Mandrake Club “Improvisations and Backgrounds” cassette (Hooker Vision)

Sympathy for improvisers… Since their first collaborative performance in November 2025, Mandrake Club’s Grant Evans and Matthew Kovacevich have been leaning further into operating as a clarinet and guitar free-improv unit. With a greater emphasis on space, and a wide open stereo field, “Improvisations and Backgrounds” occupies a territory somewhere between Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, and Henry Cow. Scraping, creaking, disjointed jams for strange days.