Headfirst Editor's Pick
"Boundary pushing live nu-jazz meets algorithmically sliced hip-hop / broken beat. Fans of Prefuse 73, Robohands, Surprise Chef, DJ Harrison, Ishmael Ensemble, Waldo’s Gift; this is music tuned to your ears."
Join the Headfirst mailing list for our unbiased recommendations.
A gig held at The Jam Jar on Wednesday 5th April. The event starts at 20:00.
Move 78 are a Berlin-based jazz band consisting of Doron Segal (keyboards), Nir Sabag (drums), Hal Strewe (bass) and Aver (sampler/production).
The band’s music is crafted from hours of studio improvisations that have been chopped-up, rearranged, and enhanced with additional strings, flute and horns. This many-layered approach has helped create the band's signature sound: a balance between free-flowing jazz and automated, programmed hip-hop.
Move 78’s live performance is not just a replaying of this material, but rather an expansion of the band’s creative process, one where human reactions are provoked and augmented by technology. Starting with small clusters of samples and familiar sequences, the musicians feed off each other until the emerging musical patterns cascade together in harmony, creating new spontaneous compositions. Not only does Aver sample these sounds in real-time on stage but he also takes the atmospheric live recordings away and uses them as the basis for new studio ideas, forming a feedback loop of creation and learning.
Aver, Doron and Nir met in Berlin in 2017. They began hanging out as friends initially and would endlessly talk about music until eventually they began collaborating, the first instances of which can be found on “Dressed For CCTV”, Aver's second LP with UK-based label Village Live Records. Months before the album's release in 2018, the trio began rehearsing for live shows, re-working Aver's hip-hop instrumentals with a more jazz-oriented style. Later, Hal Strewe - a constant fixture in the Berlin jazz scene - was recruited on bass and Move 78 was formed. Across the band’s three main releases to date they have collaborated with over a dozen musicians from a wide range of backgrounds, be it the Chicago Jazz scene or the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
The band name is inspired by a famous Go match (an ancient Chinese board game) between Lee Sedol, the world champion of Go at the time, and a computer program named AlphaGo. Having been defeated in the first three games of the five-game match by his AI-powered opponent, Sedol stunned spectators and commentators by adapting and playing a move so strange that it completely baffled AlphaGo and its algorithms, leading the program to scramble for historical data to make sense of it. The move - which represented Sedol's human response adapting to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving technological world - was move 78.
Since 2021 Move 78 have released a 7” double a-side single, a 10” drum break record and two 12” studio albums: “The Algorithm Smiles Upon You” and “Automated Improvisation”. Both received national radio play in Germany, UK, France, Japan and USA, widespread play on internet stations such as Worldwide FM, NTS and NPR, as well as editorial playlisting on Spotify and Apple Music, with all their releases combined having received over 6 million streams. The band’s third studio album “Grains” is due for release Autumn 2023.
Aver also hosts the fortnightly Move 78 Show on Berlin community radio station Refuge Worldwide.
Entry requirements:
The band’s music is crafted from hours of studio improvisations that have been chopped-up, rearranged, and enhanced with additional strings, flute and horns. This many-layered approach has helped create the band's signature sound: a balance between free-flowing jazz and automated, programmed hip-hop.
Move 78’s live performance is not just a replaying of this material, but rather an expansion of the band’s creative process, one where human reactions are provoked and augmented by technology. Starting with small clusters of samples and familiar sequences, the musicians feed off each other until the emerging musical patterns cascade together in harmony, creating new spontaneous compositions. Not only does Aver sample these sounds in real-time on stage but he also takes the atmospheric live recordings away and uses them as the basis for new studio ideas, forming a feedback loop of creation and learning.
Aver, Doron and Nir met in Berlin in 2017. They began hanging out as friends initially and would endlessly talk about music until eventually they began collaborating, the first instances of which can be found on “Dressed For CCTV”, Aver's second LP with UK-based label Village Live Records. Months before the album's release in 2018, the trio began rehearsing for live shows, re-working Aver's hip-hop instrumentals with a more jazz-oriented style. Later, Hal Strewe - a constant fixture in the Berlin jazz scene - was recruited on bass and Move 78 was formed. Across the band’s three main releases to date they have collaborated with over a dozen musicians from a wide range of backgrounds, be it the Chicago Jazz scene or the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
The band name is inspired by a famous Go match (an ancient Chinese board game) between Lee Sedol, the world champion of Go at the time, and a computer program named AlphaGo. Having been defeated in the first three games of the five-game match by his AI-powered opponent, Sedol stunned spectators and commentators by adapting and playing a move so strange that it completely baffled AlphaGo and its algorithms, leading the program to scramble for historical data to make sense of it. The move - which represented Sedol's human response adapting to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving technological world - was move 78.
Since 2021 Move 78 have released a 7” double a-side single, a 10” drum break record and two 12” studio albums: “The Algorithm Smiles Upon You” and “Automated Improvisation”. Both received national radio play in Germany, UK, France, Japan and USA, widespread play on internet stations such as Worldwide FM, NTS and NPR, as well as editorial playlisting on Spotify and Apple Music, with all their releases combined having received over 6 million streams. The band’s third studio album “Grains” is due for release Autumn 2023.
Aver also hosts the fortnightly Move 78 Show on Berlin community radio station Refuge Worldwide.
Entry requirements:
Other afrobeat gigs
— Bristol Beacon
indie rock
psych
folk
folk-pop
jazz
