Robin Hayward/Annette Krebs - sgraffito

CDR-3

Hayward and Krebs have been performing together both as a duo and in larger ensembles like Phosphor for some time now. It’s an interesting reversal of the traditional role-playing dynamic: the male, wielding the massive and potentially macho tuba creates the softer, more minimal sounds while the female generates often awkward and intrusive noise. It has worked well in the past and continues to do so here as part of a CDR-only venture Krebs has created.

Four tracks, three done in studio, the last one live in concert. While it’s not vastly different from what listeners who know these two musicians might expect, it is a solid, imaginative example of their work. If anything, Krebs is a bit more aggressive than usual, more willing to interject an “inappropriate” radio capture or flurry of noise with the confidence that both she and Hayward can deal with it. Her palette is wider here than on other releases from the past few years but she doles out the sounds with a kind of casual coltishness that, for this listener, is quite endearing and refreshingly different from the careful nature of most practitioners in this area. Not that one approach is better than the other, just that it’s good to hear all avenues being used, including those that had been previously deemed unpromising. As always, Hayward’s control and phrasing are a pleasure to experience. Besides, there’s admittedly something quite enjoyable about hearing this large beast played with such facility and restraint as you normally get from the trumpeters in this field. His growled drones are an especially luscious treat.

There’s a fuller sound than one might expect as well as what appears to be some amount of post-production on the studio tracks (backwards tuba, for instance). The structure of the third track seems more event-oriented than your standard smoothly-flowing improv, assembled in the kind of slab-like manner we’ve heard in some Will Guthrie projects like “Spear”. There’s an invigorating feeling regarding the intersection of structure and noise here that’s all too rare even as it’s difficult to pin down. The live piece is particularly impressive, its stop and start, loud and soft sections nestling against each other snugly and proceeding with convincing dream logic. Krebs and Hayward integrate beautifully here, the listener no longer concerned with the origins of a given sound, just bathing in the music. A fine release, very much worth hearing.

Available directly from Annette at: sberk1@web.de