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Common Objects: Butcher / Davies / Davies / Patterson: Whitewashed with Lines [2 CDs] (Another Timbre)

A double CD featuring two extended live performances by the electroacoustic quartet of John Butcher (sax), Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (harps) & Lee Patterson (amplifed devices), one an improv from Durham in 2013, the other a graphic score from Newcastle, 2014.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



John Butcher-saxophones

Angharad Davies-violin

Rhodri Davies-harps

Lee Patterson-amplified devices and processes


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Label: Another Timbre
Catalog ID: at85x2
Squidco Product Code: 20549

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2015
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
CD 1 recorded: The Mining Institute, Newcastle upon Tyne, 15th March 2014

CD 2 recorded: Tunstall Chapel, University College, Durham, 25th May 2013

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"My first encounter with cup and ring marked stones was in 2007 while working on HALF LIFE, a co-production between The National Theatre of Scotland and NVA with the sound curated by Barry Esson. Angharad Davies and I were composing and performing the music for two weeks for this outdoor production in the forest, in the dark, near the entrance to Kilmartin Glen in Argyll. Lee Patterson was also making sound art installations with Toshiya Tsunoda around significant prehistoric locations in the region. Angus Farquhar (creative director of NVA and member of Test Dept.) took us on many site visits and his infectious enthusiasm about the Neolithic era has remained with me ever since.

I moved to the North East of England soon after HALF LIFE and I was excited to be living close to so many cup and ring sites. Rebecca Shatwell and the AV Festival 2014 gave me a chance to explore this interest more deeply through two commissions: the first a collaboration with John Butcher called 'Routing Lynn' (released on ftarri-217), and 'cup and ring', a graphic score that I constructed for Common Objects and which is released on disc one. A chance encounter with the sound poet Bob Cobbing in the mid-1990s kick-started my fascination with Sound and Concrete Poetry and the process of converting image into sound. Since then many of my composed pieces have included graphic notation. When I saw cup and ring marked stones for the first time I thought they would make excellent material for a graphic score. The fact that so many interpretations of their function and meaning exist, and that a definitive reading of their significance still remains unknown, make them excellent inspiration for an open score. The live 'cup and ring' performance at The Mining Institute in Newcastle, as part of AV Festival 2014, had an unusual energy, and perhaps the aura was heightened further by an audience member making gestures and loud breathing sounds during the performance, as can be heard on this recording. For the score I drew on the book Archaic Rock Inscriptions: An Account of the Cup & Ring Markings on the Sculptured Stones of the Old and New Worlds (A. Reader 1891) as well as a number of books by the pioneering rock art expert Stan Beckensall.

'repose and vertigo' on disc two is a group improvisation, again performed in the North East of England, one year earlier than 'cup and ring'. Andy Hamilton invited me to co-convene a Symposium on the 'Aesthetics of Imperfection' at Senate House, Durham University, and Common Objects played in the evening.

The two concerts presented on this release reveal different modes of working: one is an interpretation of an open graphic score and the other is a group improvisation. The members of the ensemble are the same for both concerts, but with slightly differing instrumentation and performing in two different acoustics. In placing them side-by-side, I hope to highlight the subtle differences in the group's working processes."-Rhodri Davies, from the liner notes



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

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)
9/10/2025

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

"Angharad Davies is a violinist, one at ease in both improvising and composition, with a wide discography as part of varied range of ensembles and groups. She's a specialist in the art of 'preparing' her violin, adding objects or materials to it to extend its sound making properties. Her sensitivity to the sonic possibilities of musical situations and attentiveness to their shape and direction make her one of contemporary music's most fascinating figures. 2015 has seen her being commissioned for a new work at the Counterflows Festival, Glasgow and premiering Eliane Radigue's new solo for violin, Occam XXI at the El Nicho Festival, Mexico.

She's performed at, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, BBC Proms, Music We'd Like to Hear's concert series, is an associate artist at Cafe Oto, is a member of Apartment House, Cranc and Common Objects, been artist in residence at Q-02, and played live with Tony Conrad in the Turbine Room at the Tate Modern. Other collaborations have featured the likes of John Butcher, Daniela Cascella, Rhodri Davies, Julia Eckhardt , Kazuko Hohki, Roberta Jean, Lina Lapelyte, Dominic Lash, Tisha Mukarji, Andrea Neumann, Rie Nakajima, Tim Parkinson, J.G.Thirlwell, Stefan Thut, Paul Whitty, Manfred Werder, Birgit Ulher, Taku Unami and she's released records on Absinth Records, Another Timbre, Potlatch and Confrontrecords."

-Angharad Davies Website (http://www.angharaddavies.com/biog.html)
9/10/2025

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

"Rhodri Davies was born in 1971 in Aberystwyth, Wales and now lives in Gateshead in the northeast of England.

He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water, ice and fire harp installations. He has released four solo albums: Trem, Over Shadows, Wound Response and An Air Swept Clean of All Distance.

His regular groups include: a duo with John Butcher, Common Objects, HEN OGLEDD: Dawson - Davies, a trio with David Toop and Lee Patterson, Cranc, The Sealed Knot and a trio with John Tilbury and Michael Duch.

In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on 'Self-cancellation', a large-scale audio-visual collaboration in London and Glasgow.

New pieces for solo harp have been composed for him by: Eliane Radigue, Phill Niblock, Christian Wolff, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Mieko Shiomi and Yasunao Tone.

In 2012 he was the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award."

-Rhodri Davies Website (http://www.rhodridavies.com/words/)
9/10/2025

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


Track Listing:



CD 1



1. Cup And Ring 57:09

CD 2



1. Repose And Vertigo 43:55

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Free Improvisation
John Butcher
Quartet Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
Graphic Scores

Search for other titles on the label:
Another Timbre.


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