Bertrand Gauguet/Didier Lasserre

Paul Lytton/Georg Wissel
Loose Connections
Confront Core 48

Collectively probing opportunities available from lower case improvisations, two saxophone- percussion duos parse their output to slim and hushed programs without falling into the abyss of ambient sounds.Each player involved also has extensive experience with more emphatic sounds. German alto and tenor saxophonist Georg Wissel has played with the likes of Christoph Irmer and Carl Ludwig Hübsch, while UK drummer Paul Lytton is best known for his association with Evan Parker and Barry Guy. Both French, alto saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet is also an electronic music composer and has worked with musicians like Sophie Agnel. Drummer Didier Lasserre has played with innovators like Benjamin Duboc and Daunik Lazro.

Unaccented reed sibilation and a single drum slap are the first sounds heard on Loose Connections. While the distinct timbres advanced during the single about 45-minute improvisation sometimes ascend to high-pitched sax squeals and resonating percussion thumps, intersection are essentially mid-range.

Lytton’s unattached cymbal chops, bell clangs, object rattles and woody pops take up most of the restrained back up, while Wissel’s usually understated slurs and sluices sometimes intensify to staccato squeaks, key percussion and renal growls. Fragmented but also forced, this combination of metallic top spinning or brush stroke in counterpoint with tongue slaps and yelps eventually moves into a horizontal exposition where echoing hollow breaths and abrasive material strains bypass interludes of complete silence to meld with a nearly unstoppable reed whistle and shattering Mylar thump. The composite timbre climax may seem never ending but truthfully it’s the exact opposite of a loose connection.

The program is no less hushed and harmonized on MEHR except that the sounds unroll within four tracks instead of one. Overall, when tones are not inaudible they evolve in categorical flat lines. Results can be driven by rolling drum raps or thin reed flutters but the thickened undulations eventually attain horizontal shape.

With the others much briefer, it’s the nearly 19½ minute “Le faire et le défaire” which give the duo enough scope to confirm that their contrapuntal and connective duo may be more gradually understated and transformative than Wissell’s and Lytton’s. It’s also no less distinctive. An unvarying outflow of pure air is the saxophonist’s default as are the drummer’s spatial rumbles and cymbal clanks. Widening shallow trills and metallic reverb echo enough to complete the section with stentorian cries from Gauguet. Along the way that track and the others demonstrate tonal and rhythmic ambiguity, but in a refined enough manner to confirm sound evolution.

Neither Loose Connections nor MEHR should be approached seeking conventional storytelling. Fundamental appreciation for both is in noting how the sounds are designed and logically evolve.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: MEHR: 1. Termes de hasard 2.  Le faire et le défaire 3. Une lame 4. Reprise – L’écart

Personnel: MEHR: Bertrand Gauguet (alto saxophone) and Didier Lasserre (percussion)

Track Listing: Loose: 1. Loose Connections

Personnel: Loose: Georg Wissel (augmented also and tenor saxophones) and Paul Lytton (tabletop percussion, bits and pieces)