Saxophonist Jason Yarde is at the heart of the UK jazz scene but as a serial composer, arranger and collaborator his work extends far beyond this; multi-instrumentalist, composer and conductor Hannah Catherine Jones (a.k.a. Foxy Moron), is one of the winners of this year’s Oram awards that recognise innovation in music and sound by the next generation of women artists; and pioneering dub producer and multi-instrumentalist Dennis Bovell, a British reggae legend and one of the originators of Lovers Rock.

In a world of glowing screens and impenetrable CPUs, Late Junction presents a collaboration session where you can hear its inner workings, featuring two artists from the world of mechanical music. Pierre Bastien is a French composer and experimental musical instrument builder. For this session he assembled large meccano-style cogs to create rhythms, played prepared trumpet recorded onto a wax cylinder, used a fan and shredded paper for percussion and set up a circular system of flutes. Aleks Kolkowski is a composer obsessed with sound recording and reproduction techniques of the turn of the century. To the session he brought a rare antique phonograph, musical saw, a stroh violin (mechanically amplified by a metal horn) and a 1920s mechanical zither. Having never played together before the pair spent the day in BBC’s Maida Vale studios to create a sonically rich selection of new pieces exclusively for Late Junction.

The first encounter of three musicians from different corners of British experimental music, in session at the BBC's Maida Vale studios. Acclaimed dub poet and musician Roger Robinson describes himself as a 'British resident with a Trini sensibility'. His 2017 release 'Dog Heart City' was a firm Late Junction favourite, presenting tales of survival, division and widening inequality in London. Ben Vince - hailed as 'your new favourite avant-garde saxophonist' - comes from the southeast quarter of the capital. He has collaborated with the likes of Mica Levi and Housewives, looping arpeggios and riffs into dense layers. Drummer Mark Sanders has long been one of the UK's blue ribbon improvisers, noted among other things for his ability to move between free and hard-swinging rhythms. Produced by Jack Howson and Chris Elcombe for Reduced Listening.

The latest in the line of Late Junction collaboration sessions, in which musicians who have never met before get together in the BBC's Maida Vale studios to create spontaneous work in a day. On this occasion our unlikely fearsome threesome was made up of electronic producer Forest Swords, improvising clarinettist Waclaw Zimpel, and performance poet Belinda Zhawi. Also known as Matthew Barnes, Forest Swords is a Liverpool-born recording artist known for his emotional electronic music, blending appealing beats, looping guitar lines, manipulated samples, and dubby production. His collaborators to date have included How To Dress Well, Massive Attack, and Young Fathers. Originally from Poland and musically educated in Germany, Waclaw Zimpel takes inspiration from his travels around the world. Recent projects have seen traditional music of India, Japan, and Morocco filtered through his ferocious free-jazz style. Zimbabwean-born, London-based Belinda Zhawi is a writer, performer, and educator whose work often explores displacement, sexuality, gender, and intersectionality. She was the 2016/17 ICA Associate Poet and is currently working on her debut publication.

A 'man versus machine' collaboration session exploring the relationship between technology and creativity. Can we create a digital version of the ideal Late Junction collaborator using computer code alone? We find out whether a piece of software, with parameters designed specifically for the show, can hold its own improvising alongside one of the leading left-field musicians of the last 50 years, drummer Charles Hayward, an artist who is known for collaborating with musicians from across the musical spectrum. The interactive software Zamyatin has been developed by the musician Ollie Bown, and is inspired by cybernetics and complex systems science. It's at the forefront of automated improvisation in music, meaning it can respond to the music it hears in a flexible, unpredictable way. We put Zamyatin and Hayward head-to-monitor in the BBC's Maida Vale studios, turn the mics on and see what comes out.