David Watson is a guitarist and bagpipe player living in New York. A founding member of Wellington’s Braille Collective in the 1980’s, he was a member of the seminal freejazz/improvisation band The Primitive Art Group and produced the extraordinary solo album ‘Reference’ on Braille Records. Moving to New York in the late 1980’s Watson became a fixture in the ‘Downtown’ scene, collaborating with such luminaries as John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Rhys Chatham, Makigami Koichi, Shelley Hirsch, Tony Buck, Frode Gjerstad, Chris Abrahams, Phil Niblock and many more.

In the 2000’s David Watson established the Altmusic Festival in Auckland with Robert Leonard and was responsible for bringing many leading eperimental music artists to NZ such as Tetuzi Akiyama, Jon Rose, Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M.

Beginning as a guitarist he now performs equally on Highland bagpipes and is one of the few exponents of improvised and experimental bagpipes in the world.

David Watson is joined by longtime associates Phil Dadson (invented instruments) and Jeff Henderson (drums).

Also performing is Paul Timings, a Wellington based sound artist who is using a musical programming interface to make field and other recordings into a series of digital drones.

Paul Timings is exhibiting a new sound work in the AF Gallery in August: more info

Saturday 5 August @ Audio Foundation, doors open 8.00pm
$10