Rives, Stephane

Fibres

Label: Potlatch Country: France

"Fibres brings together seven circular-breathing soprano saxophone solos, grouped by Rives into three categories. The two tracks classified as Larsen et le roseau feature a stream of breathy emissions underlying a separate continuous high-pitched line shifting in frequency and intensity as a result of what appear to be both controlled modulations and the inevitable irregularities in the demanding process of simultaneously breathing in and blowing out. In the three "Granulations" the high-pitched line is dispensed with in favour of an exclusive focus on the microscopic world of unpitched respiratory flows through the interior of the saxophone. The final group of two tracks that bear the title Ébranlement (harsh) are rather more difficult to describe, and perhaps the siren-like Ébranlement #1 and the stridulous Ébranlement #2 ultimately share little more than a certain quality of harshness. However that may be, Rives' work across the CD is uniformly excellent. Recordings of experimental solo saxophone run the risk of degenerating into quasi-scientific reports of isolated sonic effects divorced from any interesting musical application, but Fibres fortunately avoids such sterility, not least because of its incorporation of frequent, subtle and engaging shifts of pitch, volume and texture within each track. I was particularly taken with the Granulations, a set of almost aquatic coursings and undulations that seem to represent a signal advance in the peculiar poetry of percolating phlegm that a small band of advanced reeds and brass players have been developing over the last decade. This is without doubt difficult and demanding music that demands repeated close listening in favorable circumstances and may well prove wholly inaccessible to many, but it is well worth expending some time and attention on, for it holds out to the sympathetic listener a rewarding intricacy of improvised passages with which to engage."-Wayne Spencer, Paristransatlantic