ADJUNCT Ensemble is a fluid collective of musicians and artists led by composer and producer Jamie Thompson who quarries the seams between electroacoustic, jazz, electronica, classical, and art-pop musics. (Jamie previously worked under the psuedonym James Joys). His restless approach to exploratory music has seen him write works for choir and electronics, opera singers and experimental turntablists, jazz punk trios and spoken word poets, installations, as well as releasing kaleidoscopic techno singles and albums of what he calls “electroacoustic rave entropy”. Jamie is also one half of avant-pop crooners Ex-Isles, who will release their second album in 2022.

ADJUNCT Ensemble’s debut gig as a live septet was at Belfast’s Brilliant Corners in March 2022, and featured Elliot Galvin on keys, spoken word poet Felispeaks, Sam Comerford and Kevin Lawless on woodwinds, Stephen Davis on drums, John Pope on bass, and Mike Soper on trumpet. The ensemble takes its initial cues from Zappa, Threadgill, Rob Muzurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, and Matana Roberts’ notion of “panoramic sonic quilting”, as well as early 70s film and TV music.

Jamie will release a series of five long-form works throughout 2022 and 2023 under the title Sovereign Bodies / Ritual Taxonomy. Situated at the intersections of notated composition, open/graphic notation, and studio-based composition, it is an expansive collaboration with turntablist Mariam Rezaei, jazz-punk trio Taupe, operatic soprano Amy Ni Fhearraigh, spoken word poet Felicia Olusanya (Felispeaks), and others. Its core texts are based on UK Home Office documents regarding the interrogation of asylum seekers and refugees, as well as documents from private linguistic analysis contractors Sprakab and Verified AB. The pieces situate themselves within the mutating sonic territories that account for the human populations’ murmurations across the earth, and against nativism, nationalism, and patriotism.