There's a chance to hear Dominic Lash a couple of times over the next few days, with the highly rated improv and free-jazz bassist, best known for his work with Convergence Quartet, appearing firstly with his quartet in the Colston Hall foyer, Bristol, on Saturday 7 December (6pm); and then on Monday at the Vortex jazz club in London.

Lash has made his Babel label debut as a leader with Opabinia, a 10-track quartet album featuring Lash with pianist Alexander Hawkins (also Convergence, and Decoy), London-based Spanish drummer Javier Carmona, and Carmona's fellow countryman, the Madrid-born reeds player Ricardo Tejero who is also based in the UK. The exact personnel from the album play these dates. Lash was born in Cambridge in January 1980, graduated with a first class degree in English Literature from Oxford in 2002, and later was awarded a PhD from Brunel University, having studied the work of Derek Bailey, Helmut Lachenmann and JH Prynne.