ALEX PAXTON

Composer. Improvising-trombonist.





Happy Music for Orchestra (  Out 28th April 2023)

puplished by Delphian

“A Magician of Sound.
classical-jazz sonic blasts ...violently overwhelming...I was seduced, and am not the only one
...digesting Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five band recordings, John Zorn’s Downtown experimentalism, Harrison Birtwistle’s brash blocks of sound, music of the Celtic oral tradition, Hildegard von Bingen’s medieval chants — and it all comes out, sometimes at once...carefully constructed ...forbiddingly dense it is balanced by its playfulness... hyperkinetic rainbow-hued...its joy and freedom.”
Financial Times (Happy Music for Orchestra Feature)

“Paxton will Make your ears ping..brings brightly coloured, loopy joy to our ears..sweet energy & frantic humour...It’s jazzy & noisy & oddly serious.” The Guardian (Fiona Maddocks- Happy Music for Orchestra Review)




iLolli-pop (October 2022)


“fantastically bananas free-jazz-orchestra maximalism ….. unmapped technicolour territory…. fantastical sound collages… like a cartoon rollercoaster… unfathomable glitching chaos…unique a vision as you might hear anywhere.” The Quietus
puplished by Non-classical



“Fantastic delirium...An effervescence of day glow energy that just can’t be resisted”
BBC 3 New Music Show, Tom service

puplished by
Birmingham Record company and NMC label


“In a dark, time this music will make you smile...antic experimentalism...This is the most joyous sound I’ve heard in ages!”
New York Times
“Classical-jazz sonic blasts meets video-game bleeps meets noise music...
violently overwhelming...I was seduced, and am not the only one.” Financial Times (Music for Bosch People)


“Paxton, Like Hieronymous Bosch, is one of those rare artists who manage to make a virtue of excess.
The turbulent and joyful spirit of his music bubbles up irrepressibly in his trombone playing, and courses torrentially though his flamboyantly unpredictable compositions. Paxton revels in unlikely ingredients and improbably combinations, wilfully contrived clashes and oblique correspondences. Listening to his restless, multidirectional, poly stylistic music, with its starling simultaneities, fleeting allusions, wild flourishes and bewildering lack of fixed centres, is exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. Clinging on to a clear sense of direction and well-defined form is simply not practicable. Yet these anarchically effusive pieces do hold together together. Surfing the crest of their exuberance is an extraordinary experience.” The Wire Magazine


Car-Pig




“Beauty comes in all shapes...genuine musical worth topped by the manic onslaught of Alex Paxton’s Car-Pig” The Times (Car-Pig)

Levels of Affection
NMC (November 2022)


Chamber Orchestra + improvising soloist
1.1.1.0 0.1.0.0 Perc. 2Pno 1.1.1.1.1

Philharmonia Orchestra

“extraordinary”
Tempo Magazine (levels of affection London Philharmonic Orchestra)


CORNCRACK DREAMS (2021)

(Alex Paxton with Nevis ensemble)
puplished by Non Classical label

“Really quirky, fun, dynamic…Wow! gives your senses a bit of shake. I tell you, I had to listen a number of times, absolutely terrific.”
James McDougall - BBC Radio 3


SOMTIMES VOICES (2021)

(Hyper Duo)Indigne de nou
Published by Everest Records



DADD’s Fairies

Six Degrees of Separation. London Symphony orchestra
Published by NMC

“a joyful mashup . . .such an engaging energy and Ivesian imagination” Planet Hugill







TELLSONG(2019)

(When I see a Disney Movie I’m reduced to salty tears)
Live at Listen Poney


“Manic, brilliant, beauty” Listen Poney

GO-PLAY

(2020)

Twenty Music for Piano