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, producer 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 has previously released music as part of Boing! with Leafcutter John, and the Strut-released band Flock, a cosmic, boundary pushing quintet with Tamar Osborn and The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue. Burch also runs the label and post-punk band, Vula Viel, and has collaborated with influential artists like Peter Zummo, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Ben LaMar Gay, Dan Bitney and Macie Stewart.

Bex spent three years in Ghana, including an 18-month apprenticeship from 2008 in instrument-making with master gyil player Thomas Sekgura, a formative 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 personality. 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. During the pandemic she began a 90-day practice, “Dawn blessings”, which required her to make one piece of music daily in answer to the question: ‘what sounds do I like today?’

Bex’s solo album 'There is only love and fear' was the first release to spring from the ongoing Dawn Blessings and was recorded over thirty-two days of improvised sessions in the US with some of International Anthem’s finest musicians. Requested by Burch only to bring the sounds they liked – or even needed – in the moment of recording, 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. More solo and collaborative projects are promised soon as Bex’s wide-eyed approach to improvisation continues to evolve and break new musical ground.

Beyond writing and performing music and running her expanding record label, Bex mixes, produces records and curates radio shows. Her broadcasting work to date has included BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought, BBC6 Music’s Freakzone playlist, and Drummers Inc. for Worldwide FM, for whom she also produced a guest mix for Steve Reid Foundation Day.