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TOOT
Phil
Minton • voice
Axel
Dörner • trumpet
Thomas Lehn • analogue synthesizer
© Dörner: Carina Khorkhordina, Minton: unkown, Lehn: Cyril Marcilhacy/Fondation Cartier
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about
'In TOOT, founded in May 1998, we find the singing legend Phil Minton and the almost one generation younger Axel Dörner, trumpet, and Thomas Lehn, analogue synthesizer - at present two of the most in demand German musicians in the field of contemporary improvised music.'
Electroacoustic music in the word by word sense, improvised with a sense for the unequal timelyness of density and emptiness, performed as dialectic of tension and release. Very largely, this micro micro music', writes the Cologne music journalist Felix Klopotek about the music of TOOT, a trio in which the spectacular British vocal artist Phil Minton meets two musicians of the recent generation of the German improvied music scene. Axel Dörner, born 1964, began his musical career with the piano study, before he changed to the trumpet at the beginning of the 90's. Since he moved to Berlin in 1994, he is as one of the most in demand trumpeter in Germany involved in an immense number of most different projects. Rooted in his background of being an interpreting and improvising pianist since many years, since the beginning 90ies Thomas Lehn works in the field of live electronic music using analogue synthesizers from the late sixties, which allow a direct access to the elements of the electronic sound synthesis and an extremely spontaneous interacting. Phil Minton began his artistic career first as trumpeter already in the middle of the 60's in the orchestra of Mike Westbrook, however soon appeared as vocalist and one of the expression-strongest and most famous improvisors of the European scene.
Since with the upcoming of Free Jazz in the sixties the musical sound was been expanded among other things into the field noise, the musicians thereby operated also a 'cult of the intensity'. This is not to be found in its original pure form in TOOT, appears however break-through-transcended, as a temporary, needle-eye-expressionistic contrast settings, embedded in the environment of sensitive and fragile creations of sounds of three musicians, whose individual creations of sound merge into one another and thus hardly are to be perceived still as voice, trumpet or synthesizer.
Nearly inaudible music streams through the real time-composed textures: air breaths out of a trumpet without forming a tone, and from a mouth, which gives stridulatory, groaning, hissing, howling, bubbling sounds of itself. Minton, the miracle of voice, can immitate each noise of its colleagues, also those 20 Hz tones and other sound substances of Lehns analogue synthesizer, whose electronic sounds are able to bridge the contradiction between technology and nature.
Like coincidentally developing rhythms disappear fast again in the nothing. The poetry of this music lies in its fragility....
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Discography
one | two
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one
released March 2nd, 2005 on Norwegian label SOFA
www.sofamusic.no/album/toot | sofa 518 | discogs | bandcamp
track listing
1. AR? (31:18)
2. EL? (4:23)
3. AH? (6:16)
4. MA? (12:41)
All tracks recorded by Thomas Lehn, edited and mastered by Axel Dörner and Thomas Lehn.
Track 1 recorded on November 13th, 2003 at Jazz D'Or Festival, Auditorium du Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France.
Track 2 & 3 recorded on January 23rd, 2003 at Grasland, Haarlem, The Netherlands.
Track 4 recorded on January 25th, 2003, OCCII, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Cover design by Håkon Kornstad.
liner notes by Sven-Åke Johansson :
I'm just reading «Maigret und der geheimnisvolle Kapitän» (Les Portes des Brumes, 1931), the plot is set somewhere out on the Breton coast, Quistreham or so; a sluice, gloomy rusty steamers, and a sailor's pub almost steadily veiled by fog; the characters of the drama communicate and find their ways by sounds which become plastic by the steady dampness; the visibility is poor.
Sometimes the beam of the lighthouse rotates shortly into the world of sounds, uncapable to bring light into the drama! Does Dorner's, Minton's and Lehn's «TOOT» perhaps mean the scarcely perceptible foghorn far out off the mole? They find their ways (almost) without help from any means of the repertoire of the «music's language», sometimes groping forward cautiously, but then - with knowledge of and familiarity with the other's soundsigns - again find a firmly closed common direction in the «dark». Great spaces are forming, expanses in the music, distances by means of various volumes, perceptible, firmly determinable smaller spaces by means of reverbaration!
After a while of listening the picture of a small foggy seaport is appearing, a plastic space with corners and angles, heights and rotten dangerous gangplanks - a sharply drawn story, full of suspense.
(English translation by Wulf Teichmann)
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two
released in 2008 on British label another timbre
www.anothertimbre.com/toottwo.html | at14 | discogs | bandcamp
track listing
1. ling (26:52)
2. klagen (27:22)
Track 1 recorded June 15th 2008 at Stadtbücherei, Esslingen, Germany.
Track 2 recorded May 24th 2005 at Künstlerhaus/Innenhofkultur, Klagenfurt, Austria.
All tracks recorded, mixed and mastered by Thomas Lehn.
Cover photo by Axel Dörner.
Thanks to Renate Luxemburger, Stadtbücherei Esslingen and Raimund Spöck.
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Reviews
TOOT consists of three improv stalwarts – vocalist Phil Minton, trumpeter Axel Dörner and analogue synthesizer wiz Thomas Lehn. Unique tooters all, together they find common ground by colliding at full tilt, backing off and taking another run at each other. These bursts of activity, initiated by a trumpet rasp, synth wave, or hiccup and squeal, congeal into vignettes that blossom or simply evaporate – outrageous dreamlike accidents that annoy or tickle the ear. Yet there are moments when, bolstered by spitfire synth squalls and vaporous brass, Minton's wheezes and groans evoke a near Shakespearean portrait of flawed, vexed humanity.
- The Wire
All three gentleman belong to the absolute finest in improvised in Europe, having played with almost anyone on the scene. The four captured live moments here show these qualities very well. Each piece is a highly dynamic affair, ranging from the subtle moments with lots of silence (which seem to be in a majority here) to more louder and upfront outbursts of energy. Certainly not 'easy' stuff, since whatever they do is beyond any form of traditional playing and requiresd ones full attention. But it will be rewarded by the beauty of it requires.
- Frans de Waard | Vital Weekly
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Links
Phil Minton www.philminton.co.uk
Axel Dörner www.axeldoerner.org
Thomas Lehn www.thomaslehn.com
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Downloads
Press photos
© Gérard
Rouy 300dpi
/ 2362 x 1575px / 1.3MB 
©
anonymous 300dpi / 1710 x 1192px / 104KB 
©
Ute Pinter 300dpi / 1716x1186px / 148KB ^
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tour dates
upcoming | past concerts
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upcoming concerts
Friday 23rd - Friday 30th October 2026
TOOT
with Phil Minton (voice), Axel Doerner (trumpet) and Thomas Lehn (analogue synthesizer)
Fri. October 23, – open –
Sat. October 24, – open –
Sun. October 25, – open –
Mon. October 26, – open –
Tue. October 27, Zürich @ Das Institut
Wed. October 28, – open –
Thu. October 29, – open –
Fri. October 30, Wiesbaden @ art.ist (tbc)
Please contact us for booking.
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past concerts
2012
Sat. March 3, Berlin @ exploratorium
2010
Thu. July 8, Kongsberg @ Energi Moella / Kongsberg Jazzfestival
2009
Fri. October 23, Kopenhagen @
Sun. October 18, Poitiers @ Jazz a Poitiers / Planetarium
Fri. January 30, Basel @ Gare du Nord / Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel
Wed. January 28, Schorndorf @ Club Manufaktur
2008
Sun. November 30, Colchester @ Arts Centre
Sat. November 29, Reading @ Sunrise
Fri. November 28, London @ Cafe Oto
Thu. November 27, Bristol @ Cube Cinema
Wed. November 26, Dartington @ College Of Arts
Sun. June 15, Esslingen @ Kutschersaal
2007
Sun. December 9, Leipzig @ naTo
Sat. December 8, Cologne @ Galerie Rachelhaferkamp
Fri. December 7, Heidelberg @ Deutsch-amerikanisches Institut
Sat. December 1, Tours @ Le Petit Faucheux / Festival Total Meeting
Fri. November 30, Le Havre @
Thu. November 29, Amsterdam @ STEIM
Wed. November 28, Montreuil @ Instants Chavires
Thu. May 10, Cologne @ Stadtgarten (with Evan Parker Electro Acoustic Ensemble)
2006
Sat. October 14, Gothenburg @ Atalante / Levande Musik
Fri. October 13, Stockholm @ Cafe Agueli
Thu. October 12, Malmoe @ Panora / FRIM Syd
Wed. October 11, Umeå @ Studion, Umeå Folkets Hus
Tue. October 10, Vaesterås @ CuLTUREN / Nya Perspektiv Festival
Sun. October 8, Liverpool @ St Brides Church / Frakture Festtival
Wed. August 30, Baden-Baden @ SWR Funkhaus Mainz
Sun. May 28, Cologne @ Kulturbunker
2005
Sun. June 12, Stommeln @ Alte Kirche St. Martin
Sat. April 16, Warsaw @ Klub Chlodna 25
Thu. March 24, Klagenfurt @ Cafe im Kuenstlerhaus / Verein Innenhofkultur
Wed. March 23, Bratislava @ A4 / Soundbridges Festival
Tue. March 22, Wien @ Fluc Mensa
Mon. March 21, Venice @ Teatro Fondamenta Nuove
Sun. March 20, Geneva @ Festival Archipel
Fri. March 18, Tarcento/Udine @ Hybrida
Thu. March 17, Enna @ Grottacalda Club / Curva Minore
Wed. March 16, Palermo @ Candelai / Curva Minore
Wed. March 9, St. Louis @ Christman Studio
Tue. March 8, Denver @ Denver University
Tue. March 8, Denver @ Dulcinea's 100th Monkey
Mon. March 7, Colorado Springs @ Smokebrush Gallery
Sat. February 26, Nickelsdorf @ Jazzgalerie
Fri. February 25, St. Johann in Tirol @ Alte Gerberei
2004
Mon. May 24, Novi Sad @ InterzonE Festival
2003
Thu. November 13, Strasbourg @ Jazz D´Or Festival
Sat. January 25, Amsterdam @ OCCII
Fri. January 24, Nijmegen @ Extrapool
Thu. January 23, Haarlem @ Grasland Studio
Wed. January 22, Tilburg @ Paradox
2002
Sun. January 27, Karlsruhe @ Badischer Kunstverein
Sat. January 26, Weikersheim @ Club W 71
Fri. January 25, Nantes @ Pannonica
Wed. January 23, Montreuil @ Instants Chavires
2001
Sun. December 2, Bremen @ Galerie Katrin Rabus
Fri. February 2, Berlin @ Kule
2000
Sat. July 22, Nickelsdorf @ Jazzgalerie / Festival Konfrontationen
Sun. July 16, Berlin @ Pappelallee house concert
1999
Wed. November 24, Berlin @ Die Küche
1998
Tue. May 5, Cologne @ kamue studio
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updated on October 16, 2025