Names: Charles Hayward, Agathe Max, Roberto Sassi, Yoni Silver, Otto Willberg
Nationalities: British (Charles, Otto), French (Agathe), Israeli (Yoni), Italian (Roberto),
Current release: Abstract Concrete's self-titled debut album is scheduled for release on November 17th, 2023 via state51 conspiracy.

If you enjoyed this Abstract Concrete interview and would like to stay up to date with theirmusic, visit their official Instagram, and Soundcloud profiles.

Over the course of his career, Charles Hayward has played with a wide range of artists, including Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, and Makoto Kawabata.

[Read our Bill Laswell interview]
[Read our Fred Frith interview]
[Read our Makoto Kawabata interview]
[Read our Makoto Kawabata interview about his creative process]



What did you know about each other before working together? Describe your creative partner in a few words, please.

Charles: I am always keeping my ears open for exciting musicians to make music and all the players in Abstract Concrete are interesting and engaging and exciting to work with.

I knew all 4 of them from seeing them play and had already done a project with Roberto and Yoni. Abstract Concrete is more than a ‘project’, it’s a living breathing band and set for the long term.

Each of us seems to be the perfect musician for the music we make. I’m in heaven.

Which mode of collaboration do you prefer – and why?

Charles: I like musicians who are not stuck in composition or improvisation but can deal with multiple processes and switch inner space to make this happen.

All of us in Abstract Concrete can do that, we use that to develop the music in rehearsal and we use that approach live.

Tell me a bit about your current instruments and tools, please. In which way do they support creative exchange and collaborations with others?

Charles: My drums are a very slowly evolving situation, it feels like an extension of my body.

I let life and music intertwine, they are not separate. The instruments are not a problem other than keeping them in tune and chasing the sound in my head (which keeps changing).

Because I’ve played drums since childhood they pretty much take care of themselves and I don’t try to force that, it doesn’t work like that. So the thing that makes exchange happen is between the musicians and the audience.

Before you started making music together, did you in any form exchange concrete ideas, goals, or strategies? Generally speaking, what are your preferences when it comes to planning vs spontaneity in a collaboration?

Otto: I don’t remember there being a particular goal beyond playing together with the idea of making some good music.

I don’t have a preference towards any particular approach, whatever feels right and works for the moment. There’s also an element of getting to know the music and each other so well that you can be spontaneous within something structured and planned, on macro levels which makes it all feel relentlessly exciting.

Describe the process of working together, please. What was different from your expectations and what did the other add to the music?

Otto: One of the great things is not really having expectations. Everything is a discovery. And it’s a lovely feeling recognising that mutually in other’s too.

As soon as there are other people involved you can’t expect anything, just be constantly amazed at what we all do.

What tend to be the best collaborations in your opinion – those with artists you have a lot in common with or those where you have more differences? What happens when another musician take you outside of your comfort zone?

Roberto: Finding a common ground among the differences is probably at the very core of a collaboration and, stylistically speaking, I find that at the intersection of different musical languages is where a lot of very interesting stuff happens.

However, for me the final results are completely dependent on the chemistry that develops between the musicians involved which is mostly unknown until you are in it.

Differences or commonalities are then just elements of the equation. And I do hope that the process will take me outside my comfort zone as that is where I learn and progress.

Decisions between creatives often work without words. How did this process work in this case?

Roberto: I feel that in Abstract Concrete’s case, creative decisions have been taken very naturally by playing the material a lot without fear of changing elements of it or even revolutionizing the original idea.

The process is very fluid and quite simple actually: we play, we talk, we listen back to the music and we feedback to it.

The songs might go through many variations and each iteration we go through leaves something behind that will inform their final shape.

What are your thoughts on the need for compromise vs standing by one's convictions? How did you resolve potential disagreements in this collaboration?

Roberto: Creatively speaking, I believe that if you trust each other in the shared effort to creating something that is “more” than the sum of its single parts, then, in a way, concepts like compromise or personal conviction lose their reason to exist.

I think disagreements can be expected as part of the creative process but, as with any challenge, they also offer an opportunity for a dialogue and for improving/expanding the music.

Was this collaboration fun – does it need to be?

Yoni: I think I can speak for us all in saying that it was (and still is!). On a personal level we all get along, and musically we come from overlapping but different  worlds. Much of the enjoyment was discovering a new musical space that had emerged from our different contributions and that couldn’t have been created by any one of us.

I don’t think a collaboration necessarily has to be fun. I think some really interesting stuff could emerge from a non-fun environment. A lot of great music was created in an environment of tension, and even animosity. The only question is, is it worth it …

Is there a piece which shows the different aspects you each contributed to the process particularly clearly?

Charles: The music we make is about making a totality, so breaking tracks down into constituent parts and attributing different aspects to particular players sort of misses the point.

What’s so beautiful and exciting about Abstract Concrete is that we’re dissolving our individual sounds and attitudes into the music to make something beyond what we’ve already made.

Think of it like laying down all weapons and belief systems and building a context of cooperation and goodwill focused on making music to shake the city walls.

Do you find that at the end of this collaboration, you changed certain parts of your process or your outlook on certain creative aspects?

Yoni: Transitioning from the bass clarinet, which I had played during our initial rehearsals, to the keyboard allowed me to shift from inhabiting the upper (or outer) layers of the band’s sound world, if not quite to the very bottom, then at least to a kind of middle ground.

I was always a little jealous of drummers and bass players, who get to lay that musical ground-level upon which everything else is built (in certain kinds of music at least). Inhabiting this functional space naturally made me focus on different aspects of music making than I would have playing the bass clarinet or sax.

Collaborating with one's heroes can be a thrill or a cause for panic. Do you have any practical experience with this and what was it like?

Yoni: Last year Charles, Otto and I played an acoustic improvised gig as a trio (drums, double bass and bass clarinet). The experience was great, which led Charles to arrange another gig, this time as a quartet with Evan Parker on tenor sax. Neither I nor Otto had played with Evan before, and it was definitely in the ‘thrill’ category for me, especially because much of what I do on the bass clarinet (my main instrument) strongly relates to an aesthetic that he had essentially pioneered.

The musical and personal experience was beautiful, and this hero of many musicians was really one of the most down-to-earth attentive group players I’ve ever played with. He exuded personal and musical warmth and any slight apprehension I might have had going in, dissolved into thin air from the first second.

Now, I didn’t want to embarrass Charles here so I decided to speak of the experience with Evan Parker first, but obviously Charles himself is held in high regard by all the rest of us in the band. So I won’t go on about it, but suffice it to say that like Evan, Charles is not there for himself, but for the music.

And this immediately makes the experience of playing together into a thrill. Not because he is “Charles Hayward” but because he is a devoted partner in our mutual creation.