Ensemble Nist-Nah returns to Ascension Church after their 2022 performance, bringing a bold and finely tuned approach to percussion and Gamelan-inspired instrumentation. Led by Nantes-based Australian drummer Will Guthrie, the group of eight musicians draws on Southeast Asian gong traditions, but with a focus on experimentation rather than reconstruction.
Their music is shaped by layered rhythms, metallic resonance, and a commitment to collective exploration. It’s intricate, physical, and open — neither traditional nor fixed — evolving with the players and the space they perform in.
Join us for an evening of striking sounds and shared focus in the unique setting of Ascension Church.
ENSEMBLE NIST-NAH
Charles Dubois, Paula Escobar, Will Guthrie, Irina Leach, Sven Michel, Julien Ouvrard, Ellen Pelé, Lou Voisin
Gamelan, percussion, drums
Formed in 2019 as a hybrid Gamelan / percussion ensemble, led by Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie. The music of Ensemble Nist-Nah is informed, influenced and inspired by various traditional musics from Indonesia and gong based musics from South east Asia, however the music aims to distances itself from dry academic discourse or questionable exoticism. Rather, sonic and interactive issues are at the forefront, and the band since it’s inception, has aimed to produce music that is continually evolving, relevant, respectful and adapting to the current members and their current interests. Ensemble Nist-Nah develops out of Guthrie’s extensive work with pitched percussion and resonant metals over the years, using gongs, singing bowls and bells as melodic and harmonic material, alongside polyrhythmic / poly-metric rhythmic possibilities.
The music presented is grounded in Guthrie’s travels in Indonesia and appreciation of various forms of Gamelan music, from the stately suspended temporality of the courtly Javanese Gamelan Sekatan, to the delirious, thuggish repetition that accompanies the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan, to the shimmering acoustic glitch of contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat. Though Guthrie is broadening his palette to explore Gamelan instrumentation and pay tribute to his love of this sophisticated yet elemental percussion music, the influences are rich and varied, taking into account Roscoe Mitchell’s percussion works, Henry Threadgill’s multi-directional improvisatory music, as well as cross cultural adventures from the likes of Trevor Watts, Michael Ranta and Mike Cooper.
Bringing together 8 musicians coming from eclectic and mixed backgrounds, Nist-Nah hosts a wealth of experience and expertise, and also regularly invites guests such as Jennifer Torrence, Sarah Hennies, Toma Gouband and Jessika Kenney. In 2024 the group enters into it’s second phase, bringing together younger Nantes based musicians, a new group and new music to go with it. In parallel to Nist-Nah’s artistic endeavours, various members of the group regularily organise workshops and teach Gamelan, using these incredible instruments and teaching possibilities, as a way to bring people together, old and young, beginner and advanced., and have taught in Universities, Prisons, Squats, Schools and community centres.
Production by Studio D’En Haut, Nantes, France.
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Will Guthrie is an Australian drummer / percussionist living in France. He plays solo using different combinations of drums, percussion, amplification and electronics, and leads the contemporary hybrid percussion / gamelan group ENSEMBLE NIST-NAH. His music has been released on labels such as Black Truffle, Editions Mego, Erstwhile, Clean Feed, Gaffer Records, Hasana Editions, 23five, iDEAL and his own label Antboy Music.
Guthrie first made a name for himself within the Australian jazz scene, establishing himself at a young age as a major presence by winning the Wangaratta National Jazz Awards for drums in 1997 and going on to perform with many of Australia’s most celebrated jazz musicians such as Mark Simmonds, Julien Wilson and Ren Walters. In the new millennium, his work took a long detour away from the drum kit through junk electronics, extreme amplification and electro-acoustic techniques, documented on a series of solo and collaborative recordings from these years.
Alongside continuing his electro-acoustic work, in the last decade, Guthrie has returned to the drums with a vengeance, developing a series of solo works marked by a radical single-mindedness, from relentless rhythmic workouts to earth-quaking explorations of the bass frequencies of gongs and other metal percussion instruments. In the crowded world of free jazz/improv percussion, Guthrie’s work is distinguished from the delicately pointillist approach of much European improvisation by its rhythmic sophistication, unashamed virtuosity and undeniable physicality, touching on aspects of world musics from Javanese gamelan to South Indian Carnatic music.
Ensemble Nist-Nah is a contemporary Gamelan / percussion ensemble led by France-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie. Nist-Nah explores Gamelan instrumentation, using the metallaphones, hand drums and gongs of Indonesia alongside drum kit, other percussion and objects, found and junk. Bringing together 9 of France’s finest, Ensemble Nist-Nah hosts a wealth of experience and expertise, with it’s members coming from eclectic and mixed backgrounds, from traditional musicians, contemporary percussionists, to noise and free jazz fanatics.
After more than two decades of Guthrie exploring the extremes of experimental drums and percussion (with the likes of Oren Ambarchi, Roscoe Mitchell, Mark Fell, Jean-Luc Guionnet), the music of Ensemble Nist-Nah aims to combine the rich, bright and lush sounds of Gamelan with his interests in free jazz, electro-acoustic music and diverse experimental music practices, exploring temperament play, extended techniques for percussion, and interlocking polyrhythmic and polymeric non metered pulse.
The music is grounded in Guthrie’s travels in Indonesia and his appreciation of various forms of Gamelan music, from the stately suspended temporality of the courtly Javanese Gamelan Sekatan, to the delirious, thuggish repetition that accompanies the Javanese trance ritual Jathilan, to the shimmering acoustic glitch of contemporary Balinese composer Dewa Alit and his Gamelan Salukat. Far from an exercise in exoticism, Ensemble Nist-Nah includes various members with extensive study history of Indonesian musics, namely Mark Lockett who studied with Sri Hastanto, I Wayan Loceng, I Nyoman Partha Gunawan and Arno Tuikman who studied with Ki Widodo Wilis a dhalang from Wonogiri and his son Whayu Thoyyib Pembayun.
Ensemble Nist-Nah will release their first collaborative album, entitled ‘Elders’ early 2022 on Black Truffle Records.