Bio
Marie‑Pierre Pérez sang on the album Cabaretto during her years as an actress in Paris and abroad.
Her encounter with flamenco dance led her to play music, opening a new artistic path. Later, in Brighton and Lewes, she met the SafeHouse, a collective of local improvising performers. This immersion in sound and listening gradually shaped her own artistic practice, and it is from this experience that Hexagone Ensemble emerged.
Nick Easterbrook played piano in a jazz vocal quartet, Volume 4, in the mid-1990s. He has regularly attended the Safehouse free improvised music sessions in Lewes since 2018 and participated in many of their lockdown recording sessions. During Covid he started writing and performing his own words and music and has an album on Bandcamp called Jump.
Iain Paxon – As a member of The Hexagone Ensemble, Iain Paxon explores spontaneous music making on drums and percussion, incorporating a variety of objects into his traditional drum kit. His previous solo performance and recorded work has utilised contact mic’d bicycles, guitars, piano and synthesisers; spanning genres of free improvisation, noise, ambient and experimental pop. His love of drama has led him to work as an accompanying musician to an improvised dance company for a number of years, and he has written various one man musicals. He is currently on chapter 45 of a long spontaneous bedtime story entitled Chloe and Joey, a tale of two siblings and their travels to Switzerland in a hot air balloon.
Gus Garside is a double bassist. In the past he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and theatre shows. He now mainly concentrates on improvised music, free jazz and contemporary music. Gus has played in several different groups and with many musicians including his longstanding string trio Arc 1988- 2025 (with Sylvia Hallett and Danny Kingshill). He has been on 23 albums to date including five highly acclaimed albums as part of the Ron Caines/Martin Archer Axis on the Discus Label and a duo album with the French saxophone player Hervé Perez (released on the New York 577 label in 2021). He has created structured improvisations for performance in the UK and Canada featuring leading players in both countries and has a current duo project with dancer Mim King. He is founding member of the Brighton Safehouse collective.
“…where he differs from the average jazz bassist is in the range of sonorities he conjures from his instrument”
– Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD.
John Hurn – Electric, acoustic, lap steel guitars, banjo, effects. He has played a diverse range of music (including country, jazz, free improvised, pop, African) in numerous gigging bands on and off since the 1970s in Bristol, London and the south coast, also touring with some of the bands in Britain, Ireland, Holland and West Africa. He first played free improvised music in late 70s and 80s as member of Bristol and London Musicians Co-ops. In Hexagone Ensemble he draws on all the above music.