I’m pleased to announce the next edition of Mercury Over Maps at Hill Station Cafe and Venue!
Please join us!
More information: http://billthompson.org/aka_prof_lofi/mercury-over-maps-25
Mercury Over Maps #25
DOMINIC LASH,BILL THOMPSON and COLIN WEBSTER
DOMINIC LASH – Double bass
London based saxophonist Colin Webster is quickly establishing himself on the European avant garde scene. Collaborating with some of the key figures in improvised and experimental music, Webster is known for working from extreme sonic palettes – from minimal to maximal, constantly pushing boundaries.
“Webster belongs in a long line of sharp-toned alto players, and while he rarely explores the freakish registers of a Kaoru Abe, he could remind you, at different moments, of people like John Zorn, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Anthony Braxton or even Jackie McLean.
There is this ‘punk’ spirit in his playing as well, an unfettered abundance, but he never sounds like a loose cannon. Webster has become a razor-sharp thinker who keeps the link between thought and execution as short as possible, spraying his barrage of stuttering and sputtering morsels of sound with a fearsome precision, as if there is some formal structure behind his freedom.”
– Guy Peters (taken from the liner notes to ‘New Invention’).
BILL THOMPSON – No Input Guitar Pedals
Bill Thompson is a sound artist and composer. He performs regularly as a soloist as well as in a number of groups including The Seen, zerøspace, and Airfield (with Ian Spink), and duos with Ian Stonehouse, Phil Durrant, and Yoni Silver. Past collaborations include performances with Keith Rowe, Faust, EXAUDI and others.
Although originally trained as a guitarist, Thompson has worked with live electronics for the better part of 15 years. In recent years he has returned to guitar using one built by Moog combining it with electronics with miscellaneous tabletop devices, found objects, flashing lights, and the occasional vibrator.
He has earned numerous awards and commissions including the PRS for New Music ATOM award, the GAVAA visual arts award, a PRS for New Music Three Festival commission, the 2010 Aberdeen Visual Arts Award, and was nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Award.
ALICE BOYD – Laptop and electronics
Alice Boyd is a South London-based musician, sound artist and audio producer whose work explores our relationship with the natural world through song, field recording and immersive listening.
Blending folk-inspired harmonies with ambient electronics and environmental sound, she creates work that reveals the hidden textures of everyday places – from endangered birdsong and underwater life to urban spaces and sounds lost to time.
Her work spans music, spatial audio installations and broadcast, with features on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 6 Music, and presentations at venues including the Barbican Conservatory, Kings Place, Kew’s Wakehurst and the Eden Project, where she was artist-in-residence.
She is the creator of the BBC Radio 4 documentary Shifting Soundscapes and produces Found Sounds for Ffern’s podcast As the Season Turns, with other recent collaborations including the RSPB, EarthPercent, Knepp Rewilding and TOAST. In 2025-26, she supported Yann Tiersen on his European tour, with a performance combining voice, synths, live looping and field recordings.
Mercury Over Maps is an extended residency by Bill Thompson featuring performances, installations and talks with various collaborators and guest artists.