The Squid's Ear Magazine


Butcher, John / Luigi Marino / Mark Wastell: Parallel Streams (Confront)

An impressive live performance at Exploratorium Berlin in 2024 as part of the international symposium Musicians' Perspectives on Improvisation, which explores the practices, ideas, visions and theories of improvising musicians, from the trio of John Butcher on saxophones, Luigi Marino on cymbals, zarb, zarb e zurkhaneh & feedback devices, and Mark Wastell on percussion.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



John Butcher-saxophones

Luigi Marino-cymbals, zarb, zarb e zurkhaneh, feedback devices

Mark Wastell-percussion


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Label: Confront
Catalog ID: core 47
Squidco Product Code: 35166

Format: CDR
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded live at the Exploratorium, in Berlin, Germany, on February 2nd, 2024, by Johannes von Wrochen.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

A live performance from the free improvising trio of John Butcher, Luigi Marino, and Mark Wastell, a masterful exploration of sonic textures and improvisational synergy. The album unfolds like a series of interconnected soundscapes, where the boundaries between instruments blur and dissolve. Butcher's saxophone work is as inventive and nuanced as ever, pushing the limits of breath, timbre, and harmonic resonance. His ability to manipulate sound — whether through extended techniques or subtle shifts in dynamics — creates a constantly evolving dialogue with his fellow musicians.

Luigi Marino's contributions on electronics and percussion add a layer of depth that feels both organic and otherworldly. His use of granular synthesis and real-time processing brings a sense of unpredictability and tension to the music. The delicate balance between acoustic percussion and electronic manipulation is a hallmark of Marino's style, and it's on full display here.

Mark Wastell, a seasoned improviser and sound artist, brings a tactile quality to the album with his work on tam-tam and other resonant objects. His approach is minimalist yet profound, allowing the inherent tones of his instruments to ring out and interact with the spaces created by Butcher and Marino. The resulting interplay is meditative, with each sound treated as a living entity within the larger ecosystem of the piece.

What stands out in Parallel Streams is the trio's ability to maintain a sense of cohesion while embracing the spontaneous and unpredictable nature of improvisation. Given that this was a part of the international symposium Musicians' Perspectives on Improvisation, this is a perfect trio for deep exploration and unusual yet compelling results. Essential.


Artist Biographies

"John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics.Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians - Derek Bailey, John Tilbury, John Stevens, The EX, Akio Suzuki, Gerry Hemingway, Polwechsel, Gino Robair, Rhodri Davies, Okkyung Lee, John Edwards, Toshi Nakamura, Paul Lovens, Eddie Prevost, Mark Sanders, Christian Marclay, Otomo Yoshihide, Phil Minton, and Andy Moor - to name a few.

He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with the uniqueness of place. Resonant Spaces is a collection of site-specific performances collected during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.His first solo album, Thirteen Friendly Numbers, includes compositions for multitracked saxophones, whilst later solo CDs focus on live performance, composition, amplification and saxophone-controlled feedback.

HCMF has twice commissioned him to compose for his own large ensembles. Other commissions include for Elision (Australia), the Rova (USA) & Quasar (Canada) Saxophone Quartets, reconstructed Futurist Intonarumori (USA), "Tarab Cuts" (based on pre-WWII Arabic recordings, and shortlisted for the 2014 British Composer's Award) and "Good Liquor .." for the London Sinfonietta. In 2011 he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists.

Recent groupings include The Apophonics with Robair and Edwards, Anemone with Peter Evans, Plume with Tony Buck & Magda Mayas and a trio with Okkyung Lee & Mark Sanders.Butcher values playing in occasional encounters - ranging from large groups such as Butch Morris' London Skyscraper and the EX Orkestra, to duo concerts with David Toop, Kevin Drumm, Claudia Binder, Paal Nilssen-Love, Thomas Lehn, Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, Ute Kangeisser, Matthew Shipp and Yuji Takahashi."

-John Butcher Website (http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk/Biog.html)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Luigi Marino is a musician based in Bristol. His work focuses on networks able to display relationships between human and nonhuman actors, and especially on how intuitive decisions can derail a pre-existing order. He is an active improvisor performing on both electronic media and percussion, in particular zarb and bowed custom cymbals extended with DIY portable circuits.

He holds an MFA in electronic music from Mills College where he worked as teaching assistant for John Bischoff and Chris Brown, and a joint PhD in composition from University of Birmingham and De Montfort University funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. His teachers include Roscoe Mitchell, John Bischoff, Chris Brown, James Fei, William Winant. He studied zarb with Mohssen Kasirossafar.

As a performer or composer his music has been presented at festivals and venues such as Rainforest World Music Festival (Kuching, Malaysia), San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Cafe Oto (London), Exploratorium (Berlin), Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Rome), Intonal Festival (Malmö), Auditorium Parco Della Musica (Rome), IEM (Graz), Seoul International Computer Music Festival, BEAST FEaST (Birmingham), Acousmatic for the People (Malmö), Sacred Realism (Berlin), Interpenetration (Graz), Sowieso (Berlin), Rhiz (Vienna), Km28 (Berlin), Iklectik (London), Hundred Years Gallery (London), Offene Ohren (Munich), WIM (Zurich), ImprovvisaMente (Lodi), ICMC (Athens). "

-Luigi Marino Website (http://www.luigimarino.net/about.html)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Mark Wastell Born 1968; cello.

Much of Mark Wastell's relationship with his chosen instrument is concentrated on the tactile, textural and sonic possibilities of both violoncello and bow. He is increasingly interested in working with extreme elements drawn from frequency, timbre and pitch.

His early activity was consciously and subconsciously influenced by a variety of improvising musicians including John Stevens, Barry Guy, Phil Durrant and John Russell. Subsequent exposure to contemporary composers lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of the works written for strings by Feldman, Cage, Nono, Lachenmann and Sciarrino. The use of live electronics and music concrete by Tudor, Parmegiani, Xenakis and others was another important early influence.

Wastell's current instrumental material primarily focuses on using abstract principles of space and texture - encompassing elements of new London silence, pro-instrument minimalism, new complexity and electro-acoustics. Because of the very nature of his chosen instrument, he tends to favour 'chamber' style ensembles and is a member of a number of regular groups:

• Chris Burn's Ensemble, with John Butcher, Rhodri Davies, John Russell, Matt Hutchinson

• Derek Bailey's Company - with, for example, Will Gaines, Simon H. Fell and Rhodri Davies

• Evan Parker's String Project, with Peter Cusack, Hugh Davies, Rhodri Davies, Phil Durrant, John Edwards, Kaffe Matthews, Marcio Mattos, John Russell

• Assumed possibilities, with Chris Burn, Rhodri Davies and Phil Durrant

• The Sealed Knot, with Burkhard Beins and Rhodri Davies

• Necessaire with Alessandro Bosetti, Ignaz Schick and Burkhard Beins

• IST with Simon Fell and Rhodri Davies

• Quatuor Accorde with Tony Wren, Phil Durrant and Charlotte Hug

• Broken Concort, a duo with Rhodri Davies

Mark Wastell has also performed with many other leading musicians including John Zorn, Keith Rowe, Peter Kowald, Hugh Davies, Roger Turner, Veryan Weston, Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders, Axel Dorner, Hans Koch, Phil Minton, Max Eastley and Steve Beresford.

As a soloist he has played at the Micro-classical Festival (London 1996), LMC Festival (London 2000) and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2000). He has travelled extensively with various groups, performing on tour and at festivals in the USA, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Greece. Other work includes the launch in 1996 of his own record label, Confront Recordings. Wastell is also joint co-ordinator of the concert venue All Angels, together with Rhodri Davies."

-European Free Improv (EFI) (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mwastell.html)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Parallel Streams: First 8:07

2. Parallel Streams: Second 4:46

3. Parallel Streams: Third 28:37

4. Parallel Addition 3:06

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Trio Recordings
John Butcher
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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Confront.


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