Brian Irvine has just been announced as the first ever Belfast music laureate.
I don’t know the composer’s classical side at all but his jazz side, a big part of the avant gardist’s early career is really on the button, like Django Bates-meets-Henry Threadgill with a dash of Zappa thrown in as a kind of sonic condiment. Bersudsky’s Machines was a real tonic when it came out, and live there’s so much energy and anarchy to his ensembles often rocking with an Ayler-esque wildness. Irvine’s new role involves undertaking “a series of artistic duties and activities” over the coming year. SG