From Norway, five talented instrumentalists perform as Honest John on their newest (fourth) album Sweet Travels (PARTICULAR RECORDINGS p36). Among their ranks is the voluble and fast-fingered accordion squeezer Kalle Moberg, Kim Johannesen on guitar and banjo, and the drummer Erik Nylander; although the music is actually a showcase for the compositions of the woodwind man (alto sax and clarinet) Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, who founded the group in 2012. Holm pays attention to unusual details – one aspect here is that the pieces use “asymmetrical repetition”, which allows for restating certain phrases but measured out at different lengths, and he also tries to accommodate the “personalities” of his crew into the pieces. Despite the upbeat and melodic surfaces, Holm also manages to smuggle in moments of microtonality to please the Tony Conrad wing of their fanbase, while the use of an old drum machine from 1969 also fits the group’s penchant for the quirksome, like lighting upon an odd find in a flea-market. The record starts out like Art Bears or Slapp Happy, which is good, but soon becomes cute and cloying. It’s likeable enough, not without charms, but somehow lacking in real zest or risk-taking; every surprise or unexpected fork in the musical road has been pre-planned as surely as the loops on a fairground roller-coaster. Danish artist Zven Balslev (a one-time contributor to The Sound Projector) did the cover, with a crowded image which suggests much more surrealism and danger than is present on this mellow release. (01/08/2023)
Werner Durand has impressed us in the past with his modified saxophone-like devices, particularly the recent long-forms epics on the Ants label, which hold true to the minimalist ethos to produce stern, challenging drones, with more than a hint of ancient ritual. Today on Flocks (ZEHRA ZEHRA010), he’s taken a much more altruistic path. To produce the record he teamed up with an old friend Uli Hohmann, the latter having much skill, studied knowledge and experience in the area of non-Western musics (Africa, Asia, India, Persia) and one who, like buddy Durand, doesn’t shy away from building his own instruments when the conventional orchestras fail. The pair have been active since 2018 as a duo; in fact four years before that there was the Clearing album with Amelia Cuni. Today’s LP is very user-friendly, tasteful drones spliced with kalimba, kanjira and drums and electronics, and the press notes invite parallels with Jon Hassel’s Fourth World and some non-specific “hypnotique Krautrock groove”. For me, it may lack the rigour of Durand’s earlier works, but the long friendship of this pair results in a sunny disposition to the album, and may open up another dimension to Durand’s explorations with his PVC neys and horns. (01/08/2023)
On the Instants LP (TERP IMPROV SERIES IS-36) you can hear the duo of Han Bennink and Terrie Ex performing at Les Instants Chavires in France in 2022. Drums and guitar improvisation from these two hard-slogging veterans. Terrie Ex is 67 now and came into free improv by way of punk rock and post punk, or vice versa, and doesn’t just have a unique “style” on the guitar – I’d like to think his whole frame, brain, body and voice is like this, lively, unsettling, ready to pick fights and get his hands dirty for a bout with the enemies of freedom. As to Han Bennink, well he’s now 80 years old and arguably one of the primary inventors of free improvisation in Europe, not simply a “pioneer” but a living powerhouse combined with a living museum. Despite press plaudits which seem to promise an onstage riot of mischief and mayhem, the music here is not violent, or iconoclastic, and in fact I was surprised by the overall mood of restraint and deliberation. That said, sudden guitar swoops have the force of two falcons, and the bass drums have the precision of a marksman’s rifle. (01/08/2023)