Bex Burch

Biography by Paul Bowler

Whether combining the rhythmic timbres of wood, metal and audience claps or duetting with the atmospheric and elegiac echoed sounds of water dripping into a metal basin, Bex Burch is a composer, percussionist, instrument maker and improviser who emphasises space, repetition and aspects of chaos. These themes characterise an ongoing approach she describes as “messy minimalism”.

Burch’s critically acclaimed 2023 debut solo album, 'There is only love and fear' was released via Chicago avant-garde label International Anthem and named The Guardian's Contemporary Album of the Month. She was nominated for the Deutscher Jazzpreis 2025, and has previously released music as part of Boing! with Leafcutter John, the Strut-released cosmic, boundary pushing quintet, Flock and critically acclaimed Vula Viel. She set up her own DIY label, runs the community music event, Kantine Musik, and has collaborated with influential artists like Peter Zummo, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Ben LaMar Gay, Dan Bitney and Macie Stewart.

Bex was invited to Ghana for an 18-month apprenticeship from 2008 in instrument-making with master gyil player Thomas Sekgura, a strong early influence and experience that gave her a deep-seated respect for the powerful Dagaare music as well as the confidence to pursue a path that reflected her own voice and the myriad strands and tastes of her creativity. A restless, questing spirit has informed her career since, from the open-hearted collaborations of her constantly shapeshifting musical releases to the creation of a new xylophone, a non-traditional instrument she handmade under Jamie Linwood’s mentorship, tuning its harmonics to maximise the resonances she wanted to hear.

Bex’s solo album 'There is only love and fear' was the first release to spring from the ongoing practice she began in April 2020 of asking herself “what sounds do I like today?” and was recorded over thirty-two days of improvised sessions in the US with some of Chicago and Los Angeles’ finest musicians. The music she and the collective made oscillates between modes of quiet open-heartedness and powerful expression while emphasising deep listening and intuitive reaction. Domestic sounds dance around the recording while an extreme-weather siren brought about by a heavy storm during sessions initiated its own live-wire, of-the-moment response. Neorealist field recordings of the natural world encountered over its gestation period lend an autobiographical air to a subtly arresting, spiritually enriching suite of music.

Bex’s restless creativity and desire to embrace new musical challenges has seen her music straddle the divergent worlds of minimalism, avant-garde, post-punk, and improvisation with equal success. Her new piece, ‘as yet untitled’, premiered at Los Angeles’ 2220, extends the palette of composition, found sounds and improvisatory messy minimalism, and forms part of a durational work Burch will pursue for the next 43 years.

Beyond writing and performing music and running her expanding record label, Bex mixes and produces records, curates radio shows and runs ‘Kantine Musik’, a regular live music happening born of the quiet “tradition” of making music that brings people together, for each other. All of Bex’s work embraces uncertainty, co-creation and the potential for music to connect in deep, unexpected and intuitive ways.