British free improvising legend John Butcher met Scandinavian drummer Stale Liavik Solberg at Cafe Oto to record these intensely detailed yet sublimely reserved duos, three pieces segmenting the album title, an intimate and never extravagent dialog of great technical depth.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Cafe Oto in London, England, on August 11th, 2015, by James Dunn.
"In a country and a musical domain where you have someone like Evan Parker, it's difficult for any emerging sax player to establish himself, but John Butcher managed to do it and with his own personal style, very different from Parker's. Now, he's one of the main figures of the United Kingdom free improvised scene and his name crossed frontiers.
So Beautiful, it Starts to Rain is a transnational enterprising, and another product of the British / Scandinavian connection, reuniting the tenor and soprano saxophonist with one of the top drummers in Norway, Stale Liavik Solberg. When you have a saxophone and a drumset together, with no other instruments around, you usually expect one more derivation of the pioneering album Interstellar Space by John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, but both Butcher and Solberg are experienced duet practitioners and their references are wider.
The collaborations with non-drummers like Andy Moor, Okkyung Lee, Matthew Shipp, Rhodri Davies of the first one are just some examples of that kind of investment, and the other is no stranger to the format, with partnerships developed with John Russell and Fred Lonberg-Holm. In consequence, the music is different from the sax/drums clichee, with an economy of notes not very usual in free form territory and a relaxed decision making during the improvisations. That's why this record is so special..."-Clean Feed