Otto Willberg

Otto Willberg is a bassist, improviser and composer whose work moves between free improvisation, experimental music and sound art. He plays double bass and electric bass and has developed a distinctive solo approach combining filtered bass harmonica, electric bass and live processing. His work also explores the acoustic behaviour of performance spaces and everyday listening environments.

An active figure in British and European experimental music, Willberg has worked with Laurie Tompkins in Yes Indeed and Charles Hayward in Abstract Concrete, and has performed with Pat Thomas, Evan Parker, Steve Noble, Hannah Marshall and Alex Ward. His projects include Historically Fucked and Bootleg Spatial Recall, an archive of reverberation in public spaces developed through Sound and Music's New Voices programme. His solo album The Leisure Principle appeared on Black Truffle in 2023.

On Creative Sources, Willberg plays double bass on Aggregate Glows in the Cold (CS706), recorded at Rogue Studios in Manchester in February 2020. The quintet brings together David Birchall on electric guitar, Adam Fairhall on accordion, Michael Perrett and Yoni Silver on bass clarinets, and Willberg on double bass. Their collective improvisation explores changes in density, acoustic resonance and the relationships between instruments.