Very good free jazz item on Discus was this Cecil Taylor / Tony Oxley concert from 2002, released as “…Being Astral and All registers – Power of Two…” (DISCUS MUSIC Discus 106CD). I think this came out in 2020 and the prospect of writing anything about it just terrified me, and still does. As is well known, Taylor and Oxley appeared on the Leaf Palm Hand CD, which was a document of a 1988 concert at the Kongresshalle in Berlin, from a time when FMP put out a lot of Taylor’s live duo / ensemble sets. I hadn’t realised that Taylor stopped making records around 1999-2000 – only learned that from Adam Baruch’s notes to this item. He still played concerts though, which is why we have this instance from the Ulrichsberg Festival of 2002. Baruch also points out the connecting factor between these two mavericks, that of percussion – Taylor spoke of his piano as “88 tuned drums” and certainly had a “percussive polyrhythmic attack” on the instrument, as Baruch puts it, going on to point out the enhanced drumkit of Oxley produced musical notes and not just beats. If you think I’m nervous about writing, it seems Oxley was nervous about playing with Cecil Taylor; he recounts the circumstances of the 1988 FMP date, and how due to mistakes in the admin / organisation the duo never had a chance to rehearse or prepare. Presumably he’d never even met Taylor before this. The performance went well, though – even though it was a completely spontaneous performance for the drummer – and Taylor singled him out for praise. To hear how they got on for the “rematch” event, this CD is your passport to an hour of great music. Colourful artworks on the covers and disc are by Oxley. He died at the end of 2023, another great loss to our music.
Cacahlot (AUSSENRAUM AR-LP-013) by Cacahlot got tucked away in the vinyl stack for about two or three years (was released in 2022) but has now been rescued as part of this negotiation. Powerful improvised grind-drone horrifier created by Jamasp Jhabvala on violin and Marc Berman on the accordion. Researchers, they consider themselves, audio researchers…they claim to have used photos of a nuclear accident as inspiration, or perhaps as a music score? And then threw their own recording tapes into the sea. Then rescued them again. Their name is that of a sperm whale, so our two explorers evidently wish to emulate such monsters of the deep, or evoke their surroundings…”long and obscure exploration of the abyss” indicate the press merchants. The violinist has played in Swiss combo Insub Meta Orchestra and may have some connection to Paracelze, Convulsif, and The Raspoutine Smoked Band. I liked the first track on side one where things might be distorted by electronic assistance and traffic cones, less enchanting when they emerge into acoustic no-robes mode, and playing is revealed as a bit sluggish. However, rainbow balm awaits us on the melancholic stirrings of track 3. At their best, these two really scrape the scales off your skin and blast your muscle tone with sand. Cover painting by Mara Krastina, Flo Kaufmann lacquer cut, and pressed in clear vinyl. (26/01/2023)