French minimal improv from the duo of Bertrand Gauguet and Didier Lasserre on MEHR (AKOUSIS RECORDS 006), recorded in a studio in 2023.
Akousis Records seems to gravitate towards this slow, quiet, very deliberative style of playing, aiming to create records that are almost fundamentalist about their purity, untainted by excesses of technique, and largely free from conventional associations. Free improvisation gets more refined every time the genre checks in at my house, and some days I can barely recognise the guest in their new outfit. It was especially interesting when Gauguet played with the self-effacing John Tilbury on Contre-Courbes, in an episode of such respectful dimensions that it was more akin to an ancient tea ceremony.
On today’s record, the plan is to make use of breath tones and “multiphonics” from Gauguet’s alto saxophone, and there’s some sort of implied collision with the percussion strokes of Didier Lasserre. Perhaps “collision” is putting it too strongly, but the two creators are chasing after some form of tension with these silences, unexpected rhythms, and a total refusal to form a recognisable repeatable pattern. Even the track titles are cryptic; they seem to allude to chance procedures, a reversible blade (?), the actions of doing and undoing. If considered as the makings of a musical chart, those are the sort of quasi-philosophical instructions which probably earn you bonus air miles in the John Cage travel agency.
I’d like to have enjoyed this release a bit more, but the soup is thin and the bones are bare. Even so, the tones are simple and clear and every percussive beat shines like a tiny flashlight in a grey shrouded room. (19/12/2024)