Heather Leigh – pst-g
Peter Brötzmann – as, ts, cl, trgt

Two fearless musicians capable of extreme dynamics and subtleties, Peter Brötzmann (reeds) and Heather Leigh (electric pedal steel guitar) began their musical partnership in May 2015 at the Tectonics Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. Since that time they’ve furthered their collaboration in Krakow, Poland playing several duo concerts and in collaboration with Joe McPhee, William Parker, Steve Noble and Peeter Uuskyla. In February 2016 they toured together playing Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and London’s Café OTO. In March 2016 they played at Peter Brötzmann’s 75th birthday celebrations alongside Han Bennink, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Toshinori Kondo, Steve Noble, John Edwards and Jason Adasiewicz. In April 2016 they toured the UK playing Glasgow, Manchester and Brighton. They’ll be touring the States together in May 2016 and playing many more shows and festivals throughout 2016. Together they bring countless decades of experience at the cutting edge of ferocious speed-of-thought improvisation and deep lyrical soul.

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The daughter of a coal miner, weaving a trail from West Virginia to Texas and now residing in Scotland, Heather Leigh furthers the vast unexplored reaches of pedal steel guitar. Her playing is as physical as it is phantom, combining spontaneous compositions with a feel for the full interaction of flesh with hallucinatory power sources. With a rare combination of sensitivity and strength, Leigh’s steel mainlines sanctified slide guitar and deforms it using hypnotic tone-implosions, juggling walls of bleeding amp tone with choral vocal constructs and wrenching single note ascensions. In late 2015, Heather Leigh released her first proper studio album, ‘I Abused Animal’ on Stephen O’Malley & Peter Rehberg’s Ideologic Organ/Editions Mego labels to widespread acclaim. Renowned as a fearless free improviser, ‘I Abused Animal’ is a breakthrough work showcasing Heather Leigh’s songwriting prowess, foregrounding her stunning voice and her innovations for the pedal steel guitar. Warmly recorded in a secret location in the English countryside, the album transmutes the power of her captivating live performances to a studio setting, capturing her tactile playing in full clarity while making devastating use of volume and space. Heather Leigh explores themes of abuse, sexual instinct, vulnerability, memory, shadow, fantasy, cruelty and projection across the album’s psychedelic hymnals. At times the intimacy of the recordings makes you feel like she’s singing directly into your ear, playing just for you.