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unnamed impressions, out of London
Unnamed Music Festival, London, 11-12 June 2009
Sebastian Lexer / Aleks Kolkowski / Angharad Davies / Rhodri Davies / Louisa Martin / Lee Patterson / Lucio Capece / Angharad Davies / Tom Chant / Benedict Drew / John Edwards / Keith Rowe / Martin Küchen / Seymour Wright / Bechir Saade / Clive Bell / Matt Milton / Jamie Coleman / Paul Abbott / Ute Kanngiesser / Grundik Kasyansky | organized by Simon Reynell
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First, my apologies for the serious lack of photos here. Cameras can be really distracting, particularly when I’m the one using them, so I opted to go without for these shows. If anyone has their own pictures of some or all of the performances, I’m happy to reproduce them here. Let me know.
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Sensory overload. Having spent two recent evenings with incredible music in the ears, and in the company of interesting people, friends and musicians alike, it’s taken me a while to get my thoughts written out on the Unnamed Music Festival (London division), curated by Another Timbre label honch, Simon Reynell. It was a big stroke of fortune that I should have the opportunity to finally see many musicians I’ve been following for years, but had only heard and seen by way of compact disc and Youtube. And these musicians were routinely gathered in the same spot, at Cafe Oto, a now well-known and oft-talked about venue for playing/listening and haven for hanging/bullshitting in the Dalston borough of London.
A quick word about Oto before moving into the music. A down-to-earth joint, this place is tucked away in an L-shaped street, adjacent to bustle and low-level chaos of Balls Pond Road (or is it Kingsland?). The area reminds me of certain parts of Vancouver, BC, where ethnic dining competes with commodity stores for identity and utility as buses recycle the patrons at regular intervals. Cafe Oto enjoys an address that is free of cars and buses passing immediately by, making the sidewalk and street a safe place to loiter and gab. Inside is a large, open room, built more for restaurant productivity than for music performances, with fair to negligible acoustics and plenty of room to sit. The decor is casual, to say the least, with a few couches along the walls, small cafe tables throughout, and occasional larger tables and coffee tables alike. Far back in one corner and near the entrance door, the small kitchen and service counter are nicely situated, spaced far enough away from the performance area as to be unnoticeable when musicians are playing. Finally, Mark Wastell runs the brick and mortar end of Sound 323 from a small, small room adjoining the main space. Each night Wastell extended the storefront to a table and chair, merchandised with cds from the evening’s billed performers, and then some. I’m told that Oto does a fair amount of business most nights, pulling in regulars (of which there are many) and earning new patronage through its location and general buzz. Thursday the 11th had a good showing with maybe 80-90 people, and Friday evening was packed to the gills with an audience in excess of 140. I immediately longed for such a place in DC or Baltimore, where the communities are strong in their own right, but more economy-sized and less active by comparison.
Anyway.
As this is being written, Reynell is producing Another Timbre cds at an intensified rate, five of which were released in the last month, with another five or six on the books for near-future consumption. And we should be thankful — the man has exceptional taste. What I know of Simon is that he’s first a rabid music fan and second a professional acoustician. He’s also a hellaciously nice dude. Simon had his thoughts appropriately concentrated on a busy three days (the third night of the fest took place in Leeds, way out of my sanity envelope for attending), so we didn’t find much time to talk, but this didn’t keep me from noticing a perfectionist ethic in the arrangement of mics and equipment, and a casual attitude about timeliness and getting the production right. And genuine, evident excitement about the festival. Every set but the first of Friday’s got underway plus or minus fifteen minutes from planned start, with a few minor, welcome delays which enhanced listeners’ digestion of the music through thought and dialogue. With regard to the selection of musicians and the arrangements of the sets, the festival bill was clearly and foremost a matter of Reynell’s personal taste, as the majority of the musicians have at one time or another featured on Another Timbre. A number of musicians had origins outside of Britain (Lucio Capece - Germany/Argentina, Keith Rowe - France, Bechir Saade - Lebanon, Martin Küchen - Sweden…). The lineups in mind, though, I went in with a hunch that the musicians comprising a given unit would be perhaps too compatible, but I wouldn’t know for certain until each set had played itself out. A personal preference attached to a somewhat ignorant presumption, and one which doesn’t need much elaboration, so. To the music.
Thursday, June 11th, 8:00 pm
The festival was opened by Aleks Kolkowski (Stroh violin) and Sebastian Lexer (prepared piano + software). Lexer’s instrumentation was billed as “piano+” a grand-style prepared with c-clamps, bolts and springs, among other items less apparent. As is his style — and as is required, given the utility in marrying objects with piano strings — Lexer spent most of his time hunched over and beneath the piano lid, making adjustments as necessary, improvising at once off the impulses of Kolkowski, and equally off of his own self-emitted patterns and sustained tones from the piano, which, given the circumstances, seemed especially cavernous. The duo had a strong, pensive opening (almost immediately marred to the audience by world-ish music being played outside the venue) and quickly fizzled into something that was only collaborative by circumstance. I sensed little in the area of communication, at least any that worked its way into something coherent or palpable, and thus was thus forced to focus my attention to the sounds I was finding most interesting — those of Lexer’s. Using unseen devices Lexer coaxed mechanical, sometimes metallic noises from within the piano, which could be long, sustained patterns of gritty sounds, or sparse bits of undertones reverberating off one another and out into the room. Kolkowski seemed attentive to Lexer, but his playing, whether bowing the bell of the stroh fixture or plucking pizzicato from the violin, never meshed very well, neither acoustically nor in timing. He offered additional gestures by scraping the wood of the violin, and other “explore your instrument”-type techniques, but his efforts never really took on much beyond triviality. From this vantage Lexer simply owned the room, and the chemistry became secondary, if present at all.
What wasn’t inconsequential was the triggered system of software Lexer used as accompaniment to the piano. I’d known — but heard little — about the extent of this rig (controlled from a laptop), and can now offer a crude description of my own. Mics or some other sensors allow the piano sounds to be inputted into software, which will, depending upon tonal aspects such as attack, pitch, or decay, cause the laptop to produce its own sounds, sinewave or glitch in nature, through their own pre-designated channels. This artificial pseudo-intelligence results in a sort of bastardized call-and-response which begins with human activity inside the piano. Lexer’s control in light of the breadth of such a system is admirable — the electronics weren’t overused and were at times complementary, while deeply contrasting at others. Quite the treat to see Lexer at work, even from my vantage outside the piano, and within a duo which didn’t once appear to find itself. An awkward opening for the first evening, as the case can often be.
The quartet of Tom Chant, Angharad Davies, Benedict Drew and John Edwards was one I was particularly excited to hear. My own familiarity with Chant’s and Edwards’ music is one of musicians who are steeped in a kind of quasi-Prévostian existentialism, and with an appreciation of the loose limitations afforded by traditional free improvisation. The addition of experimentalist Ben Drew and violinist Angharad Davies were a compelling wrench in the gears. The group played a single piece of improvised music whose success and failure stemmed from a single facet: that of tension. In terms of musicianship, Davies and Chant were particularly interesting to watch and hear interact. Chant’s technique is distinctive, and the guy’s brimming with ideas, which make their way with ease into live performance. Davies established a baseline for the aforementioned tension with a horizontal motif that didn’t venture outside a given range of amplitude — a potent little push, pleasing to the ears, on which all seemed to hone in, if only temporarily. The quartet then sustained a nice middle section to the piece with dramatic effect, ranging from repeated notes and gestures to isolated and restrained group frenzies which would dissipate as quickly as they appeared. Drew was the accentuation this group needed with some categorically electronic sounds in some places, kinetics-via-contact mics in others, but he was criminally underplaying. And as their piece approached what might have been an entrance ramp to something climactic, they only got quieter. To be clear: restraint=good, reluctance=bad, and I think this group was suffering from the latter for far too long a stretch. Their set ended on quite the positive note, entering a sequence of abbreviated notes as an ensemble in a discoordinated game of hopscotch. It worked rather well and I remember being flummoxed that the preceding length of the piece didn’t take on such color or at least a few detours. Unbalanced as it was, this was among the more memorable sets from the two nights, partly for the frustration it generated but perhaps more for the concentration it demanded from the audience. Wrench in the gears, indeed.
The quartet of Louisa Martin, Lee Patterson, Lucio Capece, and Rhodri Davies capped the first evening with a fully improvised set. Patterson came equipped to the teeth with an arsenal of electronics and everyday objects, while Capece and Martin — and even Davies, by comparison — used minimal instrumentation. Davies was on his electric harp and I found his playing to be wonderfully balanced, using a combination of natural tones, electronics and items with which the harp was prepared — among those items were several wooden tuning pegs affixed between strings in the low register, which, when gently tapped, emitted warm, huge vibrations and covered quite efficiently the low end in the ensemble. Covering the high end were primarily the sounds Capece played on wind instruments. Capece has excellent intonation, which he saw fit to destroy with the insertion of such accessories as grain cans, tubes, and even a tambourine-like toy, affixed atop the bell of his saxophone and with a plastic ball rolling haphazardly around within. With Capece’s experimentation came welcome, yet restrained, departures within the ensemble, fortuitous because by midpoint the music might have easily devolved into a kind of electronic chamber music. Yet this wasn’t enough to force the music out of its safety net. Patterson provided a wash of his own sounds, committing only to around 25% of the gear on the table in front of him, and I found his sound to be a bit underrepresented on the whole. Martin had troubles of her own, apparently — a true trooper in front of a laptop that didn’t want to play by her rules. Where she was heard it was of benefit, and I think she and Capece might have exploited a few points of departures had the opportunities been better available, but as such the remainder of the set took on a drone atmosphere with only a few nudges outward from Patterson and Davies. Tame as it was, the mix on the whole was the best in the two nights of music I witnessed. Really great sound from this group, some outstanding textures of electrostatic and rotational variety, but not as adventurous as I was hoping they’d be.
For a planned encore, Chant, Davies, Drew and Edwards returned to perform “Four6”, a late improvisatory piece, and one of little structure, by John Cage. Here’s what I know about the piece: 30 minutes. Four musicians each decide upon his her/own 12 pre-determined sounds from their instrument (“for any way of producing sound”), to be played within scored time brackets over the duration of the piece, in which said brackets are loose, but structured. The first player may perform his/her first part as a solo, and to influence the greater whole.
I’m going to throw a hail mary here by saying that, whatever Cage’s intentions, the results here were negligible. Something between a controlled mess and uniformity without solidarity. My immediate response to the music was that there was an excessively busy degree of activity taking place. This was, after all, a Cage piece, and in it there was around a minute of relative silence, collectively. 29/30th’s was sound, in general defiance of Cage fundamentals. Where there was silence it came off more as pauses of indecision than anything deliberate or suited to the progression of the piece. Again, a hail mary because I was unable to read the score, but others are certain to have enjoyed hearing Cage played out under any circumstance.
Friday, June 12th, 8:30ish
Friday night opened with a long, appropriately meandering set from Jamie Coleman (trumpet, objects), Paul Abbott (electronics, homebrew), Ute Kanngiesser (cello) and Grundik Kasyansky (electronics, homebrew). This was another group I was particularly interested in hearing, in large part for my general unfamiliarity with the musicians save for Coleman. Their set opened with some chamber-like interplay, quickly moving into harsh territory due to the welcome restlessness of the electronicians. Kasyansky — calmly in his chair — brought in frenetic electronic outbursts, immediately subduing his gear with silence by way of switches and a mixer. The music was heading in a direction we hadn’t yet heard during the festival, coaxed on effectively with timely responses from Abbott. With the electronics at the fore, and with Abbott’s movements (who moved around athletically in comparison to the other musicians), Coleman and Kanngiesser weaved an airy complexion about the space, filling gaps by proxy. Coleman was particularly disciplined with quiet, whispery tones played from the trumpet. He’d tweak the sound here, lay out there, and return again, affecting similar registers to the cello. Kanngiesser gave the impression that she was truly experimenting with her instrument, going into areas not previously considered. I fully enjoyed watching/hearing her play. During one memorable segment she played with sonority in her strings before the bridge, bowing these and the bridge itself, revealing newly found tones and without overkill. This was followed by riffing a percussive pattern high on the cello’s fingerboard in which every fourth or fifth tone rang out in full. A glance at Coleman showed him to have abandoned orthodoxy in the playing of his trumpet, opting to physically deconstruct the instrument and cycle it through a small collection of metallic objects, all within a small spectrum of frequencies. At some point Kasynasky’s gear ceased to behave. Musically, it worked well, but the unexpectedness of brass bowls and cymbals falling to the floor — seemingly unintended — put a gap in the unit’s groove that wouldn’t be quite refilled. Abbott was the glue which allowed the quartet to stay together, if not fully cohesive. He worked through an array of mechanical effects — whirring contact mics through the air, cracking speaker cones with electric charges, “playing” signal generators — and without whimsy. Coleman, Kanngiesser and Kasyansky responded in kind for some brief instances of fluidity across the quartet. Apart from several missed opportunities that would have made for a tidy ending (and an appropriately shorter set), and some untidy interim humps, this set had the makings of a magical bout of improvised experimental music.
Clive Bell (shakuhachi), Bechir Saade (ney flutes) and Matt Milton (violin) performed two improvised pieces for the second set, one long one in excess of 20 minutes, and a shorter encore. Milton was appropriately flanked in the performance space by the flautists, but he might have well been in a different universe. For my own listening, the opening premise of two wooden flutes with violin would be a significant obstacle to overcome, but there were many in the audience who were excited about this lineup. Bell and Saade have played and recorded before, notably on Another Timbre, and it’s unknown to me how Milton came to be added. As it was, I had some excitement about hearing Milton, an expressive and adventurous player within a relatively small envelope, and I figured his addition among the flutes to be promising. Turns out that Milton was indeed of most interest throughout their set, but I’d be remiss to not note the sensitivity and thoughtful tone in Bell’s and Saade’s respective playing. At moments of connectivity within the trio the music was fleetingly engaging, but the flutes would invariably anchor within their own territory, leaving Milton adrift with his own injections, non-intrusive as they were, and well outside the communication that took place between Bell and Saade for the majority of the set.
For this trio to really have worked (for me) would require that the flutes were used less conventionally — their secondary qualities exploited, rather than retreated from, the way I heard it — and in invested partnership with Milton’s provocative, enjoyable style of playing. Saade and Milton each had moments where new territories were entered, the former in a sustained bout of experimentation on one of the neys, and Milton with minimalist reports on and about the violin, particularly toward the end of the encore where he menacingly employed the blunt edge of a plastic straw against the wood of his violin with excellent pace and attentiveness to the interactions of the flutes. But even this — which would have made an excellent consummation of some common ground — ultimately found no capital.
Lastly the trio of Martin Küchen, Keith Rowe and Seymour Wright set up for a single extended piece that would range from silence-oriented to sound collage. I should disclose here my disproportionately large anticipation for this set — it is a stroke of brilliance that arrangements should be made for this trio to perform. To wit, Küchen is primarily associated with free improvisation of a more conventional vein, but where he ventures into purely experimental music, well, I’ve long thought his playing to be more suited to it than many veterans in this area. His collaboration with Rowe is simply exciting — two thoughtful musicians coming at their music through different circuits, wildly different paths behind them, but at this point in time with near identical objectives in improvisation.
As if not enough, Rowe and Simon Reynell seized upon the trifecta in having saxophonist Seymour Wright complete the bill. On paper, Wright’s presence adds a special dimension. A highly expressive, hyper-disciplined player, Wright can achieve on his own with minimal instrumentation what many musicians can’t with overdubs (see Seymour Wright of Derby for drift). Coming at his music with a buried jazz sensibility, he’s among the more interesting saxophonists around, and the ideas keep coming.
Rowe’s contributions (and importance) in this area of music are well documented in these pages, but it’s necessary to point out his continued interest in exploring new paths with new players, and in relatively new situations. Situated between Küchen and Wright, with little (if any) preconceptions or sketches that would inform the music as it unfolded, it can be assumed that Rowe was happily in his element.
The trio began their set with diminutives — this was a looong stretch of near-silence running beyond 10 minutes — with each musician working hard such that each sound was out of intent, and not accident. The acoustics in Oto — lacquered cement floors, zero absorptive material on the walls or ceiling, glass windows which span one fourth of the playing space — made it difficult at times to discern the quieter music from crowd-generated noise. This was the most populated set (over 140 in the audience), and the tiniest shift of a chair, the resetting of a beer glass to a table, a cough… — such sounds accompanied the first five minutes of music with audience discipline slowly setting in. Küchen slowly inserted a radio and padded tube into the bell of his alto for the purpose of some quiet air noises, as from a hole in a ventilation duct. Wright responded with quiet static with his own handheld radio wired to a headphone speaker — of a size one might find on Sennheisers or generic studio headphones — which itself was encased with foam such that, when inserted into the bell of Wright’s sax, there was little risk of scraping or (more importantly, I think) unintended noise. In these earlier segments, Rowe could be heard in the background, preparing for and executing short progressions of electrical hums, resonating strings and scraping about, building the foundation for a sustained live loop which would later emerge and retreat from the atmosphere.
Rowe’s playing — comparatively quiet at this point — provided a sonic backdrop, which he’d himself penetrate without warning with new and unexpected sounds. I’m unsure as to whether he’s completely ditched his older guitars, such as the Steinberger (a copy model?), but to this set he’d brought his “Virtuoso”, a training piece for classical guitarists that is no more than a classical guitar head affixed to a small portion of a neck and fretboard (I counted maybe 5 frets), and a bridge for the securing of 6 strings. The instrument might be 20” in length. Rowe informed me that these days he’ll only buy Zakk Wylde-model strings, and applauds them for their tension and resistance to detuning. While fun, and outright hilarious, that Rowe exclusively plays Zakk Wylde strings, it speaks to a concern and cruciality of having the right gear in hand, which no doubt affords Rowe his unmistakeable sound. (It should be no surprise that this was my favorite data point from 3 days in London.)
With regard to radio employment — which would feature handsomely throughout this set — Küchen and Wright used theirs in similar manners, but with discrete outcomes. While Küchen was primarily satisfied with grit and static, Wright would on occasion surf the bands for discernible transmissions, at one point in concert with Rowe, whose radio took on a more orchestral role, channeled through a table mixer and into a greater acoustic scheme. Of the transmissions I caught were static, beat frequencies, talk, neo-disco, classical, and muzak.
For all the instrumentation, none of the musicians fell victim to over-riffing on a single technique. The most magical point came when, during a brief period of relative silence and perhaps 15 minutes into their set, Küchen initiated a new route with repeated, meticulous tapping of the keypads on his alto. These percussive, hollow sounds took on a mechanical feel for their rigid cadence and sustained, low volume. Wright took some internal cue, improvising non-intrusively over Küchen with the unorthodox use of sax reeds and tin can lids. These sounds were perfectly suited to one another, and very attractive. Behind this segment, at the acoustic rear, Rowe found common ground with guitar and effects and introduced a welcome, however brief, segue of radio play. Their set would continue in this fashion, never monotonous, and always seeking to explore new ground.
In nearly 50 minutes of continued improv, their music ran through high points and puzzling lows. There was a casual nature about their playing that sometimes, briefly, transitioned off into areas of heightened activity, but never took on its own identity. There were remarkable moments of synchronicity, yet I found these to be isolated instances in a greater patchwork which was never fully realized. The interaction and communicability between Küchen and Wright was unmistakeable. There’s a serious chemistry there and their approaches showed immediate rapport that begs to be further explored in a duo recording or performance. All told, I sat amazed when their piece finally wound down to silence, and then nothing.
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So, two singles, two doubles, and two triples, nothing hit out of the park, and a highly memorable festival on the whole. Improvisation is by nature a risk-based endeavor, and this principle is what makes it wonderful pastime, in practice and in aesthetic. Each set exceeded my expectations in its own way with scattered and brilliantly executed playing, and communication that was a thrill to see negotiated. And it’s probably no stretch to say that, to anyone attending, the music on the whole was an informative lesson in group dynamics.
On a final note, there are many curators, label owners, impresarios and sound engineers involved in the promotion and advocacy of improvised music. For three days Reynell took on each of those roles at once, and with some success. Reynell’s and my interests in certain musicians are almost perfectly matched — thus my excitement at the opportunity to attend this festival — and it’s fortunate there are folks such as he who will take on the responsibility and task of transforming a scene into an event.
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TAILPIECE
Having only been present for events in the first Unnamed Festival, I can say only so much about the community of which I was part for a mere two evenings. I’d been attentive to the scuttlebutt long before this trip to London, and the common word was one of two vague camps. 1) An open-source community where musicians of the experimental fold interact freely and with the common objective of forward progression in literally all areas of sound generation. And 2) an equally linked number of musicians who attend and add to Eddie Prévost’s workshop, an endeavor which has been running for 10 years. There is, appropriately, thankfully, lively and productive intermingling. Having conversed almost continuously with many of the musicians and listeners, it didn’t take long to determine whether someone resided in or outside of a certain collective, or if that person was simply ambivalent to it all, largely by choice. I proceed cautiously here, as I don’t care much for terms like “camp” and “side”, and I only bring it up to offer an outsider’s perspective. To be sure, I learned from these conversations that any divisiveness exists only topically and not in any manner that affects progression. I had no interest in discussing rifts (a topic that came up on a few occasions), was of course aware that one had taken place, and remain baffled that it’s even an issue (really, I think it’s more a thing of practical legend than an “issue”). Certainly most musicians fail to paths of least resistance with their own influences, and the pertinent common denominators here are Eddie Prévost and Keith Rowe, who no longer play together. But any seriousness or damage done by that fallout is repudiated simply by how equally critical and supportive all of the musicians are of one another. The dynamic on the whole among all of the musicians was incredibly refreshing. Positive support and constructive criticism flow in equal doses, to the point that a constant dialogue is taking place. It’s the healthiest of environments and unlike any I’ve seen firsthand. Locals are more than welcome to correct this outsider point of view, but I have the feeling most will agree.
Lastly, my bestest thanks to Richard Pinnell and to everyone else who made this stranger feel right at home.
~Alan Jones
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Thanks, Al, for a very fair and considered write-up of the Festival. Like you I felt all the sets had both strong points and limitations, though interestingly the specifics of my initial responses have shifted somewhat as I’ve been listening back to the recordings in the last couple of days. I’ll be posting extracts from most of the sets on the Another Timbre website soon, so others can form their own opinions.
Shame that I was too ridiculously busy to talk much. In fact I didn’t really enjoy the concert-organising side of the Festival; simply too many things to think about at once. But I really did enjoy the three recording sessions that were linked to the Festival, where I was able to concentrate properly on some great music that will hopefully be released on disc at some point in the future.
As to your Tailpiece, yes I think there is a particular energy and excitement around London’s improv scene at the moment. As you say, there’s a large and varied group of players who by and large are determined to support each other rather than fall into sectarian ‘camps’, even with regard to people who are doing something musically quite different from each other. It’s a great pleasure to be around Cafe Oto with so many creative and innovative folk, and I firmly hope that a number of substantial bodies of work will emerge.
Hi Al
Considering you had not read my review, and considering we did not talk about the sets very much in person it is scary how close our reviews are…
Was great to see you and spend some time, you left a good impression at Oto with a good number of people.
Looking forward to hearing some of this now.
Great piece, Al!
Nice one Al; I couldn’t have written or imagined a fairer review of Friday’s proceedings. Actually Richard, I think Al’s review is much more critical and less effusive than yours - I don’t read too much similarity.
Thanks Simon for organising an interesting festival; organising gigs for other people really can be a thankless task. How you managed to do everything and stay cool I’ll never know, and I wished you controlled the PA at Oto all the time.
Interesting you say your responses have changed after further listening; no 5 CD box set of the WRK trio then?
Thanks Graham, but I really can’t accept your compliment about the pa at Cafe Oto. I was just recording, and the pa was controlled by James Dunn, the very able in-house technician. In fact the pa was only used for two sets (the Davies/Martin/Patterson/Capece group on the Thursday and the Bell/Saade/Milton trio on Friday). The rest of the time James was an invaluable assistant to my distracted self.
As for my changing assessments of some of the sets after listening back to the recordings, the biggest change is actually a positive one. At the time I found it very hard to concentrate on the Sebastian Lexer / Aleks Kolkowski duo on the Thursday, as there was a good deal of intrusive noise floating in from some partying in the building next door. The set was generally pretty quiet, and - like Richard Pinnell and Al - I found myself willing Aleks in particular to give more and respond to Sebastian’s invitations to move into a more muscular style of playing. But the outside noises are much less evident on the recording and listening again I found the duo’s music really compelling. Doubtless it’s too ‘classical’ for many people here, but I am very pleased with the results. Though the audience at Cafe Oto is incredibly attentive, the Cafe isn’t an easy venue for quiet music, or for any music that isn’t projected strongly into the space. I suspect that’s one small factor behind the robust and challenging style of improvisation that a lot of the younger players in London currently favour. But as music abstracted away from the venue, I think the Lexer/Kolkowski duo is very strong, and certainly more powerful than either Richard’s or Al’s reviews suggest. Others will be able to judge for themselves when I post an extract from the set on the Another Timbre website in a few days.
Finally had the opportunity to read Richard’s reviews of these shows @ http://www.thewatchfulear.com I agree, scarily similar, mostly in our general response to each of the sets, with the KRW trio as the major exception. Looking forward to hearing the Sat nite shows, as possible.
Simon, I’ll check your site frequently for those extracts. Thanks in advance for taking the time to do that. If you’re interested in the open-air recordings I made, let me know and I’ll arrange some lossless files for you. Particularly interested in revisiting the Lexer/Kolkowski, which, in terms of performance/audience response, may have been doomed from the start. It’s also the only performance I wasn’t able to record.
I’ll revisit all of the recordings at some point, but next I must take on the unenviable task of transcribing my interview with Rowe, Wright, and Küchen. Yuck! But it’s a worthwhile read, highly philosophical in content. I may go the easy route and webstream the audio from these pages.
Thanks guys for reading and for the feedback. I really hadn’t intended to write a review but began to quickly think it’d be unfair not to, as there are many on my side of the pond who’ll likely eat up whatever perspective they can get for the goings-on in your region.
Biggest regret(s)? Missing the Farmer/French duo, and not spending near enough time with Graham, who I was very happy to see and visit with.
“I really can’t accept your compliment about the pa at Cafe Oto. I was just recording, and the pa was controlled by James Dunn, the very able in-house technician. In fact the pa was only used for two sets (the Davies/Martin/Patterson/Capece group on the Thursday and the Bell/Saade/Milton trio on Friday). The rest of the time James was an invaluable assistant to my distracted self.”
OK, perhaps for PA read Live Sound; which was superb in my estimation. And I could swear that KR was using a pair of your own active monitors, not the house monitors (which usually hum). Anyhow, all credit to James and yourself.
Al, I have a feeling you’ll be visiting Oto again :-) - next time I’ll attempt to be there for the duration. I admire the way you made use of your time; excellent review and an interview to follow. What more could we ask for?
After much confusing shenanigans I’ve finally uploaded extracts from six of the performances at The Unnamed Music Festival to the Another Timbre website. Because of FTP problems which led to the website going off-line last week, some search engines may keep leading you astray for the next couple of days. But if you google ‘another timbre downloads’ you should be alright,
or else just follow this link:
http://www.anothertimbre.com/downloads.html
excellent, Simon. Can’t wait to listen to these tonight.
eating crow here on the Lexer/Kolkowski set. The extract at the AT site is like listening to a new performance altogether. Unreal, sometimes, how playing witness to a performance can add to or subtract from the overall response to the music. May have been that I was distracted by the performance itself, or that the open-air mix of the contributions was flat. Whatever the case, glad to hear potions of that set in a new light, so to speak. Any intention of releasing it, Simon?
Total agreement, Al. As I said above, you weren’t the only one to underestimate the Lexer/Kolkowski set at the time.
But no plans to release it as (a) the annoying noises off are still audible on the recording, albeit much less so than live, and (b) I’ve much too much on my plate release-wise as it is.