Thirty Three by Red Square (Jon Seagroatt, Ian Staples & Roger Telford)

Red Square is the pioneering group that Jon Seagroatt (Comus, Current 93), Ian Staples and Roger Telford formed in 1972. It broke up in 1978, before re-forming in 2008 as a result of renewed interest in the band’s pioneering bridging of the worlds of psychedelia, metal and free-jazz.

'Thirty Three' is the first of our post-reformation albums, released in 2008, and includes re-mastered tracks from our cassette albums "Paramusic' (1975), and 'Circuitry' (1976).

The groundwork for Red Square's sound was laid when Ian Staples and Jon Seagroatt began a musical collaboration in Southend-on-Sea, Essex in 1972, following encounters at a number of experimental music workshops.
Ian, fresh from the London underground scene, had been gigging regularly at the legendary Middle Earth Club in London with Ginger Johnson’s African Drummers, alongside, amongst others, Pink Floyd and Mark Bolan. He was working with tape multi-tracking, noise, psychedelia and action painting. Ian’s electric guitar playing was a revolutionary blend of Hendrix and Beefheart, with the sonic palettes of Derek Bailey and Stockhausen. He became adept at unleashing cunningly atonal guitar riffs, which referenced metal without ever becoming metal.
Likewise, Jon had been galvanised by the explorations of Johns Coltrane and Tchcai, Evan Parker, Steve Lacy, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, and also drew freely on groups such as Can, Faust, Weather Report, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Soft Machine.
Both of them were also heavily influenced by developments in contemporary ‘art’ music.
From the beginning of their collaboration they determined to improvise all of their music. Within a year they found a kindred spirit in drummer Roger Telford, a committed exponent of the free-jazz style of kit-playing being pioneered at the time by Milford Graves and Sunny Murray.
The central combination of electric guitar, amplified bass clarinet or soprano sax and drum kit gave Red Square a unique sound palette to explore, as well an instantly recognisable group sound.
The line up of Jon, Ian and Roger remained constant throughout the band’s original six year history, as did the commitment to total improvisation, but, given the group’s wide range of influences, their improvisations drew as much on avant-rock as they did on jazz or contemporary improvised music.
Live, they could be punishingly loud (one urban myth recounts that a Red Square set drowned out Cliff Richard who was playing at a venue half a mile away!). They frequently enjoyed a combative relationship with audiences. Their enthusiasm for playing inappropriate venues (including folk clubs and pub-rock dives), and their willingness to engage forcefully with hecklers led to a number of hurried back-door exits from gigs, and presaged the arrival of punk a few years later.
Red Square broke up in 1978.
Thirty years later, in 2008, the original band members were approached by FMR Records about releasing their old material. The three so enjoyed trawling through the reels of tape to choose album tracks that they decided to re-form, and began gigging once again, thirty years after last playing together as Red Square, and recording new choice cuts of elemental, genre-defying, avant-rock and outer-limit free-jazz rampaging.
Post-reformation dates have included the Vortex, Cafe Oto, Supernormal Festival, Resonance FM, Darkstar at the Dogstar, Oxford’s Klub Kakofanney, Southend’s Culture As A Dare Fringe Festival, Utrophia’s Cwm Festival, OCM at Modern Art Oxford, the Tinderbox Festival, Oxford Improvisors, Chatham’s Brutally Honest Club and Brighton’s On The Edge.

"Red Square's name implies radical zeal and angularity, both of which this... group possess in spades. Squiggles of Seagroatt's flutter-tongued, electrified woodwind plummet into a morass of white-heat fuzz guitar, strafed by Telford's drum arsenal'. It's a focused free-for-all - heavy rock with the safety catch off."
Rob Young, Wire magazine, April 2009

"Like me Red Square are post-everything and at war with the obvious. Actually they were post-everything when they were (free) formed in the 1970s, before "everything" had happened, so now I guess they are post-post-everything.' Tonight's phenomenal set is the first time that Jon Seagroatt, on bass clarinet and soprano sax, guitarist lan Staples, and percussionist Roger Telford have played together as Red Square since (the late 1970's).
'Red Square are the sonic manifestation of a Jackson Pollock painting: the longer you listen....the more you're sucked into the individual virtuoso layers coming together as a whole....as a live, breathtaking, experience, it's gig of the year. Genius!"
Paul Carrera, Nightshift magazine, April 2009

Jon is a current or former member of Comus, Current 93, Red Square & B So glObal and has toured and performed in Britain, Europe and the Far East.
He play variously soprano & tenor saxes, bass clarinet, flute, bass, keyboards, percussion and electronics.
Ian Staples is a former member of B So glObal and Red Square. He plays guitars, bass and electronics.

jonseagroatt.com