Lawrence Casserley & Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg

Mouth Wind
Hermes HD CD 012

Sainko Namchylak/Dickson Dee

Tea Opera

Leo Records CD LR 537

Experimental improvising enthuses creative listeners because most of the time no one literally knows what sounds will remerge next. Plus the juxtaposition of any two timbres can be utterly dissimilar depending on which players are involved. Few CDs illustrate this better than these sessions. Although both involve a single vocalist and an electronic musician, each is unique with few points of congruence.

Tuvan vocalist Sainko Namchylak has spent the past few decades adapting a variant of her country’s traditional singing to the rigors of hard-core improvisation with the likes of saxophonist Evan Parker and the Moscow Composers Orchestra, to pick two. Her partner on Tea Opera, recorded in Xiamen, China is Dickson Dee, who not only uses live electronics on the nine selections but also recorded the proceedings. A Chinese polymath who bounces among sampling, musique concrète and industrial noise, Dee has collaborated with players as different as guitarist Otomo Yoshihide and synthesizer player/vocalist Maja Ratkje.

While in many instances Namchylak’s tonal expressions are thought of the zenith of avant-garde vocalizing, at points she could be warbling schmaltzy ballads when compared to the verbal inflections emanating from Brussels-based Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. Individualistic throat, breath and tongue gymnastics are his stock-in-trade, with his mouth as much a sound source on Mouth Wind as Briton Lawrence Casserley’s signal processing instrument. An experienced electro-acoustic creator, Casserley frequently works with musicians ranging from Parker to American bassist Adam Linson. For his part Van Schouwburg has recorded with British guitarist John Russell and Italian saxophonist Gianni Mimmo.

With phaser-processed reverb and feedback often creating pedal-point percussion throughout, Van Schouwburg’s pharynx and oral cavity whistles, gurgles, retches and pauses appear alternately animal, human, mechanical or environmental. During the course of a single improv his glottis can approximate, Donald Duck-like quacks, comb-and-tissue paper strains, the soundtrack to constipation, a small child’s whimpers, unlimited yawning and garbled nonsense syllables. Similarly Casserley’s flanged oscillations can inflate to a solid drone or shrivel to the width of an aural nanosecond during the same period.

To get some idea of this, compare the title track and “Emergent Streams”. On the latter the reference would be to air streams rather than the watery ones, as the vocalist defines himself with harsh reflux and vibrating parlando. Feminized whispers echo as if they’re being reverberated in a spacious tunnel; during other periods it appears that an enfeebled elder is gutturally imparting secret wisdom to himself. Meantime Casserley’s real-time processing not only evokes blurry, metallic-sounding reverberations, but also at times sounds as if the electronics are dialoguing with Van Schouwburg’s throat motions. “Mouth Wind:” on the other hand is made up of a mélange of gurgles and heaves from the vocalist that masks a further collection of nonsense syllables. As Van Schouwburg tries on a variety of glottal extensions for size, ranging from this-side-of-insanity laughs, to off-key operatic-styled intonation, the granular backing is laced with flanged impulses and what sounds like the crackle of twisted aluminum foil.

Picking up on the Oriental reference cited in one quotation on Mouth Wind, Tea Opera is dedicated to China’s ancient tea culture and the myths that surround it. With the same amount of words used in this CD as the other – that is none – Namchylak has to suggest the intricacies and mythical qualities of the beverage with her voice. This she does remarkably, at time rolling bel-canto syllables around in her mouth as if they are life-affirming liquids, while Dee backs her with an undertow of dial-twisting buzzes and squeals.

Unlike Casserley and Van Schouwburg, Namchylak’s and Dee’s extruded textures are categorically separate. She may repeat phrases, yodel, gurgle or throat growl, but electronic and human tones are never confused. At the same time Dee’s processing is versatile enough so that his sequences touch on more than echoing flanges or signal-processed patches. Individual tracks show him adopting his instrument(s) to the spatial qualities of the room; others are out-and-out electronic experiments; and still others relate to other concepts. For instance the tough, fungible beats on “First Story could be linked to the sound of an army’s marching feet.

Moreover, at points, such as on “Eighth Story” computer buzzes are in your-face as the oscillating drones are met by shamanistic cries and low-pitched pants from the vocalist. Elsewhere Namchylak’s response is rhythmic spits as her initial hushed warbling challenge Dee creating what appear to be noises from a thunder sheet, radio-dialing signals and turntable scratching.

More generic to the mood the two try to reflect are tracks such as “Second Story” and “Fifth Story”. On both the non-vocal allusions are to traditional Chinese instruments. As Namchylak vocalizes the dissonant approximation of what may have been heard in the Imperial Court before 1900, the staccato grinds and strokes from Dee suggest the tones of the yangqin or hammered dulcimer. Pitches on “Fifth Story” may strike even closer to home for the vocalist, since mid-way through Dee’s signal-processed whistles and stentorian grunts combine into a roar not unlike that produced by the radung or elongated Tibetan brass horn. Lyrical soprano cries and guttural growls alternate from Namchylak’s throat as the vocalist makes her contribution to the dense wall-of-sound. Yangqin-like thumps and plinks subsequently created by electronics confirm both the 21st century modernity and timeless traditionalism of the track – and the disc.

Putting aside the obvious, the divide between these duo CDs isn’t Orientalized verses Europeanized improvising. Instead it’s a profound variance in conception and interpretation. That’s what makes both of them interesting.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Mouth: 1. Aque Nascote 2. Mouth “G” 3. Vent dans la Forêt 4. Viento a traves lo Trigo 5. Bouche “P” 6. Emergent Streams 7. Mond “M” 8. Vietor v doline 9. Betep no rophomy xpeõty 10. Száj “R” 11. Mouth Wind

Personnel: Mouth: Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument) and Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (voice)

Track Listing: Tea: 1. First Story 2. Second Story 3. Third Story 4. Fourth Story 5. Fifth Story 6. Sixth Story 7. Seventh Story 8. Eight Story 9. Ninth Story.

Personnel: Tea: Dickson Dee (live electronics) and Sainkho Namchylak (voice)

August 26, 2011

Festival Report:

Freedom of the City 2011
By Ken Waxman

Electronics, percussion and home-made instruments were prominently featured in many contexts during London’s annual Freedom of the City (FOTC) festival, April 30 to May 2. In spite of this, some outstanding performances involved the hyper-traditional piano or saxophone.

A snapshot of contemporary, mostly European, creative music, FOTC encompassed sounds as different as electronic processing from the likes of Adam Bohman and Lawrence Casserley; rarefied ensemble minimalism; unabashed free jazz from saxophonist Lionel Garcin’s and pianist Christine Wodrascka’s quartet; an entire evening devoted to the massive London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO); and pianist John Tilbury’s and bassist Michael Duch’s interpretations of Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman compositions.

Despite his air of sangfroid Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández created some of FOTC’s most emotional music during his solo set. Alternately tremolo and kinetic or gentled and understated, his cascading reverberations were produced from both inside and outside the piano frame. Repetitive, mid-range timbres were scratched on the inner harp or resulted from locked hands or forearm chording on the keyboard, with pedal pressing and bass clef ostinatos intensifying much of the vigor.

Accompanied by fellow Gauls Garcin, bassist Guillaume Viltard and British percussionist Tony Marsh, Wodrascka’s keyboard command was also outstanding. With patterned chording, positioned arpeggios and wide-ranging dynamics she maintained a high velocity narrative within an interface that, when the bassist struck his bow’s frog on the strings, the saxophonist tongue-slapped and the drummer thumped his sticks, seemed overwhelmingly percussive. Marsh’s shuffles and beats were normally unobtrusive, while Viltard’s sul tasto spanks involved the back as much as the front of the bass. Moving among soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, at points Garcin’s tones were almost identical to Viltard’s stops, elsewhere he projected aviary slurs, reed bites and stuttering reflux.

London’s John Butcher on soprano and tenor saxophone, in a trio with Berliners, percussionist Tony Buck and pianist Magda Mayas, and Oxford’s Tony Bevan playing bass saxophone in a duo with Orphy Robinson on steel drum, bells and marimbula, created more reed prestidigitation. As subtle as Garcin was strident, Butcher’s tessitura varied from chalumeau blows to coloratura circular breathing. Evolving in parallel to these vibrations, Buck’s cymbal scrapes and rim-shots revealed unique dissonance when paired with Mayas’ vibrations strings. Her marimba-like sounds resulted from see-sawing a wire among the piano’s internal strings or banging the instrument’s innards while pressing solidly on its pedals.

Manipulating his mammoth sax with the finesse of someone playing a recorder, Bevan spluttered out diaphragm vibrations that reflected the instrument’s ground-shaking power. It wasn’t all elephantine bellowing however. Supple breath and lip movement allowed for high-pitched staccato breaks and melodies puffed out with tenor saxophone-like facility and tone. Updating his simple instruments’ timbres, Robinson used them not as beat makers, but color-spreaders, resonating pliable vibrations and grace notes from the giant thumb-piano and staccato echoes from the steel drum.

An even wider range of unusual percussion textures was created in a first-time meeting of Steve Noble playing snare, cymbal and Chinese gong, and Paul Abbott using a self-invented collection of drums, cymbals, thunder sheet, different-sized speakers and a mixing board. Replicating the backbeat most drummers need a full kit to produce, Noble struck a small gong for emphasis, rubbed a cymbal onto his snare top, chafed drum heads with tambourines or used mallets to hammer an even smaller cymbal on a drum. Not only did he tap on drum rims, but cymbal sides as well. For his part Abbott responded with a looping electronic drone, interrupted only occasionally by feedback generated by enveloping a small speaker with a hollow floor tom.

In context, the playing of Robinson and Abbott offered more shading than that of France’s Toma Gouband. With a horizontal bass drum as a pedestal, he smashed together or smacked singly with drumsticks or a foot pedal a variety of rocks, stones and bricks, eventually hammering then with leafy tree branches.

Among other appealing uses of electronics was from the duo of veteran Cassidy, signal processing with keyboard and ipad, and young American bassist Adam Linson; plus a power trio made up of Bohman’s amplified objects, Pat Thomas’ synthesizer and Martin Hackett’s electronics. With signal-processed oscillations swelling in power while becoming more granular, Casserley’s strident and abstract textures created a context for Linson’s improvisations which often encompassing col legno sweeps and handfuls of strings pressed simultaneously. At some instances Casserley’s processes amplified bass thumps so that they sounded like marbles striking an unyielding surface; in others the bow movement and triggered sequences were indistinguishable. It was a credit to both players’ innate musicality that the oscillations helped the bassist’s narrative move forward.

Multiplying Casserley’s processes by three, arriving from different sound sources, gives an idea of the Bohman/Thomas/Hackett interface. With his synthesizer pre-programmed, Thomas improvised on the keyboard with free-jazz inflected glissandi, finger jabs and low-frequency vibrations that were somehow melodic at points. Hackett’s rising and falling ostinato cemented the triple connections, although occasionally interrupted by zigzagging outer-space-like whistling. With his table filled with miscellaneous gadgets including a water goblet and a light bulb, Bohman was the image of mad scientist at work even when he produced dense foghorn buzzes. This impression was intensified when he created the sets most stentorian moment, crossing wires for protracted feedback.

Those near-human cries emanating from Bohman’s electronics were paralleled by the retching, burbling, cawing, crying and other vocal extensions of Phil Minton, alongside German drummer Martin Blume and local cellist Marcio Mattos. Spasmodically jerking in his chair as his parlando encompassed mouth-and-throat extensions as characteristic as an old man’s wheeze, a young woman’s whispers and Bedlam shrieks, Minton’s individualized yowls made perfect sense in a concordance that included the cellist’s splayed plucks as well as the percussionist making points by smacking a bass drum, a cow bell and even a hollow wooden box. Minton’s vocalizing was better served in this context than the harmonies he directed from his eight-person, one-child, and one seeing-eye-dog Feral Singers which performed during an LIO interval. Like the orchestra itself, an all-star collection of top improvisers, the effect of both ensembles was that too many imaginative ideas were being offered up too quickly and too frequently from too many players, without proper differentiation or enough time to digest the individual creations.

Although billions throughout the world watched another event taking place in London that weekend: the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, FOTC remained an almost completely royalty-free zone. That is except for the sardonic comments of versatile trombonist Gail Brand. Flanked by drummer Mark Sanders’ subtle and clean technique and pianist Veryan Weston’s delicate clanking and busy chording, she climaxed a spectacular set by verbalizing her views. After slide-extended squeaks and snorts, sibilant tongue flutters, and long-breaths punctuated by the use of different mutes, she muttered “I hate the royal family”. Brand averred that she was further inconvenienced by city travel restrictions in place for crowd control during the days preceding the wedding. Luckily with FOTC, this audience could bypass those distractions to attend a notable musical happening.

--For New York City Jazz Record June 2011

June 10, 2011

David Sait

Sixty Interpretations of Sixty Seconds by Sixty Solo Improvisers
Apprise Records AP-04

As much a triumph of organization and timbral arrangement as music, this matchless CD is the result of a unique initiative by Toronto-based guzheng player David Sait. During 2009 and 2010 he solicited and collected original 60-second recordings from 60 improvisers he had played with or admired in the past, then knit the results into 10 separate tracks, each of which encompasses improvisations from six of the participants.

Considering that anyone hearing the results wouldn’t realize that each 60-second cut was recorded independently of the others, the suturing is almost faultless. Bearing in mind that contributions came from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Spain, Australia, Ukraine, France, Belarus, Finland, Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Serbia, Ireland and Italy, the idea that cerebral improvising is universal suggests itself as well.

To take one example, on “9”, the captured voices and textures processed from Ben Roberts’ altered turntables and cassettes in Spain, crackle in such a way that the linkage with Briton Helen Gough’s field recording is palpable. Then the distanced puffs and mouth kisses that characterize Argentinean trumpeter Leonel Kaplan`s improvisation segue into the old-time country music strokes from Canadian Gerry McGoldrick’s shamisen, bleeding into Ronny Kipper’s church organ fanfares in the U.K., and conclude with the pseudo cool and groovy rhythmic pulses created by the whistling and keyboard of Italy’s Alessando Alessandroni.

Premeditation did however go into the selection of tracks and musicians for each section by Sait. The string player, who has developed unique tunings for his guzheng, has in the past performed or recorded with among others, American percussionist Gino Robair – featured on this CD – British bassoonist Mick Beck and American guitarist Eugene Chadbourne – who aren’t. Initially contacting improvisers in batches, he analyzed the sounds that arrived, and, to ensure that the one style or instrumental family wasn’t over-represented, then decided on which other players to approach and include.

Catholic in final execution, so-called ethnic instruments such as Ukrainian tsymbaly and Greek oud share space with more conventional sound makers such as guitars, pianos and saxophones. Unusual juxtapositions illuminate the various tracks in addition, as when the pressurized breaths of American alto saxophonist Joe McPhee abut the kinetic, near-boogie-woogie tinkles of Canadian pianist Michael Snow; or when the decidedly primitive clicks of Ireland’s Rob Coppard’s dedicated bones segue right into the modernist, but still non-tonal scrapes and bumps from Sweden’s Johannes Bergmark’s platform; with both textures fluently complemented by the slide guitar styling of the U.K.’s Philip Gibbs. Sait himself has only one 60-second solo, his multi-stringed plucks and resonations positioned between American Susan Alcorn’s pedal steel guitar twangs and the accordion-like pulsing of Pekko Käppi’s jouhikko from Finland.

This experiment may or may not be repeatable. But it certainly supplies novel and notable listening material with this CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. 1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111, 111111 2. 2, 22, 222, 2222, 22222, 222222 3. 3, 33, 333, 3333, 33333, 333333, 4. 4, 44, 444, 4444, 44444, 4444444 5. 5. 5. 55, 555, 5555, 55555, 555555 6. 6, 66, 666, 6666, 66666, 666666 7. 7, 77, 777, 7777, 77777, 777777 8. 8. 88. 888, 8888, 888888, 888888 9. 9, 99, 999, 9999, 99999, 999999 10. 10, 1010, 101010, 10101010, 1010101010, 101010101010

Personnel: 1. Linsey Pollak (rubber glove bagpipes); 11. Chas Smith (copper box); 111. Rachel Arnold (cello); 1111 Fatima Miranda (voice and field recordings); Todd Taylor (banjo) 2. Yurko Rafaliuk (tsymbaly); 22. Jeff Albert (trombone); 222. Laure Chailloux (diatonic accordion) 2222. Leon Gruenbaum (samchillian) 22222. Leanid Narushevich (guitar); 22222, Araz Salek (tar) 3. John Oswald (alto saxophone); 33. Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone); 333. Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar); 3333. David Sait (guzheng); 33333. Pekko Käppi (jouhikko); 333333. Andrea Centazzo (gong) 4. Misha Marks (prepared guitar); 44. Joana Sá (piano); 444. Martin Grütter (piano); 4444. Paul Dunmall (soprano saxophone); 44444. Joe Sorbara (drums and percussion); 444444. Kyle Bruckmann (oboe) 5. Damon Smith (field recordings, 7-string double bass and laptop) 55. Lawrence Casserley (monoharp, breath and signal processor) 555. John Butcher (soprano saxophone controlled feedback and piano resonator); 5555. Tom Boram (analog modular synthesizer); 55555. Ignatz (guitar, voice and drum); 555555. Helena Espvall (cello and effects) 6. Tim Hodgkinson (clarinet); 66. Beatrix Ward-Fernandez (theramin); 666. Christian Munthe (acoustic guitar); 6666. Mia Zabelka (violin and effects) 66666. Rayna Gellert (fiddle); 666666. Tobias Tinker (harpsichord) 7. Periklis Tsoukalas (oud); 77. Michael Keith (ukulele); 777. Szilárd Mezei (viola); 7777. Gino Robair (metal, glass, plastic, stone and motors); 77777 Joe McPhee (alto saxophone and voice); 777777 Michael Snow (piano) 8. Rob Coppard (bones) 88. Johannes Bergmark (platform ); 88. Philip Gibbs (slide guitar); 888. Aaron Ximm (field recording with broken radio); 88888. Philo Lenglet (prepared acoustic guitar) 888888. Carmel Raz (violin) 9. Ben Roberts (turntables and cassette decks) 99. Helena Gough (field recording); 999. Leonel Kaplan (trumpet) 9999. Gerry McGoldrick (shamisen); 99999. Ronny Krippner (church organ); 999999. Alessandro Alessandroni (keyboard and whistling) 10. Olivia De Prato (violin); 1010. Heribert Friedl (chair); 101010. Robin Hayward (microtonal tuba); 10101010. Bruno Duplant (bass); 1010101010. Mike Smith (hurdy gurdy); 101010101010. Paulo Chagas (oboe)

January 28, 2011

John Butcher Group

Somethingtobesaid
Weight of Wax WOW 02

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble

The Moment’s Energy

ECM 2066

Now that a large portion of improvised music is deliberately moving further away from its swing-blues roots and into an accommodation with New music, a few far-sighted so-called classical festivals have made a place for improvisers. Tellingly, both these captivating CDs featuring ensembles performing large-scale compositions by significant British saxophonists, were commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. More importantly, neither work is a jazz-classical cameo, but expansive enough to allow the composers’ ideas to be figuratively painted on a larger canvas, using an extended sonic palate.

Although Evan Parker, who sticks to soprano saxophone on The Moment’s Energy, and John Butcher, who plays tenor and soprano saxophones plus samples on Somethingtobesaid, are probably the U.K.’s best-known Free Music saxophonists, the range and organization of the other instruments here highlights their differing approach to orchestral creativity. The Moment’s Energy, for instance, is an electro-acoustic exploration and to this end six electronics-manipulators are part of the group, in addition to percussionist Paul Lytton and violinist Philipp Wachsmann – two long-time Parker associates – utilizing live electronics. On the acoustic side, Barcelona’s Agustí Fernández plays both acoustic and prepared piano; New York’s Ned Rothenberg clarinet and bass clarinet; and Peter Evans, another American, trumpet and piccolo trumpet.

Along with Parker, bassist Barry Guy and shô player Ko Ishikawa produce singular acoustic tones. But during the course of the suite, sound processing, sampling remixing and layering predominates, emanating from Lawrence Casserley’s signal processing instrument, Joel Ryan’s sampler and signal processor, Walter Prati’s computer processor plus the live electronics of Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer – who perform as Furt – and the sound projection of Marco Vecchi.

Somethingtobesaid on the other hand is nearly all acoustic, despite Butcher’s pre-recordings, Thomas Lehn’s analog synthesizer, Adam Linson’s bass and electronics and Dieb13’s turntables. Performed live at Huddersfield, sonic pleasure derives from trying to decipher which pulses are created electronically and which are the product of sophisticated extended techniques from Chris Burn’s piano, John Edward’s bass, Clare Cooper’s harp and guzheng and Gino Robair’s percussion and so-called energized surfaces.

Energized is a fine overall description for the CD, consisting of one long improvisation/composition, since gestures encompassing rubs, scraps, shuffles, plinks and strokes – usually fortissimo and staccatissimo – are layered into the piece. From the very beginning unvarying synthesized and oscillated peeps and pumps – not to mention captured voice replayed from the turntable or pre-recordings – reflectively pulse alongside clipped and sul ponticello swipes, slaps and wood-rending sounds from the bassists and guzheng player, plus piano glissandi and buzzing reed partials and tongue slaps. Often the sonic tautness is such that when Butcher plays a few measures in the common saxophone range, backed by Edwards’ slap bass, the effect is as upsetting as if a Renaissance harlequin had made a brief appearance in a Sci-Fi tale.

Although a collective work, space is also made for individual expression that never quite become solos or duos in the traditional sense. Around the seventh track indicator, for example, Burn compresses choruses of cascading keyboard runs and sweeping portamento notes in order to harmonically face off with electronic pulses and voltage vibrations from Lehn’s synthesizer. Afterwards he abruptly pumps out some quasi-stride-piano runs to accompany Butcher’s quacking reed timbres.

Earlier Robair’s crashes, bangs, cymbal slaps and bell-pealing plus freight-train shrills and resonating vibraharp strokes break through the blurry sound field to challenge the super-fast dial-twisting, in-and-out-stop-start flutters, clangs and flanges from the turntable and synthesizer. His energized surfaces as well as Lehn’s ring-modulator-like whooshes also serve as backdrop for curt, sparrow-like sibilant tweets and caws from Butcher. Subsequent reed-biting vibrations hook up with clattering from hard objects placed on and swept aside from the piano strings plus echoing cymbal crashes

Whether involved in pumping counterpoint in front of dense signal-processed crackling or circular-breathing alongside tremolo piano runs, Butcher’s unshaken aplomb while playing directs than concentrates the layers chromatically. Finally the various pitches and tones complete the sound circle.

Mixing live and processed tracks, The Moment’s Energy – recorded one year earlier in Huddersfield as well – is no less notable. Neither is Parkers playing any less self-possessed and energizing. But the other acoustic instruments are prominent as well, slashing holes in the quivering electronic pulses for their instruments’ textures, without upsetting the electro-acoustic balance.

Moving through the sixth and seventh variations on “The Moment’s Energy”, for instance, Guy’s spiccato rubs and pops evolve in double counterpoint with Wachsmann’s sul ponticello scratches and squeaks. As the fiddler’s cumulative timbres roll from the strings, processing exposes parallel violin lines which double and intersect with Wachsmann’s live sweeps. Meanwhile as the vector changes, Guy’s plucks and wood shaking are mixed with equivalent electronic melodic pulses. Later, after triggering signal processing – that is so sophisticated that together with the piano and horns it creates a wide-screen-like cinemascope-like coloration – Evans slurs low-key grace notes and accelerating pitch-slides as fungible organ-like electronic tones pulse beneath him.

Shortly before that Fernández’s extended interlude mixes low-frequency keyboard pitter-patter with stopped and strummed internal string vibrations as clouds of humming electronics splutter beside him. Sailing along harmonically, the pianist also riffs and rustles the keys, the resulting sounds of which are accompanied by rubbed drum tops and cymbals from Lytton.

Fernández’s sparkling glissandi meld with growling and snorting electronic blurs plus variable pitches loop at the top of “The Moment’s Energy II”. But the other timbres soon recede as Rothenberg’s a capella vibrations on bass clarinet accede to flying tongue slaps and affiliated renal resonance. As the undercurrent of buzzing reverb and processed oscillations simmer, the clarinetist is briefly joined by diaphragm vibrato from Parker, and then Rothenberg moves forward with growls and smears alongside hissing, blurry electro pulses, a cascade of plucked stops from Wachsmann and Guy, as well as fleet glissandi from the pianist.

Already celebrated for his playing, the strength of Parker’s composition and presentation is confirmed on “Incandescent Clouds”, one of two tracks recorded live. Here, the staccato, polytonal interaction between bubbling electronics, piano patterning and clipped bass lines is no more or less vivid than what is played on the tracks that mix live improv and electronics.

One can only hope that Huddersfield will continue to commission magnificent larger-group creations such as these from committed improvisers. The first-class creations Butcher and Parker produce on these CDs confirm the wisdom of earlier initiatives.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Moment: 1. The Moment’s Energy I 2. The Moment’s Energy II 3. The Moment’s Energy III 4. The Moment’s Energy IV 5. The Moment’s Energy V 6. The Moment’s Energy VI 7. The Moment’s Energy VII 8. Incandescent Clouds

Personnel: Moment: Peter Evans (trumpet and piccolo trumpet); Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi); Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Ko Ishikawa (shô); Philipp Wachsmann (violin and live electronics); Agustí Fernández (piano and prepared piano); Barry Guy (bass); Paul Lytton (percussion and live electronics): Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument); Joel Ryan (sample and signal processing); Walter Prati (computer processing); Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer (live electronics) and Marco Vecchi (sound)

Track Listing: Somethingtobesaid: 1. (08.14) 2. (07.47) 3. (05.26) 4. (09.48) 5. (06.36) 6. (06.01) 7. (02.14) 8. (09.07) 9. (04.12)

Personnel: Some: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and pre-recordings); Chris Burn (piano); Thomas Lehn (synthesizer); John Edwards (bass); Adam Linson (bass and electronics); Clare Cooper (harp and guzheng); Gino Robair (percussion) and Dieb 13 (turntables)

February 1, 2010

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble

The Moment’s Energy
ECM 2066

John Butcher Group

Somethingtobesaid

Weight of Wax WOW 02

Now that a large portion of improvised music is deliberately moving further away from its swing-blues roots and into an accommodation with New music, a few far-sighted so-called classical festivals have made a place for improvisers. Tellingly, both these captivating CDs featuring ensembles performing large-scale compositions by significant British saxophonists, were commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. More importantly, neither work is a jazz-classical cameo, but expansive enough to allow the composers’ ideas to be figuratively painted on a larger canvas, using an extended sonic palate.

Although Evan Parker, who sticks to soprano saxophone on The Moment’s Energy, and John Butcher, who plays tenor and soprano saxophones plus samples on Somethingtobesaid, are probably the U.K.’s best-known Free Music saxophonists, the range and organization of the other instruments here highlights their differing approach to orchestral creativity. The Moment’s Energy, for instance, is an electro-acoustic exploration and to this end six electronics-manipulators are part of the group, in addition to percussionist Paul Lytton and violinist Philipp Wachsmann – two long-time Parker associates – utilizing live electronics. On the acoustic side, Barcelona’s Agustí Fernández plays both acoustic and prepared piano; New York’s Ned Rothenberg clarinet and bass clarinet; and Peter Evans, another American, trumpet and piccolo trumpet.

Along with Parker, bassist Barry Guy and shô player Ko Ishikawa produce singular acoustic tones. But during the course of the suite, sound processing, sampling remixing and layering predominates, emanating from Lawrence Casserley’s signal processing instrument, Joel Ryan’s sampler and signal processor, Walter Prati’s computer processor plus the live electronics of Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer – who perform as Furt – and the sound projection of Marco Vecchi.

Somethingtobesaid on the other hand is nearly all acoustic, despite Butcher’s pre-recordings, Thomas Lehn’s analog synthesizer, Adam Linson’s bass and electronics and Dieb13’s turntables. Performed live at Huddersfield, sonic pleasure derives from trying to decipher which pulses are created electronically and which are the product of sophisticated extended techniques from Chris Burn’s piano, John Edward’s bass, Clare Cooper’s harp and guzheng and Gino Robair’s percussion and so-called energized surfaces.

Energized is a fine overall description for the CD, consisting of one long improvisation/composition, since gestures encompassing rubs, scraps, shuffles, plinks and strokes – usually fortissimo and staccatissimo – are layered into the piece. From the very beginning unvarying synthesized and oscillated peeps and pumps – not to mention captured voice replayed from the turntable or pre-recordings – reflectively pulse alongside clipped and sul ponticello swipes, slaps and wood-rending sounds from the bassists and guzheng player, plus piano glissandi and buzzing reed partials and tongue slaps. Often the sonic tautness is such that when Butcher plays a few measures in the common saxophone range, backed by Edwards’ slap bass, the effect is as upsetting as if a Renaissance harlequin had made a brief appearance in a Sci-Fi tale.

Although a collective work, space is also made for individual expression that never quite become solos or duos in the traditional sense. Around the seventh track indicator, for example, Burn compresses choruses of cascading keyboard runs and sweeping portamento notes in order to harmonically face off with electronic pulses and voltage vibrations from Lehn’s synthesizer. Afterwards he abruptly pumps out some quasi-stride-piano runs to accompany Butcher’s quacking reed timbres.

Earlier Robair’s crashes, bangs, cymbal slaps and bell-pealing plus freight-train shrills and resonating vibraharp strokes break through the blurry sound field to challenge the super-fast dial-twisting, in-and-out-stop-start flutters, clangs and flanges from the turntable and synthesizer. His energized surfaces as well as Lehn’s ring-modulator-like whooshes also serve as backdrop for curt, sparrow-like sibilant tweets and caws from Butcher. Subsequent reed-biting vibrations hook up with clattering from hard objects placed on and swept aside from the piano strings plus echoing cymbal crashes

Whether involved in pumping counterpoint in front of dense signal-processed crackling or circular-breathing alongside tremolo piano runs, Butcher’s unshaken aplomb while playing directs than concentrates the layers chromatically. Finally the various pitches and tones complete the sound circle.

Mixing live and processed tracks, The Moment’s Energy – recorded one year earlier in Huddersfield as well – is no less notable. Neither is Parkers playing any less self-possessed and energizing. But the other acoustic instruments are prominent as well, slashing holes in the quivering electronic pulses for their instruments’ textures, without upsetting the electro-acoustic balance.

Moving through the sixth and seventh variations on “The Moment’s Energy”, for instance, Guy’s spiccato rubs and pops evolve in double counterpoint with Wachsmann’s sul ponticello scratches and squeaks. As the fiddler’s cumulative timbres roll from the strings, processing exposes parallel violin lines which double and intersect with Wachsmann’s live sweeps. Meanwhile as the vector changes, Guy’s plucks and wood shaking are mixed with equivalent electronic melodic pulses. Later, after triggering signal processing – that is so sophisticated that together with the piano and horns it creates a wide-screen-like cinemascope-like coloration – Evans slurs low-key grace notes and accelerating pitch-slides as fungible organ-like electronic tones pulse beneath him.

Shortly before that Fernández’s extended interlude mixes low-frequency keyboard pitter-patter with stopped and strummed internal string vibrations as clouds of humming electronics splutter beside him. Sailing along harmonically, the pianist also riffs and rustles the keys, the resulting sounds of which are accompanied by rubbed drum tops and cymbals from Lytton.

Fernández’s sparkling glissandi meld with growling and snorting electronic blurs plus variable pitches loop at the top of “The Moment’s Energy II”. But the other timbres soon recede as Rothenberg’s a capella vibrations on bass clarinet accede to flying tongue slaps and affiliated renal resonance. As the undercurrent of buzzing reverb and processed oscillations simmer, the clarinetist is briefly joined by diaphragm vibrato from Parker, and then Rothenberg moves forward with growls and smears alongside hissing, blurry electro pulses, a cascade of plucked stops from Wachsmann and Guy, as well as fleet glissandi from the pianist.

Already celebrated for his playing, the strength of Parker’s composition and presentation is confirmed on “Incandescent Clouds”, one of two tracks recorded live. Here, the staccato, polytonal interaction between bubbling electronics, piano patterning and clipped bass lines is no more or less vivid than what is played on the tracks that mix live improv and electronics.

One can only hope that Huddersfield will continue to commission magnificent larger-group creations such as these from committed improvisers. The first-class creations Butcher and Parker produce on these CDs confirm the wisdom of earlier initiatives.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Moment: 1. The Moment’s Energy I 2. The Moment’s Energy II 3. The Moment’s Energy III 4. The Moment’s Energy IV 5. The Moment’s Energy V 6. The Moment’s Energy VI 7. The Moment’s Energy VII 8. Incandescent Clouds

Personnel: Moment: Peter Evans (trumpet and piccolo trumpet); Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi); Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Ko Ishikawa (shô); Philipp Wachsmann (violin and live electronics); Agustí Fernández (piano and prepared piano); Barry Guy (bass); Paul Lytton (percussion and live electronics): Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument); Joel Ryan (sample and signal processing); Walter Prati (computer processing); Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer (live electronics) and Marco Vecchi (sound)

Track Listing: Somethingtobesaid: 1. (08.14) 2. (07.47) 3. (05.26) 4. (09.48) 5. (06.36) 6. (06.01) 7. (02.14) 8. (09.07) 9. (04.12)

Personnel: Some: John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones and pre-recordings); Chris Burn (piano); Thomas Lehn (synthesizer); John Edwards (bass); Adam Linson (bass and electronics); Clare Cooper (harp and guzheng); Gino Robair (percussion) and Dieb 13 (turntables)

February 1, 2010

Lawrence Casserley/Adam Linson

Integument
psi 09.03

Charlotte Hug/gal*in_dog

Lift

Edgetone EDT 4086

Matching and blending innovatively the timbres and tones available from electronics with acoustic instruments has become one of the touchstones of 21st Century improvising. Both these Euro-American sessions pinpoint successful adaptations of these techniques.

Swiss violist Charlotte Hug and Mexican unique instrument creator gal*in_dog (Guillermo Galindo) decided to collaborate after meeting at Newfoundland’s Sound Symposium in 2006. There they discovered that their shared background in notated music had expanded to encompass unconventional electro-acoustic textures and unusual locations. Hug is a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra, for instance, has played with stylists like guitarist Elliott Sharp, in theatres and in spaces ranging from the icy caverns of the Rhône Glacier to an acoustically insulated S&M torture chamber. An instructor at post-secondary California arts institutes who has composed film scores, soundscapes and for theatre and dance companies, gal*in_dog improvises with the Maiz. It’s a computer-controlled kinetic sonic structure made from hybrid recycled industrial materials and found objects.

A similar urge to join forces suggested itself to veteran British signal processor Lawrence Casserley and younger California-born, Berlin-based bassist Adam Linson after meeting as members of saxophonist Evan Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Although the seven tracks of Integumen are mostly consecrated to interaction between Linson’s strings and Casserley’s electronics – like Hug and gal*in_dog do on their CD – they also add sprinkling of vocal textures as well.

Perhaps it’s the periods Linson and Casserley spent together in the past, exchanging musical ideas, but the word that resonates most clearly from Integument is interconnectivity. Throughout the two instantaneously react to each other’s sonic impulses, often even before the other has completed his own movements. On “Chromatophores” for instance, Linson’s ear-wrenching sul ponticello rumbles meet resonating loops of clanging, pitch-sliding reverses that turn out to be pumped and abrasive runs from the bassist.

Soon Casserley’s sleek and sibilant electronics wiggles not only reflect Linson’s pulled and vibrated timbres, but also the overtones created by signal processing. With the harshness of the electronic instrument’s attack producing almost visible granulation, the bassist’s strings begin resonating coarsely as well. Reaching a climax of spiccato wood rubs, bell-like peals and voltage-swollen buzzes, the bonded multiphonics dissolves into near-inaudible gurgles and scrapes from both acoustic and electronic instruments.

Similarly “Stratum Spongiosum” and “Squamous Epithelium” seep into one another without a perceptible break. Here buzzing loops pulse to react with Linson’ tough, sul tasto variations. As blurry undercurrents ruffle, rebound and swell, cumulative wave forms scatter and eventually reduce. More dynamic, “Wandering Leukocytes” introduces delays in the form of processed overtones which further widen the bassist’s string sweeps. As broken-octave flanges clash, Linson turns to near legato phrasing, allowing Casserley’s machines to splutter, splash and whistle. Later on, however, the bassist interrupts this granular synthesis with staccato circular bowing.

Officially more programmatic, with all of the CD tracks grouped into short suites, Lift develops in a different fashion as the duo ignores track separations. Thus the second part of “alt” fades cunningly into the first section of “citalin”, while the last part of “citalin” locks in with the first part of “tletl”. Then again these suite designations may be an after thought as well, since the tracks are also numbered from “I” to “VIII”.

Despite this there’s nothing artificial about the Hug-gal*in_dog meeting, save perhaps the artificial intelligence associated with the latter’s syncretic cyber sonic interactive cyber-totemic musical instrument. In practice that jargon-laden descriptive mouthful translates into irregular wave form wiggles, abrasive pulls, distorted oscillations plus loops of granularly synthesized or spinning signal processing. Meeting the fluttering electronic timbres are interludes of acoustic sul tasto bowing and scrapes plus lightly breathed verbal laughter and bel canto warbling from Hug.

Broadening and mixing tracks “VI” and “VII” – or the final section of “citalin” and the first of “tletl”– first involves mandolin-like twangs from the fiddler mixed with pizzicato strums and rasping bow rubs. As gal*in_dog’s Maiz adds vibrations made of punts, pops and push, these repeated tunnel-echoing processes bring forth first legato then staccato sweeps from Hug – alongside vocal signs, pants and burbling syllables. Wrapping up, the clicks, cracks and flanged modulations ricochet from both playing partners and settle as connective interface.

Satisfying in its communication, this duo’s output, plus the Linson-Cassserley CD prove that in the right hands mixing any sort of sound sources can create memorable performances.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Lift: 1. alt (part i) 2. alt (part ii) 3. citalin (part iii) 4. citalin (part iv) 5. citalin (part v) 6. citalin (part vi) 7. tletl (part vii) 8. tletl (part viii)

Personnel: Lift: Charlotte Hug (viola and voice) and gal*in_dog [Guillermo Galindo] (Maiz, a kinetic sound structure)

Track Listing: Integument 1. Stratum Spongiosum 2. Squamous Epithelium 3. Wandering Leukocytes 4. Basement Membrane 5. Cycloids 6. Stratum Compactum 7. Chromatophores

Personnel: Integument: Adam Linson (bass, live processing and sampling) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument and voice)

January 16, 2010

Charlotte Hug/gal*in_dog

Lift
Edgetone EDT 4086

Lawrence Casserley/Adam Linson

Integument

psi 09.03

Matching and blending innovatively the timbres and tones available from electronics with acoustic instruments has become one of the touchstones of 21st Century improvising. Both these Euro-American sessions pinpoint successful adaptations of these techniques.

Swiss violist Charlotte Hug and Mexican unique instrument creator gal*in_dog (Guillermo Galindo) decided to collaborate after meeting at Newfoundland’s Sound Symposium in 2006. There they discovered that their shared background in notated music had expanded to encompass unconventional electro-acoustic textures and unusual locations. Hug is a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra, for instance, has played with stylists like guitarist Elliott Sharp, in theatres and in spaces ranging from the icy caverns of the Rhône Glacier to an acoustically insulated S&M torture chamber. An instructor at post-secondary California arts institutes who has composed film scores, soundscapes and for theatre and dance companies, gal*in_dog improvises with the Maiz. It’s a computer-controlled kinetic sonic structure made from hybrid recycled industrial materials and found objects.

A similar urge to join forces suggested itself to veteran British signal processor Lawrence Casserley and younger California-born, Berlin-based bassist Adam Linson after meeting as members of saxophonist Evan Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Although the seven tracks of Integumen are mostly consecrated to interaction between Linson’s strings and Casserley’s electronics – like Hug and gal*in_dog do on their CD – they also add sprinkling of vocal textures as well.

Perhaps it’s the periods Linson and Casserley spent together in the past, exchanging musical ideas, but the word that resonates most clearly from Integument is interconnectivity. Throughout the two instantaneously react to each other’s sonic impulses, often even before the other has completed his own movements. On “Chromatophores” for instance, Linson’s ear-wrenching sul ponticello rumbles meet resonating loops of clanging, pitch-sliding reverses that turn out to be pumped and abrasive runs from the bassist.

Soon Casserley’s sleek and sibilant electronics wiggles not only reflect Linson’s pulled and vibrated timbres, but also the overtones created by signal processing. With the harshness of the electronic instrument’s attack producing almost visible granulation, the bassist’s strings begin resonating coarsely as well. Reaching a climax of spiccato wood rubs, bell-like peals and voltage-swollen buzzes, the bonded multiphonics dissolves into near-inaudible gurgles and scrapes from both acoustic and electronic instruments.

Similarly “Stratum Spongiosum” and “Squamous Epithelium” seep into one another without a perceptible break. Here buzzing loops pulse to react with Linson’ tough, sul tasto variations. As blurry undercurrents ruffle, rebound and swell, cumulative wave forms scatter and eventually reduce. More dynamic, “Wandering Leukocytes” introduces delays in the form of processed overtones which further widen the bassist’s string sweeps. As broken-octave flanges clash, Linson turns to near legato phrasing, allowing Casserley’s machines to splutter, splash and whistle. Later on, however, the bassist interrupts this granular synthesis with staccato circular bowing.

Officially more programmatic, with all of the CD tracks grouped into short suites, Lift develops in a different fashion as the duo ignores track separations. Thus the second part of “alt” fades cunningly into the first section of “citalin”, while the last part of “citalin” locks in with the first part of “tletl”. Then again these suite designations may be an after thought as well, since the tracks are also numbered from “I” to “VIII”.

Despite this there’s nothing artificial about the Hug-gal*in_dog meeting, save perhaps the artificial intelligence associated with the latter’s syncretic cyber sonic interactive cyber-totemic musical instrument. In practice that jargon-laden descriptive mouthful translates into irregular wave form wiggles, abrasive pulls, distorted oscillations plus loops of granularly synthesized or spinning signal processing. Meeting the fluttering electronic timbres are interludes of acoustic sul tasto bowing and scrapes plus lightly breathed verbal laughter and bel canto warbling from Hug.

Broadening and mixing tracks “VI” and “VII” – or the final section of “citalin” and the first of “tletl”– first involves mandolin-like twangs from the fiddler mixed with pizzicato strums and rasping bow rubs. As gal*in_dog’s Maiz adds vibrations made of punts, pops and push, these repeated tunnel-echoing processes bring forth first legato then staccato sweeps from Hug – alongside vocal signs, pants and burbling syllables. Wrapping up, the clicks, cracks and flanged modulations ricochet from both playing partners and settle as connective interface.

Satisfying in its communication, this duo’s output, plus the Linson-Cassserley CD prove that in the right hands mixing any sort of sound sources can create memorable performances.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Lift: 1. alt (part i) 2. alt (part ii) 3. citalin (part iii) 4. citalin (part iv) 5. citalin (part v) 6. citalin (part vi) 7. tletl (part vii) 8. tletl (part viii)

Personnel: Lift: Charlotte Hug (viola and voice) and gal*in_dog [Guillermo Galindo] (Maiz, a kinetic sound structure)

Track Listing: Integument 1. Stratum Spongiosum 2. Squamous Epithelium 3. Wandering Leukocytes 4. Basement Membrane 5. Cycloids 6. Stratum Compactum 7. Chromatophores

Personnel: Integument: Adam Linson (bass, live processing and sampling) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instrument and voice)

January 16, 2010

Christine Sehnaoui/Michel Waisvisz

Short Wave
Al Maslakh CD 08

Lawrence Casserley-Jeffrey Morgan

Room 2 Room

Konnex KCD 5213

As the sonic interaction of acoustic and electronics instruments in improv shifts from the province of novelty to that of an everyday occurrence, focusing on the strategies used for coherence is more instructive than enumerating sound sources.

So it is with these notable CDs, recorded about six months apart by duos from different backgrounds. Interestingly enough the two slightly younger performers – Lebanese-French alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui and “The Hands” manipulator Michel Waisvisz, of the Netherlands – blend and jumble pulses to such an extent that it’s often difficult to tell which instrument creates which sound. Furthermore neither player is much concerned with capturing a pure timbre. With Room 2 Room on the other hand, there’s never any question that American-born, Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan is playing tenor and soprano saxophones, while the signal processing created by British electro-acoustician Lawrence Casserley demarcates itself.

As an aside, appreciation for Short Wave is tinged with melancholy. For despite being the first studio recording since the 1970s by live-electronic visionary Waisvisz – best-known as inventor of the crackle box and The Hands – it’s also one of his last. He died of cancer in June 2008.

Waisvisz, whose involvement with STEIM went back to 1969, uses an ultra-flexible version of “The Hands” attached to various sensors which, when used with specially designed sound manipulation software LiSa, translates the performer’s hand gestures into sound. Someone whose playing partners have included saxophonists such as Willem Breuker and Steve Lacy, he easily adapts to the non-idiomatic focus of Sehnaoui, who has recorded with musicians such as Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach. Her most distinct approach involves lip bubbling, throat retches, split tones, tongue slaps and sudden expelling of breath. These strategies are doubled, amplified or deconstructed by oscillated signal processing runs and ramping, ever-moving processed wiggles.

Vocalized gurgles subsumed in circular motions are most pervasive on “Preciously Empty”. Initially built on low-key whistles, single puffs and mouth-expanding growls from the reedist, the piece alters its shape as Waisvisz’ pond-algae-like wave forms spin from broken octave concordance with reed tones to new definitions. Processing solid pipe-organ-like pumps and calliope-like shrills, the crackling, blurry oscillations eventually become forced drones and amplified twitters. These sound waves break infrequently to reveal Sehnaoui’s circular breathing and growled counter tones.

Morgan, whose electronics collaborators over the years have included Joker Nies on synthesizer and real time-processing plus guitarist Keith Rowe using treatments, short wave radio and noise makers, isolates his saxophone tone more overtly than Sehnaoui does hers. While Casserley, a retired Royal College of Music professor, known for his contributions to Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensembles, is sensitive enough to reed textures to never mask them. Interactions which encompass legato and semi-lyrical trills or abrasive kazoo-like mouthpiece squeaks on Morgan’s part, float on, or dart among, indistinct oscillations or color-organ-like crescendos. As well, Casserley’s sampling multiples the saxman’s initial tones.

Compare “Rhombic Rheums” with “Lunar Lagoons” for example. The later may almost be a reconfiguration of Bird and Strings – if you can imagine the signal processing as the “strings”. In its climatic moments, the piece finds Morgan playing tenor saxophone in swollen straight time, while flanged modulations from Casserley’s instrument produce a cascade of polyphonic pumping textures. Where previously the processor’s echoes performed a monkey-hear-monkey-do tactic along with Morgan’s foreground strident cheeps and cries; by the finale the reedist’s almost-solipsistic split tone are being cushioned by near symphonic sheets of sound coloration.

In contrast, “Rhombic Rheums” is taken adagio with atmospheric reflections. As the fuzzy pulsations give way to ring modulator-like clangs and a landscape of complex drones and shrill echoes, Morgan’s split tones reassert and divide themselves still further, before they’re doubled and tripled with electronic replication. Aviary squeals, guttural honks, spetrofluctuation and tongue flutters protrude, before they’re remixed by Casserley. Going head-to-head with his processed selves, the live saxophonist easily projects his individuality.

Each of these CDs contributes a significant definition of satisfying electro-acoustic integration. Unfortunately now, only the Casserley-Morgan interaction can be repeated.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Room: 1. Quaking Quarks 2. Martian Arts 3. Rhombic Rheums 4. Ayler Appears 5. Strange Roads 6. Lunar Lagoons 7. Questing Qualms

Personnel: Room: Jeffrey Morgan (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instruments)

Track Listing: Short: 1. Wig Wag 2. Precious Empty 3. Deep Sleep Revelation 4. The Bottom of the Pond 5. Find the Short Wave in the Dark

Personnel: Short: Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone) and Michel Waisvisz (“the hands” live electronics)

June 23, 2009

Lawrence Casserley-Jeffrey Morgan

Room 2 Room
Konnex KCD 5213

Christine Sehnaoui/Michel Waisvisz

Short Wave

Al Maslakh CD 08

As the sonic interaction of acoustic and electronics instruments in improv shifts from the province of novelty to that of an everyday occurrence, focusing on the strategies used for coherence is more instructive than enumerating sound sources.

So it is with these notable CDs, recorded about six months apart by duos from different backgrounds. Interestingly enough the two slightly younger performers – Lebanese-French alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui and “The Hands” manipulator Michel Waisvisz, of the Netherlands – blend and jumble pulses to such an extent that it’s often difficult to tell which instrument creates which sound. Furthermore neither player is much concerned with capturing a pure timbre. With Room 2 Room on the other hand, there’s never any question that American-born, Köln-resident Jeffrey Morgan is playing tenor and soprano saxophones, while the signal processing created by British electro-acoustician Lawrence Casserley demarcates itself.

As an aside, appreciation for Short Wave is tinged with melancholy. For despite being the first studio recording since the 1970s by live-electronic visionary Waisvisz – best-known as inventor of the crackle box and The Hands – it’s also one of his last. He died of cancer in June 2008.

Waisvisz, whose involvement with STEIM went back to 1969, uses an ultra-flexible version of “The Hands” attached to various sensors which, when used with specially designed sound manipulation software LiSa, translates the performer’s hand gestures into sound. Someone whose playing partners have included saxophonists such as Willem Breuker and Steve Lacy, he easily adapts to the non-idiomatic focus of Sehnaoui, who has recorded with musicians such as Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach. Her most distinct approach involves lip bubbling, throat retches, split tones, tongue slaps and sudden expelling of breath. These strategies are doubled, amplified or deconstructed by oscillated signal processing runs and ramping, ever-moving processed wiggles.

Vocalized gurgles subsumed in circular motions are most pervasive on “Preciously Empty”. Initially built on low-key whistles, single puffs and mouth-expanding growls from the reedist, the piece alters its shape as Waisvisz’ pond-algae-like wave forms spin from broken octave concordance with reed tones to new definitions. Processing solid pipe-organ-like pumps and calliope-like shrills, the crackling, blurry oscillations eventually become forced drones and amplified twitters. These sound waves break infrequently to reveal Sehnaoui’s circular breathing and growled counter tones.

Morgan, whose electronics collaborators over the years have included Joker Nies on synthesizer and real time-processing plus guitarist Keith Rowe using treatments, short wave radio and noise makers, isolates his saxophone tone more overtly than Sehnaoui does hers. While Casserley, a retired Royal College of Music professor, known for his contributions to Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensembles, is sensitive enough to reed textures to never mask them. Interactions which encompass legato and semi-lyrical trills or abrasive kazoo-like mouthpiece squeaks on Morgan’s part, float on, or dart among, indistinct oscillations or color-organ-like crescendos. As well, Casserley’s sampling multiples the saxman’s initial tones.

Compare “Rhombic Rheums” with “Lunar Lagoons” for example. The later may almost be a reconfiguration of Bird and Strings – if you can imagine the signal processing as the “strings”. In its climatic moments, the piece finds Morgan playing tenor saxophone in swollen straight time, while flanged modulations from Casserley’s instrument produce a cascade of polyphonic pumping textures. Where previously the processor’s echoes performed a monkey-hear-monkey-do tactic along with Morgan’s foreground strident cheeps and cries; by the finale the reedist’s almost-solipsistic split tone are being cushioned by near symphonic sheets of sound coloration.

In contrast, “Rhombic Rheums” is taken adagio with atmospheric reflections. As the fuzzy pulsations give way to ring modulator-like clangs and a landscape of complex drones and shrill echoes, Morgan’s split tones reassert and divide themselves still further, before they’re doubled and tripled with electronic replication. Aviary squeals, guttural honks, spetrofluctuation and tongue flutters protrude, before they’re remixed by Casserley. Going head-to-head with his processed selves, the live saxophonist easily projects his individuality.

Each of these CDs contributes a significant definition of satisfying electro-acoustic integration. Unfortunately now, only the Casserley-Morgan interaction can be repeated.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Room: 1. Quaking Quarks 2. Martian Arts 3. Rhombic Rheums 4. Ayler Appears 5. Strange Roads 6. Lunar Lagoons 7. Questing Qualms

Personnel: Room: Jeffrey Morgan (tenor and soprano saxophones) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instruments)

Track Listing: Short: 1. Wig Wag 2. Precious Empty 3. Deep Sleep Revelation 4. The Bottom of the Pond 5. Find the Short Wave in the Dark

Personnel: Short: Christine Sehnaoui (alto saxophone) and Michel Waisvisz (“the hands” live electronics)

June 23, 2009

EVAN PARKER’S ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC ENSEMBLE

Memory/Vision
ECM 1852

Accelerating involvement in electro-acoustic creations has characterized one of British saxophonist Evan Parker’s many activities since the mid-1990s.

Parker, whose more than 35 year career has involved membership in groups ranging from massive big bands to two matchless improv trios, and who helped create the solo saxophone recital, has mastered a different genre with this CD.

In its parameters and evocation, this 70-minute plus continuous performance, commissioned by a British contemporary music festival, amplifies the reedist’s partnerships and conceptions. Performed by a nonet, two of the players -- bassist Barry Guy and percussionist Paul Lytton -- are Parker collaborators of decades standing and combine in one of his long constituted trios. Two others -- British/Ugandan violinist Philipp Wachsmann and Spanish pianist Augustí Fernández have worked with Parker in duo and larger group situations, both electronic an acoustic. Parker and Guy alone have recorded with Lawrence Casserley who mans the signal processing equipment here; while computer sound processor Joel Ryan has worked with Parker and French bassist Joëlle Léandre, another Parker associate. Italians Walter Prati on electronics and sound processing and Marco Vecchi on electronics have participated in the saxist’s other electro-acoustic sessions.

On this CD, both the drummer and violinist sport electronic enhancements to their instruments; Fernández plays prepared as well as regular piano, and the saxophonist himself adds tapes and samples to his emblematic circular breathing and freak effects.

With five acoustic instrumentalists and four machine manipulators, it’s to Parker’s credit that the performance doesn’t take on the sort of mechanical sheen of some Continental electro-acoustic sessions. Then again, with the players masters of extended techniques, unexpected sounds are par for the course on Parker-led dates.

Contrapuntal and polyphonic, the sound streams reach a climax starting at mid point. Counter to the busy movements within the piano and from spiccato strings, the reedist comes up with a whistling, almost flute-like timbre that accelerates from single puffs. Meantime the strings produce dissonant tones that rotate and separate into partials. Around those, ejaculating sine waves curve so that the entity takes on the character of a large, stable church organ.

Repetitive reed cadences flutter across the scene, augmented to saxophone section volume by looped samples. Soon the multiplying saxes subdivide still further into duos, trios and quartets, as one -- the live Parker -- brushes aside exploding echoes for a distinctive ostinato. As all this downshifts to silence, plucked and scraped bass and violin lines -- extended with processing -- join with the soprano to float on top of dynamically vibrated note clusters from the prepared piano. Spinning every which way among reed and string textures, Fernández pummels cascading harmonies into a powerful solo of staggered chords and ghostly string runs.

Pushing and thrusting deeper into its innards, creating unfathomable broken timbres, the pianist is accompanied by a hollow pop from Lytton’s snare and plucked and scraped strings that circle him like vultures. Now electronically produced fuzz from the cymbals melds with the massed pizzicato strings that too are extended with processing -- producing a multiplicity of scraped and abrasive tones. Suddenly, backed only by Lytton, Parker re-enters the fray with a polyphonic counterline that moves up the scale in mini bleats, neighs and slurs. Eventually focused pings and percussive ruffs from Lytton are joined by rumbled crashes from the piano innards, which sound as if an aluminum pie plate has been heaved on top of the strings.

Building up to a crescendo with more aviary sounds than Alfred Hitchcock imagined for “The Birds”, Parker’s irregular vibrations appear never-ending as they’re joined by high frequency piano overtones than processed side bands of what in other circumstances could be brass. Now the electronica, which has been threateningly understated before this, takes centre stage -- sound-wise -- as the miasmic colors burst into reverberating, sine wave crashes, tubular bell-like textures and scours processed from anything strung. For the finale, Fernández introduces double counterpoint, breaking up his contrasting dynamics as the meshed arco violin and double bass output turns muted. Parker breathes a final distinctive circular tone to silence.

Digressions on all these strategies occupy the beginning of “Memory/Vision” as well, with preparations, piano rumble, ponticello strings and slurred reed trills following one another or inflating to curt controlling textures. Grainy, grating timbres predominate over smooth themes however.

Memorable in its cohesiveness and melding of both electronic and acoustic elements, MEMORY/VISION proves that Parker and company can twist any sort of output to fit their requirement. Still for longtime Parkerites, there’s the feeling that fewer associates and less electricity would give him more scope for improvisation.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Part 1 2. Part 2 3. Part 3 4. Part 4 5. Part 5 6. Part 6 7. Part 7

Personnel: Evan Parker (soprano saxophone, tapes and samples); Philipp Wachsmann (violin and electronics); Augustí Fernández (piano and prepared piano); Barry Guy (bass); Paul Lytton (percussion and electronics); Joel Ryan (computer and sound processing); Lawrence Casserley (signal processing equipment); Walter Prati (electronics and sound processing); Marco Vecchi (electronics)

December 20, 2004

EVAN PARKER/BARRY GUY/LAWRENCE CASSERLEY

Dividuality
Maya MCD 0101

Having explored nearly every sort of improvised music from solo to big band in their more than three decade journey, bassist Barry Guy and saxophonist Evan Parker have become the Lewis and Clarke of BritImprov.

The past five years, however, have seen them, like Sir Edmund Hillary, finding another peak to investigate simply because it's there: electronics. Luckily their Sherpa on this trip is Lawrence Casserley, one of the grand old men of the field, who is a composer and performer as well as a signal processor.

Casserley who took early retirement from the Royal College of Music a few years ago to pursue his other activities already had a history with the two when this disc was recorded. He had provided live processing for Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra and, after developing with Parker a signal processing instrument specifically for improvised music, recorded in duo with the saxophonist shortly before this session. Since then he has joined the two musicians and others to bring his skills to Parker's Electro Acoustic Ensemble.

Not someone who revels in pure electronic circuitry like some younger performers, Casserley knows how to use his mazes of wires as instruments, so much so that this absorbing CD could be a record of another Parker-Guy trio or perhaps quartet or quintet,

"Shifting" for instance can be seen as presenting a history of Western music's evolution in fewer than 13 minutes. For a start Guy, an early music specialist in another life, pays homage to the baroque in some of his movements. In fact, the speedy plucked runs he creates at times makes it seem as if he's playing a sort of archlute with its long neck and extra bass strings. Parker, meantime, could be working out his improvisations on a personalized recorder, which seems fitting considering that the woodwind was initially named the "English flute". Casserley's processing turns that "flute" into an entire recorder orchestra, echoing and re-echoing notes that soon dominate the track. Just as this collection of bird sounds threatens to blot out the bassist's subtle bridge exploration, though, the electronics creates mechanized wind guts, which connect more easily to some of the more arid compositions of modernists like Edgard Varèse than any baroque air. What has been presented is a modulation from the 16th to the 20th century by three players.

Conversely, "Transmute" more closely resembles the trio work the saxophonist and bassist have done in the past with the likes of drummer Paul Lytton as the sound processor's mechanized electronic wiggles take the percussion part. With electronics serving as a cushion to improvise upon rather than a blanket that muffles, you can easily hear Parker's false fingering and conveyer belt of piercing tones plus Guy leaping from bow to fingers and back again as he plays. Soon after the saxist's accelerated circular breathing seems to go beyond human endurance, the thought arises that it's probably extended by processing. Then unique, otherworldly organ tones -- also courtesy of Casserley -- enter the soundscape as Parker's sonics are matched by violin-pitched scratches from Guy. Finally the mechanized storm reaches hurricane force and subsumes all other improvisations.

Duets between the electronics whiz and either Parker or Guy assume strange properties as well. In the face off between the saxophonist and the sound artist you often wonder whether the multitude of darting notes and fluttering tonguing you hear is actually coming from Parker. Or are they some earlier sounds that have been captured and fed back into the mix by Casserley at the same time as the soprano creates new ones.

Somehow, too, the treatment of the bassist's solos raises questions as well. You can easily recognize the characteristic Guy arco arch or his sprint up and down the strings, but there are times his expected double bass sounds are transformed into what could be emanating from a marimba or a wooden bass flute. All the while the tones seeping around him appear to come from robotic machines or ghostly bells.

It's puzzling as to why Maya sat on this 1997 session until now. It certainly gives you additional insight into Parker and Guy's accommodations with electronics, while confirming Casserley's ability to provide a human element from this mass of circuitry.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Frondescence 2. Dividuality 3. Aulos 4. Shifting 5. Scion 6. Zool 7. Spinney 8. Transmute 9. Calyx

Personnel: Evan Parker (soprano saxophone); Barry Guy (bass); Lawrence Casserley (live electronics, sound processing)

1. Frondescence 2. Dividuality 3. Aulos 4. Shifting 5. Scion 6. Zool 7. Spinney 8. Transmute 9. Calyx

October 22, 2001