Lesley Mok, Koof Ibi & LN Celestine
Ice Box Project Space
1400 N American St.
Philadelphia
July 30, 2026
Initially founded and operated out of San Francisco by Steven Tobin in 2001, Fire Museum Presents put down roots in Philadelphia in 2007 and has been presenting some of the city’s most creative and inspired concerts ever since. On July 30, Fire Museum Presents collaborated with Ice Box Project Space to host a three-act lineup of musicians exploring the joys of composition through improvisation. Drummer Lesley Mok, trumpeter Koof Ibi and violinist LN Celestine are all high level improvisers who use looping, sampling, effects and electronics to conjure otherworldly sounds from conventional instruments.
LN Celestine set things off with the first set of the evening. Seated on the floor in front of the crowd, LN built an ominous hum that felt like waves slowly lapping against coastal rocks. Before long, LN was adding vocal sounds and playing and looping higher pitched notes from their violin. No sound was fighting for the foreground; instead each melded together beautifully within the spatial contours of the loop. Next, Lesley Mok took center stage, seated at the drum kit surrounded by bells, a MIDI controller and a computer. Mok’s set was a revelation, combining jazz drumming with a free improvisational approach that assured that the audience’s ears could never rest comfortably without being taken in exciting and unexpected directions. In a shocking display of control, Mok’s flurries of brushwork on the snare and cymbal were rapidly firing, but the music they played was achingly quiet. Throughout Mok’s long, unbroken performance, the intensity of the cymbals and mallet-struck toms looped and fedback until the room was completely enveloped in a low, thunderous rumble.
Koof Ibi’s gorgeous set of improvised ambient jazz sprung from the same genetic family tree as Miles Davis' “In A Silent Way/He Loved Him Madly” and Graham Haynes Tones for the 21st Century. He started off by playing a soft and quiet motif on kalimba, looping the foundational melodic before adding high pitched sounds on top. At times, he would coat the kalimba in delay effects, each looping repeating until they became inextricably entangled. Koof’s muted trumpet added a ghostly and at times mournful melodic quality. His octave pedal (or a pitch-shifter) allowed him to occasionally blast the room with impossibly rich and deep low tones. There’s something truly exciting about witnessing gifted musicians fully create on the spot. Above all, this evening proved that music that is made up in the moment is just as purposeful and intentional as that which has been written down on the page.
