Regular readers of tQ might remember that our friends at MUTEK helpfully had someone handy with a tape recorder to capture Factory Floor’s comeback set at the 2024 edition of the festival. Well, we’re happy to report that they’ve done done the same again, this time with one of our favourite collaborative duos – James Holden and Wacław Zimpel. The intense, beautiful and burbling set, with modular synths and saxophone dancing in all the bright ecstasy of a winter mountain stream, can be listened to on our Soundcloud below. ” i remember i really enjoyed this one, it was the first show we’d had for a little while and felt quite flowy, a nice connected feeling,” reflected James Holden, and his musical partner agrees: “I really loved it,” Wacław Zimpel says, “it’s always quite amazing to play again after longer break. Breaks gives a room for new ideas to grow spontaneously.” They both praise preceding sets by Yu Su and Valentina Magaletti for setting “a great vibe at the venue,” as Zimpeł puts it. It came on top of a fine stay in Montreal for the festival. “We immersed ourselves in the local cuisine – poutine – and then climbed the big hill. at the top a guy with a fluorescent cargo bike and a poodle in (also fluorescent) ankle warmers turned up, pumping 90s house out of a Bluetooth speaker. We felt like we’d completed Canada, achievement unlocked.”
Holden and Zimpel have a few further dates to play this year. How do they get ready for gigs given their geographical displacement? “Beyond checking the machines still work there’s not a lot of prep to do,” says Holden, “even in soundcheck i think we both avoid really committing to anything – it feels like it’s much more important to leave a lot of space, help let it to be free to take new shapes. The goal with these shows is for them to flow naturally and freely.”
Zimpel continues: “When you speak the same language you don’t need so much time to prepare, the same way you don’t need to prepare to talk with a friend you haven’t seen for a long time. We have our set of tools we created while working on the album and we are constantly developing them, but the essence of what we are doing is improvised and very natural to us. So preparation is as James said more about checking if everything is working on technical level, but we don’t need to worry about the music.”
James Holden and Wacław Zimpel play the following dates: 29 November 2025 at the elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; 30th November at Gretchen in Berlin, then on 19 February 2026 at Metronome, NCH, Dublin, Ireland. Thanks to Border Community and MUTEK for giving us the set recording.
