The Chemical Expansion League is the experimental, free improvising quartet featuring British Adam Bohman on amplified objects and prepared strings, Sue Lynch on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Adrian Northover on saxophones and electronics, and German double bass player Ulf Mengersen. This quartet began working in 2017 and released two studio albums with titles testifying about its absurdist, eccentric aesthetics – Grappling With The Orange Porpoise and Salute To The Rabid Raspberry (Creative Sources, 2020 and 2024).
The 24-minute Discovering Antiquities documents a live recording of The Chemical Expansion League with British artist, writer, and educator Sophie Sleigh-Johnson, who plays tapes, spoken word, and samples, at the Hundred Years Gallery in London in April 2024. Sleigh-Johnson recorded before with Bohman and Lynch (Orbit-Son, Infant Tree, 2024). Lynch did the cover artwork for Discovering Antiquities.
The outcome is a less absurdist and strangely coherent and patient mixture of scratched strings and objects, ethereal wind instruments, alien electronics, and eccentric samples. Sleigh-Johnson’s distant spoken word at the end of this piece adds a dark, vulnerable intensity to its conclusion.
As with all scatterArchive releases, it is offered with the pay-what-you-can-afford policy.
The Chemical Expansion League with Sophie Sleigh-Johnson – Discovering Antiquities (scatterArchive, 2026)
