This brilliant quartet of German pianist, Achim Kaufmann; Canadian drummer, Dylan van der Schyff; Australian wind instrumentalist Jim Denley and Canadian trombonist Scott Thomson, was born out of the SoundOut festival's dedication to the creation of collaborative performances from all who attend. They were part of the 2020 line up, while the fires in around South Eastern Australia were still raging and before C19 hit - groupings like this, coming together from different continents, are now part of a pre-covid reality - maybe it will be some time before we see things like this again. Here we have four artists that embody the very essence of improvisational excellence, sensitivity, interplay, and deep listening on the international stage. From the moment this begins we are entranced by the delicate interplay, the sudden urges and vociferations, lines of ideas darting back and forth, and the deep palette of "Klangfarbe" employed by each artist that allows them to become one living organism of sound, together in the moment. "Luciferase" refers to the light-emitting enzyme responsible for the bioluminescence in fireflies, and we are using this term and photo, as an analogy of this performance. With the light of the fireflys beginning their twilght-night "performance", rising to illuminate random patterns of light, so too the artists bring forth not-so random patterns of ideas to illucidate this superb embodied intersubjective music.

Achim Kaufmann: Piano
Dylan van der Schyff: drums
Jim Denley: alto saxophone
Scott Thomson: trombone

Achim Kaufmann:
Achim Kaufmann is a pianist and composer currently based in Berlin who uses mixed techniques to create a fluctuating world of sounds and gestures. He studied music at the Conservatory in Cologne and also took classes with creative masters such as Dave Holland, Steve Coleman, Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, and Steve Lacy. He has lived in Cologne, Paris, and particularly in Amsterdam where he was based from 1996 to 2009, becoming part of the city’s internationally renowned improvised music scene. In 1998, he founded a quartet with reedist Michael Moore and percussionist John Hollenbeck. Since 2002, he has been touring internationally with Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode, an improvising trio which has released five CDs to much critical acclaim. Other working groups include grünen with Robert Landfermann and Christian Lillinger, SKEIN as well as duos with Michael Moore and percussionist Yorgos Dimitriadis. He and the poet and visual artist GDR Guenther have collaborated on a number of projects and founded the publishing platform for music and poetry, Trokaan. In their most recent Trokaan Project, they brought together an illustrious group of improvisors (Liz Allbee, Frank Gratkowski, Kazu Uchihashi, Richard Barrett, Wilbert deJoode, Gerry Hemingway) who have integrated aspects of chamber music, poetry, improvisational dialogue, electro-acoustic textures, full-blown free ensemble playing, and the occasional groove on their cd “13 Asperities” released in 2020. Kaufmann has also performed and/or recorded with Han Bennink, George Lewis, Mark Dresser, Paul Lovens, Tony Buck, Fay Victor, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Shelley Hirsch, Paul Rutherford, Steve Swallow, Jim Black, Thomas Lehn, Okkyung Lee, Axel Dörner, and many others. He was awarded the German SWR Jazz Award in 2001, and the prestigious Albert Mangelsdorff award in 2015.

Dylan van der Schyff:
Drummer/percussionist Dylan van der Schyff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and immigrated to Canada in the mid 1970’s. Since the early 90s he has been deeply involved in the field of improvised and experimental music, contributing to almost 200 recordings with artists such as: George Lewis, Joelle Léandre, Barry Guy, Dave Douglas, Mark Helias, Peggy Lee, Nicole Mitchell, Wayne Horvitz, Marilyn Crispell, Torsten Muller, Robin Holcolmb, Michael Moore, Rob Mazurek, Ken Vandermark, Paul Rutherford, John Butcher, Louis Sclavis, Mark Dresser, Achim Kaufmann, Wilbert De Joode, Tobias Delius, Cor Fuhler, and Rene Lussier. He has also appeared with Roswell Rudd, Kenny Werner, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Joe Lovano, Georg Graewe, Misha Mengelberg, Gary Peacock, Barre Phillips, Fred Frith, Ellery Eskelin, Satoko Fuji, and Sylvie Courvoisier and among many others. Between, 2014 and 2019, he curated the annual Vancouver Improvised Music Meeting. Dylan has performed in almost every major centre in Europe and North America including international festivals in Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid Stockholm, New York, Chicago, Montreal, Italy and Norway. Articles about his work have appeared in publications such as Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Chicago Reader, The Wire, and Coda. In addition to his activities as performer, Dylan also maintains an active academic career as a researcher in interdisciplinary musicology. His published work appears in journals that cover a broad spectrum of fields in the sciences and humanities. These include: Frontiers in Neuroscience; Phenomenology and Practice; Psychomusicology: Music Mind and Brain; Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; Frontiers in Psychology; Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education; Interference: A Journal of Audio Culture; and Psychology of Music. He has also contributed chapters to a number of edited editions, including Oxford University Press handbooks. He is currently leading a coauthored book project entitled Musical Bodies, Musical Minds: Enactive Cognition and the Meaning of Human Musicality. It will be published by the MIT Press in 2020. Between 2017-2019 Dylan was a SSHRC research fellow at the University of Oxford. Beginning in 2020 he will be Senior Lecturer in Jazz and Improvised Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. whirrboom.bandcamp.com/album/kamosc

Jim Denley:
Jim is one of Australia's foremost improvisers of new music and known for his improvisations on wind instruments and electronics. His radio work Collaborations, produced by ABC Radio National radio won the 1989 Prix Italia for radio production. He was a member of the group Machine for Making Sense with Rik Rue, Amanda Stewart, Chris Mann and Stevie Wishart and has performed in Australia, Europe, Japan and the US with artists such as Chris Abrahams, Clare Cooper, Keith Rowe, Joel Stern, Robbie Avenaim, Jon Rose, John Butcher, Otomo Yoshihide, Fred Frith, Phil Niblock, Trey Spruance, Clayton Thomas, Tess de Quincy, Axel Dörner, Adam Sussman, Ami Yoshida, Oren Ambarchi, Tony Buck, Ikue Mori, Sachiko M, Malcolm Goldstein, Michael Sheridan and Annette Krebs. soundcloud.com/jim-denley youtu.be/eTTsouLU8AA
splitrec.bandcamp.com/album/submental

Scott Thomson:
Scott Thomson is a trombonist and composer based in Montreal. His songs on texts by others for singer and dance artist, Susanna Hood, have been played in many contexts, some involving her choreography. Monicker (with Arthur Bull and Roger Turner) shows Scott’s ongoing commitment to open improvisation. As a collaborator, he contributes to the Ratchet Orchestra, Woody Epps’s Togetherness, and Ensemble SuperMusique, among other groups and projects. He co-founded and co-directed the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto 2004-09, and co-directed the AIMToronto Orchestra, formed for a project with Anthony Braxton in 2007. In 2016, he convened the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra to work with Roscoe Mitchell. Scott founded Somewhere There, a Toronto venue that hosted 850 concerts during his tenure, 2007-10. He has made site-specific works for mobile musicians and audiences in unconventional contexts including, notably, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Scott programs the Guelph Jazz Festival with Karen Ng.