Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music presents: Valentina Magaletti w/ Steve Malley and Raymond MacDonald

Absolutely thrilled to announce that Valentina Magaletti, one of the most prolific, inventive and talented musicians working in experimental music, will be playing at Lubber. Valentina is behind some of our favourite music of the last decade whether thats in Holy Tongue, solo or in collaboration with others, and her record label is also a rich source of brilliant music. Its also fantastic to be a part of the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music - one of the longest standing festivals in the city which consistently champions experimental and avant-garde music! 

Valentina Magaletti is a drummer-composer and multi-instrumentalist. Magaletti's versatile technique, which can incorporate anything from vibes and marimba to contact microphones and found objects, results in a style that is forever evolving. Feeling just as comfortable performing behind a delicate ceramic kit as she does hammering out motorik rhythms, her creative take on percussion has resulted in an extremely diverse discography.

As a drummer, Magaletti moves effortlessly between the seemingly disparate worlds of alternative and mainstream music. She has played with artists such as Jandek, Pat Thomas, Deb Googe, Malcolm Mooney, Thurston Moore, Steve Beresford, Steve Shelley, Lafawndah, Mica Levi, Sampha, Kamasi Washington, and Nicolas Jaar to name a few. In addition to collaborating with the gamelan Ensemble Nist-Nah and drummers Malcom Catto, Julian Sartorius and Charles Hayward, she has played with stalwarts of the experimental underground scene like Gnod’s Marlene Ribeiro, Wire’s Graham Lewis, and Thighpaulsandra (Coil). In 2017, Valentina participated in The Can Project, standing in for the late Jaki Liebezeit, at London’s Barbican Centre.

Magaletti’s compositional credits are just as elaborate: with Tom Relleen, she was one half of Tomaga; with Al Wootton, she creates irresistible claustrophobic dub as Holy Tongue; with Pino Montecalvo, under the Avvitagalli alias, Valentina improvises intricate sonic collages; alongside percussionist João Pais Filipe, as CZN, she constructs hallucinatory rhythmic worlds, which are as fragile as they are eternal; with Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead, she plays as Moin.

W/

Steve Malley and Raymond MacDonald

Bringing together two distinctive and deeply individual musical voices, Raymond MacDonald and Steve Malley (Horse Loom/Unit Ama) create performances that draw audiences into an intimate narrative celebrating folk lyricism, jazz expressionism and contemporary sound exploration. MacDonald's internationally acclaimed saxophone work, renowned for its emotional depth, spontaneity, and fearless creativity, meets Malley's richly textured guitar playing in a musical dialogue that is both warm and expansive.

Malley weaves together alternative folk, spontaneous improvisation, and atmospheric storytelling into a deeply immersive musical landscape. Rooted in acoustic traditions yet unbound by convention, his work finds a compelling counterpart in MacDonald's soaring soundscapes, which draw on jazz, pop, and decades of genre- defying experimentation and whose playing has been characterised by The Wire as "mid period Albert Ayler hitchhiking in the Scottish highlands, yet melodically unique and utterly wild and free".

Drawing on a wealth of musical experience and a shared commitment to listening, risk-taking, and communication, the duo crafts music that unfolds in the moment. Their performances move effortlessly from delicate, atmospheric passages to powerful and immersive exchanges, revealing a unique musical language shaped by curiosity, trust, and imagination.

At once lyrical, adventurous, and deeply engaging, Raymond MacDonald and Steve Malley invite audiences into a world where melody, texture, and improvisation converge, creating music that is immediate, unpredictable, and profoundly human.