UK Improvisation (part 3 of 4)
Original position in magazine: pages 57-58
Contents: Preamble, Dislocation, Bevan, Frangenheim and Noble, The XIII Ghosts, Descension, Chris Cutler
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Some new blood in the water
It would be a mistake to concentrate exclusively on “superstars” Bailey and Parker; the UK can boast dozens of great musicians who have improvised, joined at the Company weeks, added their unique two pennorth to the musical continuum and released many fine records on Incus, Ogun, SAJ, Leo, Ictus and other labels. Some other time then we hope to more than merely namecheck the following: more-than-legendary arranger, drummer, hard-working man and all-round saint John Stevens, Alex Ward, Tony Coe, the great drummer Tony Oxley (who can’t get a reissue programme from CBS as they want the same money they charge for Miles Davis to do it), Max Eastley, Lol Coxhill, Misha Mengleberg, Phil Wachsmann, Barry Guy…some American greats also represented by this scene include George Lewis, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton and John Zorn. By all means investigate records where you see these names. In the meantime here’s a few releases from the Scatter label in Glasgow, a truly independent label devoted to quality improv on CD:
Dislocation
Carve another notch
UNITED KINGDOM SCATTER 01 CD [ND]
A splendid yawpsome howling from a mysterious Japanese set of improvisors. Yoshinori Yanagawa on saxophones, Toyohiro Okazaki playing electronics, Fujio Kimura on ‘electric strings’ which sounds like an amplified matress…on the first suite ‘Between the windows of the Sea’ parts 1-2, they start off like a plastic replica of an autumnal Company Week, but soon pull things their way and turn in an ethnic sounding evocation of a beautiful royal-blue seascape as rendered by Hokusai. Wooden flutes join the shrieking banshee sax, while Kimura’s string set emulates wind-chimes. Joined by sampler Syohei Iwasaki for this…’Dislocation’ the second suite is 58 minutes of sheer atmospheric delight. The human voice of the saxophone becomes a comfort in the alienating landscapes of electronic washes and droning strangeness. The intensity never lets up, guaranteeing delirium, epilepsy and nausea in even the most hardened listener.
Bevan Frangenheim and Noble
Twisters
UNITED KINGDOM SCATTER (1996)
‘I can’t believe it’s all acoustic!’…Some outstanding blowing from Tony Bevan on the soprano and bass saxes…flick to track 6 ‘Cleaver’ for a tour de force bass sax solo worthy of Frank Lowe, Bevan starting out slow with long droney tones that saw the top of your head off, then suddenly becoming possessed like a preacher in the pulpit speaking in tongues; you can hear his entire body becoming articulated with holy spirit as he squeezes out manic honks. Tune in to the ‘Twisters’ track for the sound of the Titantic being raised from the ocean floor, near-industrial overtones and harmonics shimmying out the bell of his sax, urged on by ferocious lashings from Alex Frangenheim’s double bass. ‘Belly of the Whale’ conveys that genuine sense of tense bewilderment that only the razor-edge of improv ensemble playing can provide, both to the listener and the player - there’s moments here where the players are amazed to be where they are, making these uncertain grunts to each other, the same mixed emotions probably felt by Pinocchio meeting his father Gepetto in that very place. Granted, some of the pieces take a while to warm up before they really start cooking, and that cheese-grater percussion sound (courtesy Steven Noble) has become a little dated somehow - but overall this CD yields up real moments of fire. A real testament to the legacy of Albert Ayler, to name but one…
The XIII Ghosts
Giganti Reptilicus Destructo Beam
UNITED KINGDOM SCATTER 04CD
Intensely annoying, this horrible CD opens with belts of repellent wacki-nastiness noise antics trying to give John Zorn or Hanatarash a run for their money, but eventually settles down to some decent mournful clarinet passages now and again. 45 fucking tracks and 88 minutes of this infantile drool to get through. Alex Ward is a precocious kid, a clarinet player who (besides playing in a Messiaen concert) started atonal improvising in his early teens and winding up his teachers at school concerts. He never really grew up. Wherever he appears at gigs, carrot-top Ward is sure to be bragging about the far-out CDs he just bought and swanking casually about his ‘extreme’ tastes. Here he insists on inflicting us with his silly mock-solemn vocal interjections, absurd track titles like ‘Greedy Motorcyclist has sidecar full of chips’, and trash-culture movie references by the truckload. He is joined in this by electronics man Switch, who I take to be a man of the Matt Wand school - Wand is one half of the irritating Stock Hausen and Walkman combo, Mancunian gets intent on taking the piss out of everything in sight with their throwaway sampling jokes on cheap and nasty tape recorders. Also joined by cassette star Andru Clare (of Mogazine fame). Nick Couldry, Jim Denley, Tim Hill, Evan Thomas and Pat Thomas on a variety of devices and instruments which in their hands are reduced to the common rubble of noisy plaything dribbles. Atrocious, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Lovely sleeve painting though.
Scatter also does a Derek Bailey release, Drop me off at 96th, Scatter 02 CD, some vintage 1986 and 1987 solo recordings on his Epiphone Triumph and Martin D18 guitars. If you like Bailey you need this one for your collection.
Descension
Live March 1995
UNITED KINGDOM SHOCK RECORDS SX029CD (1995)
Another option is this…Descension, comprising Shock assault techniques from guitar and drums duo Ascension - Stefan Jaworzyn and Tony Irving - playing with saxophonist Charles Wharf and Simon H Fell on the bass. A nihilistic, anti-music, anti-jazz, anti-everything rant; poor recording quality, a stark typo sleeve that makes an Incus sleeve look cluttered. Everything about it says FUCK YOU to the listener. If only it weren’t such a damned great, adrenalin-loosening listen…this is the cosmic crossroads Inn of the Damned where all past musics meet, not for a polite United Nations conference but a coarse, drunken argument where fisticuffs and broken furniture are only one pint of Kronenburg away. Sonic Youth guitar clanging melded with the Cecil Taylor marathon ‘have you got the balls to stay the course’ approach (first track is merely nonstop 48 minutes). Guitar feedback overlays with wailing sax howls in sublime moments, the drumming takes the free-pulse playing of Sunny Murray to a logical node ending. You can see this dementia as going out further on a limb, or perhaps another way out of the Improv dilemma. It’s just as limited in its audience appeal, but artistically in tune with the times.
Chris Cutler
P53
P53
UNITED KINGDOM Rer MEGACORP P53 CD (1995)
Chris Cutler and Zeena Parkins
Shark!
UNITED KINGDOM Rer MEGACORP CZ1 CD (1996)
Chris Cutler is not exclusively an improviser, wearing many hats that reflect his diverse interests in Perfect Pop Music, composition, musique concrète, and political agitation. All of the above were at least represented by his 1970s projects like the band Henry Cow and the associated Rock In Opposition groups they toured with. The second and third Art Bears LPs remain indelible masterpieces of song composition tempered with free playing and tape manipulation. Whatever you may think of his music, he has at least remained a ’sociable’ Socialist, and tried to shade his ideology into a Capitalist ethos. Zeena Parkins is an incredible harp player with her own history of pairings, guestings and performances in the alternative scene, although not a massive discography of her own just yet…there was a solo CD Nightmare Alley on Table of the Elements. She plays the harp amplified and uses effects pedals. I think she could be absolutely brilliant given the right circumstances, but it’s not always possible to tell from this CD. Recording somehow sounds a bit flat. The performances weren’t all of the best and for some reason it starts with the quiet dull ones before it leads into the noisy interesting ones. Interestingly shows how this music once the provenance of a dedicated handful of fans can now command a full house at the QEH at the South Bank these days. P53 is one of Cutler’s ‘directed’ improvisation projects. This pure noise-making for its own sake and the devil take the hindmost is not for him it seems. Plans were made. He gave the players some narrative element to play with, a role-playing position of sorts, which would direct the performance in a series of overlapping sequences. Creative process is certainly important, but a shame the documented results are so tame this time around. P53 features twin grand pianos played by Marie Goyette and some other classically trained bozo Zygmunt Krauze. The inevitable Otomo Yoshihide turntables and, it has to be said, adds the most interesting elements, running a close second to Lutz Glandien and his real-time electronic processing of the performances. Another ‘putting together’ experiment, seeing how the classically trained musicians fare when you take their sheet music away: answer is, they just play fragments of Mozart or whatever, stuff they learned by heart anyway.
ED PINSENT