The Squid's Ear Magazine


Frith, Fred / Darren Johnston: Everybody's Somebody's Nobody (Clean Feed)

Bay Area trumpeter Darren Johnston meets improvising guitar legend Fred Frith for an incredibly well-paced series of duos, remarkable improv that uses space, skill, extended techniques and unexpected approaches to both instruments in vivid and beautiful discourse.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Fred Frith-guitar

Darren Johnston-trumpet


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UPC: 5609063003574

Label: Clean Feed
Catalog ID: CF357
Squidco Product Code: 21564

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2016
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Guerilla Sound on September 5th, 2013 and December 17th, 2014.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"This is the first duo effort to be released by Canada-born, but long time contributor to the San Francisco Bay Area scene trumpeter Darren Johnston, and the legendary guitar iconoclast Fred Frith. They can also be heard together on the fine release Reasons For Moving, (Not Two, 2007), alongside Larry Ochs, Devin Hoff and Ches Smith, but in this more intimate musical gathering, the results are truly astonishing.

The genesis for this session was originally to provide sounds for a short dance film for filmmakers John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson and choreographer Amy Seiwert in a commission for the SF Dance Film Festival, but as can happen when improvisors are effectively inspired by one another, this led to a full release's worth of exciting new music. With the distinct and unusual combination of a guitar and trumpet duo, from the very first moments of "Everybody's Somebody's Nobody" we feel that they're inventing a new timbral map and a new format.

These are musicians from different generations, but they have more in common than what you might suppose. Johnston has started a path with his instrument similar to the one taken by Frith 40 years ago. After the termination of the prog band Henry Cow, the British six-string player started intense exploratory work around techniques, vocabularies and forms - frequently creating unprecedented and beautiful new sounds - and his accomplishments have since widely expanded the possibilities of the guitar. Now, Johnston is doing the same with the trumpet, taking it to its limits and sometimes beyond. Don't miss this important step of today's music evolution."-Clean Feed


Artist Biographies

"Though the point of reference for many remains the iconic band Henry Cow, which he co-founded in 1968 and which broke up more than 30 years ago, Fred Frith has never really stood still for an instant.

In bands such as Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog, Tense Serenity, the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Eye to Ear, and most recently Cosa Brava, he has always held true to his roots in rock and folk music, while exploring influences that range from the literary works of Eduardo Galeano to the art installations of Cornelia Parker.

The release of the seminal Guitar Solos in 1974 enabled him to simultaneously carve out a place for himself in the international improvised music scene, not only as an acclaimed solo performer but in the company of artists as diverse as Han Bennink, Chris Cutler, Jean-Pierre Drouet, Evelyn Glennie, Ikue Mori, Louis Sclavis, Stevie Wishart, Wu Fei, Camel Zekri, John Zorn, and scores of others.

He has also developed a personal compositional language in works written for Arditti Quartet, Asko Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Modern, Concerto Köln, and ROVA Sax Quartet, for example. Fred has been active as a composer for dance since the early 1980s, working with choreographers Bebe Miller, François Verret, and especially long-time collaborator and friend Amanda Miller, with whom he has created a compelling body of work over the last twenty years.

His film soundtracks (for award-winning films like Thomas Riedelsheimer's Rivers and Tides and Touch the Sound, Peter Mettler's Gambling, Gods, and LSD, and Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow's Thirst, to name a few) won him a lifetime achievement award from Prague's "Music on Film, Film on Music" Festival (MOFFOM) in 2007. The following year he received Italy's Demetrio Stratos Prize (previously given to Diamanda Galas and Meredith Monk) for his life's work in experimental music, and in 2010 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in his home county of Yorkshire.

Fred currently teaches in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California (renowned for over fifty years as the epicenter of the American experimental tradition), and in the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland."

-Fred Frith Website (http://www.fredfrith.com/biography.html)
3/13/2024

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

"Since settling in San Francisco in 1997, Canada-born trumpeter/improviser/composer/songwriter Darren Johnston has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists. His interests rotate around composing instrumental music, writing songs, and performing all styles of jazz, experimental and purely improvised music, as well as traditional music of the Balkans, Greece, and Macedonia.

He has performed and/or recorded with luminaries such as ROVA Sax Quartet, Fred Frith, Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, Matt Wilson, Mark Dresser, Marshall Allen, and many others.

As a composer, he has written for jazz and/or non-idiomatic improvising groups, big bands, string quartet, and even a multi-generational choir, with songs based on a collection of immigrant letters. He has written for dance companies such as Amy SeiwertÕs Imagery, Deborah Slater, Axis Dance, Robert MosesÕ Kin, Liss Fain, and others, as well as for dance films."

-Darren Johnston Website (http://darrenjohnstonmusic.com/)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Barn Dance 3:16

2. Scribble 2:05

3. Luminescence 9:03

4. Everybody's Somebody's Nobody 2:25

5. Bounce 4:35

6. Morning and the Shadow 7:06

7. Down Time 3:45

8. Rising Time 3:23

9. Scratch 1:36

10. Ants 2:53

11. Standard Candles 5:43

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Duo Recordings
Frith, Fred
Clean Feed
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
Guitarists, &c.
Recordings featuring brass instruments - trumpets, trombones, tubas, other horns

Search for other titles on the label:
Clean Feed.


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