Minimalism is usually cool, detached, frictionless and mathematical. The music made by percussionist Bex Burch is not any of these things. What she calls “messy minimalism” shares some characteristics with the music of Steve Reich and John Adams, but this is minimalism that isn’t afraid to break into a sweat and get its hands dirty (quite literally, given that Burch actually builds her own instruments from scratch). She mainly plays a gyil, a marimba-like tuned percussion instrument she learned while studying music in Ghana. She moves and pogos wildly while playing, as well she might, because her music really grooves, intersecting with sounds from Mali, Bali and Latin America.
