| Carliol John Butcher - saxophone |
Buy this album now CD: £12.00+ p&p |
| Please click here for other recordings by Rhodri Davies |
John Butcher is one of the leading sax players on the free improvisation
scene. Rhodri Davies transcends conventional ideas about the
harp--an instrument rarely associated with improvised music--in
his wide-ranging projects. The two British musicians have worked
together in a variety of contexts since 1997 and gave their first
duo concert in 2000. As a duo they toured the UK and the U.S.
in 2002, and Japan in 2004. In their performances they draw upon
extended and unique playing methods mastered over the course
of their careers, leaving far behind the imagined limits of their
respective instruments. Carliol contains 7 tracks studio-recorded
between August 2007 and April 2009. With its multi-hued timbres
and textures, sonic beauty, conceptual freedom, experimental
spirit and sophisticated structure, this CD dazzles on many levels.
While the 2001 album Vortices & Angels (on the UK
label Emanem) includes duo tracks by these two artists as well
by Butcher and Derek Bailey, Carliol is the first all
Butcher/Davies duo album to be released since the start of their
duo collaboration a decade ago.
Tracks
- Pandon Bank (9:17)
- Losh (5:01)
- Gallow Gate (3:16)
- Scrogg (1:58)
- Ouse Poppy (9:17)
- Garth Heads (5:44)
- Distant Leazes (9:33)
John Butcher: tenor or soprano saxophones - plus feedback (1), motors
(1, 3, 4), embedded harp speaker (5)
Rhodri Davies: pedal harp, lever harp with embedded speaker and electric
harp. Aeolian electric harp (7)
Tracks 1-6 recorded by Andrew Mills at Elipse Studio, Newcastle upon
Tyne, UK, May 2, 2008
Track 7 recorded by Angharad Davies and Rhodri Davies at Crear, Kilberry,
Argyll, UK, August 21, 2007 (aeolian electric harp); and by John Butcher
in London, April 8, 2009 (soprano saxophone)
Edited, mixed, and mastered by John Butcher
Design by Hirozumi Takeda
Photographs used by kind permission of Newcastle Libraries and Information
Service
Occasionally a record excites your ears simply because of the daringness of technique, the difficulty of a specific move, or the conscious extension of some bit of instrumental language. More often, though, improvised music fans need more than this to rev our motors. Jaded ears don’t necessarily want warmth or crave accessibility. But these days I find myself tiring quickly of not only conventional improv wrestling matches but also of pared-down micro-music, which too often falls into its own predictable patterns. Is it too much to ask for some good old-fashioned soul in one’s non-idiomatic improv?
This might seem like an odd category when considering the musicians on Carliol, but it’s one of the reasons I continually seek out the music of John Butcher and Rhodri Davies. Even in the craggiest or most sonically illegible moments, one hears in this music not the anxious heart of technical mastery but instead a submersion into sound — via generosity, empathy and intensity — that somehow isn’t achieved at the expense of individuality. Indeed, saxophonist Butcher is one of the truly distinctive voices on his instrument, having developed a distinctive language taking off from Evan Parker and developing ceaselessly through worlds avian, metallic, and electronic. Yet, for all its daring, there has always been something about Butcher’s playing that I’ve found to be sheerly lovely, perhaps no more so than of late as he’s steadily made electronics a part of his approach (which he does here, using feedback, motors, and an embedded harp speaker).
Harpist Rhodri Davies — with whom Butcher has played on numerous occasions (most memorably to me on Vortices & Angels and on several records with Chris Burn’s Ensemble) — is a superb partner on these seven duo performances. Davies, too, has been steadily using electronics more frequently, building on his gorgeous use of e-bows (heard to marvelous effect on his essential solo records for Confront) and now using electric harps, harps with speakers embedded in them, and other contraptions rigged for sonic alchemy.
From the outset of “Pandon Bank,” with its faucet drip and cavernous rumble, the musicians seem to be inspired by the aesthetic of Butcher’s recent place-specific improvisations. Each piece, indeed, has audible contours that make the details of the playing stand out — as in a frame — but also somehow recede and blend until sources and destinations seem unimportant next to the pleasures of simply bathing in this sound. On “Losh,” they flirt with the sounds of prepared piano, with tons of clinking metal tripping over steadily billowing tones. “Gallow Gate” is a bit tenser, with a lengthy squeaking inhalation that could almost be a Phil Minton kissy sound, continually at risk from being ground be a slowly turning gear. Though each track remains distinctive, I couldn’t help but hear them as a whole, as — from the menacing growl and amp hum of “Scragg” to the glorious layers of oscillation on “Ouse Poppy” — I felt continually like I was in some steampunk novel, oddly enough. But with the closing “Distant Leazes,” with each musician recording separately, the sound sings multitudes, like the universal chord of Theosophy, until Butcher’s rapid chirping lines remind you that, oh yes, there’s a saxophone here. That and much more.
By Jason Bivins