49.00 PLN

CD:

Nr kat.: 4058
Label  : Emanem (Anglia)

>>> Większa okładka A <<< "Five years ago, these two nonpareil exponents of guitar and percussion made a stunning record for Emanem named BIRTHDAYS. If anything, this new one is stronger, funnier and more decisive. It is a straight stereo mic recording, yet the way Russell and Turner use the capacity of digital for extreme sonic contrast and split-second dynamics suggests they've invented a new machine for etching music onto discs. Muscle, imagination and witty impatience are so deftly in tune, they only need a 1930s big band guitar and a plectrum, a drum set and a motley collection of found objects to create twists and knots that have never before been heard. Drummer Turner has long worked with singers, including Annette Peacock and Phil Minton, and even at low volumes his percussive rasps and splutters pack the urgency and immediacy of their vocalese. Both players are so familiar with their chosen instruments that guitar and drum become prostheses, as immediate and expressive as mouth, larynx or lungs. Improvisation's refusal of genre entails reliance on elemental effects. If this music is inaccessible, it is because its detractors are too refined to credit an art made of direct physical shatter, splatter and slither. Russell and Turner keep their attention on the sonic actuality, never surrender to their soundings. Because both push their technique to the edge, they're as surprised by their own notes as those of the other. Turner's sensitivity to pitch means his tuned percussion fuses with Russell's notes. Two minutes into Dunt, there is an astonishing embrace between boinging cymbal and twanging string. Such moments are possible because Russell and Turner think along two tracks at once: they pursue rhythmic and melodic ideas with avidity, but hark to the total sound as well. A sudden mimicry will derail every analytic concept, yet preserve sonic continuity. They do not patronise listeners with prepared niceties, but expect them to be as moved and grooved and swung as they are, to enjoy their perpetual turnarounds and subversions as much as they do. This music is full of the energies and structures of sound processes in the workaday world: carpentry, mechanics, traffic, dishwashing, demolition. This approach opposes the notion of music as a higher, independent realm. The only reason it may sound abstract of difficult is because the rhythmic granularity is so advanced and fine. Russell and turner's sonic fencing is a cartoon for the ears. The idea that this species of improvisation is 'hairshirt cerebralism' rather than action packed entertainment demonstrates how most music has been colonised by fantasies concerning social identity and star celebrity." BEN WATSON - THE WIRE 2001