Press room

Alfa Mist  
Sat 4 Dec 2021, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
Tickets £17.50 – 22.50 plus booking fee

East London producer, pianist, bandleader and one of the key players in the UK’s young and vibrant jazz reformation scene, Alfa Mist makes his Barbican debut this December alongside his band. He will be presenting new material from his fourth solo album Bring Backs (out on ANTI on 23 April 2021), which reveals a detailed exploration of his upbringing in musical form.

The album’s nine tracks of groove-based intricacies, lyrical solipsism and meandering fragmentations are tied together by a poem written by Hilary Thomas expressing the sensuous realities of building community in a new country. The album’s title refers to an aspect of a card game Alfa would play as a child.

First producing beats whilst at school in East Ham, Alfa Mist later discovered jazz inspired by the sample culture of hip-hop producers such as Hi-tek, Madlib and J Dilla. Delving deeper, he taught himself to play the piano by ear as a means to dissect these formative records’ harmonic intricacies. He gradually arrived at his own production style of hip-hop rhythms combined with the immediacy of jazz improvisation, all tied together with a pervasive sense of melody.

“There’s no access to jazz where I’m from,” Alfa says. “There’s no way I would have come to it without finding those hip-hop records and wanting to understand them.”

This performance is subject to government guidelines.

Produced by the Barbican

On sale to Barbican patrons and members on Thursday 15 April 2021
On general sale on Friday 16 April 2021
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The Barbican believes in creating space for people and ideas to connect through its international arts programme, community events and learning activity. To keep its programme accessible to everyone, and to keep investing in the artists it works with, the Barbican needs to raise more than 60% of its income through ticket sales, commercial activities and fundraising every year. Donations can be made here: barbican.org.uk/donate.