The Squid's Ear Magazine


Davies, Rhodri / David Sylvian / Mark Wastell: There Is No Love (Confront)

Confront initiates their new Core Series with the text piece "There Is No Love" with David Sylvian on voice, vocal treatments and electronics, Rhodri Davies on harp, vibraphone and radio, and Mark Wastel on tam tam and percussion, a sophisticated spoken word piece of shadowy atmosphere and innuendo, leveraging approaches from experimental, improvised and composed music.
 

Price: $14.95


Quantity:

Out of Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:



product information:

Personnel:



Rhodri Davies-lap harp, table harp, vibraphone, radio

David Sylvian-voice, vocal treatments, electronics

Mark Wastell-tam tam, cracked ride cymbal, chimes, indian temple bells, singing bowls, metal chain, tubular bell, concert bass drum


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Confront
Catalog ID: core 01
Squidco Product Code: 24019

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2017
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded in Los Angeles, California, 2014, by David Sylvian,

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Debut release in the new Confront Core Series imprint. New studio recording of the text piece There Is No Love which was premiered at Cafe OTO, London on 31st October 2016 as part of the Confront Recordings Twentieth Anniversary celebrations."-Confront



"David Sylvian has always divided opinion. For every passionate supporter there are half a dozen who will decry his every move as pretention. Even among his fanbase there are many who want him to do something more to their taste, along the lines of some past triumph like the Quiet Life/Tin Drum/Brilliant Trees/Blemish album (delete as applicable) that is their personal favourite. For Sylvian the answer is, I suspect, simple -- if you want to hear those records they are there for you in the catalogue, there is no need for him to repeat himself. It's a pattern that emerged with the confidence that he gained from the critical and fan acclaim for that remarkable trilogy of 1980s solo records that enabled him to make the transition from uncomfortable pop star to a position of rare creative freedom.

There is No Love a collaboration with Mark Wastell and Rhodri Davies is unlikely to change how Sylvian is perceived being closer to say 2014s There is a Light.... spoken word piece than say "Adolescent Sex" or even "Gone to Earth". Even on supportive Facebook groups reactions might reasonably be described as 'mixed' dividing between the ecstatic and complete bemusement with little middle ground. So it would be wrong to expect a rehash of old themes from this 30 minute spoken word piece premiered at London's Cafe Oto in 2015. The text that Sylvian carefully enunciates is by Bernard-Marie Koltes and is part of a longer play In the Solitude of Cotton Fields from 1985 that features a dialogue between two shadowy characters, the dealer and the client. Broadly this concerns a transaction -the nature of which is hinted at but not revealed. The eerie late night setting, the hints of violence ('not even the savage grapplings of man or beast at this hour...') and sex ('my melancholy virgin') added to Sylvian's tone conspire to suggest something illicit, hidden. The name the dealer suggests drugs, or a pimp perhaps, maybe even a devil harvesting souls, but nothing is explained.

It is even possible that Sylvian sees something of his relationship to the music industry in the transactional framework of Koltes' play -- but whether that be as the client in relation to an industry dealer, or the dealer as artist to the client as fan is unclear. Art and commerce are and always have been tightly intertwined -- for an artist to live they must find both an audience for their work and a way to reach them, leading to a series of transactions and potential compromises with the wider world. So when Sylvian speaks of the humility of the dealer approaching the client is it he who 'carries a weight that he must unload on whoever comes past, be they man or beast...' -reminiscent of 1984's "Backwaters," "Trying so very hard to please...." perhaps? But ultimately the piece is so open that any number of interpretations are possible and it is easy to get carried away in fanciful analysis, -the quality of the work is such that it draws you in encouraging repeated, concentrated, listens.

Davies and Wastell are long standing improvising partners having played with high profile Sylvian collaborators like John Tilbury, Derek Bailey and Evan Parker. Their work here is atmospheric and unsettling without distracting from the text -- you can sense the musical understanding between them built over many collaborations throughout. The set up for Sylvian's entrance, for example, is excellent building the atmosphere and tension to near the 8 minute mark, beyond the heavily distorted spoken repetition of the title, are around the 8 minute mark. There's a surprising wealth of detail in what first appears to be electronic minimalism -- the electronic hum in the opening section is tense, the tinnitus-like use of gentle distortion tones that adds to the pressure or the way that Wastell unsettles with chimes and bells, reminiscent of the way that the sound of clocks carries in a sparsely lit, near empty, square at night. The foreboding from the concert bass drum after the 'well then what weapon' at the conclusion of the spoken section is another example of how the piece draws you into its world.

If you connected with Sylvian's music into the 21st century then there is a good chance that you will find this to your liking, otherwise it is not going to change your view. While it is sad that such adventurous, literate, music will not be more widely appreciated -- for those who do connect with it this is a treat and an unqualified recommendation."-Phil Barnes, All About Jazz


Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

"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/)
3/13/2024

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

"The David Sylvian that fronted new wave pop band Japan wore luminescent hair and glam make-up; on the cover of his solo debut, 1984's Brilliant Trees, he was stylish and refined, a gentleman popster. But the illustration that introduces 2003's Blemish sends a different message: he's bedraggled and unshaven, his far-off expression turned haunted. The new millennium has seen a more serious Sylvian, several steps further along on his musical journey and seeking new sounds to explain new traumas.

While Japan started off as one of many '70s New Romantic bands, they made an unpredictable break with their hit "Ghosts" - a searching and evocative single where spare rhythms and fleeting electronic sounds lay under Sylvian's smouldering tenor. "Writing 'Ghosts' was a turning point for me," Sylvian recalls. "So much of what we created with Japan was built upon artifice. With that song I'd felt I'd had the breakthrough I was looking for. I'd touched upon something true to myself and expressed it in a way that didn't leave me feeling overly vulnerable. In the coming years I'd forget about all notions of vulnerability, opening up the material to a greater emotional intensity. I knew that I had to find my own voice, both figuratively and literally."

On his solo records of the '80s, Sylvian's explorations in music took him from the pop-funk, stylish jazz and windswept exotica of 1984's Brilliant Trees; the ambient landscapes and epic ballads of 1985's Gone to Earth; and the romantic orchestrations of 1987's Secrets of the Beehive. His collaborators included leaders of progressive music, from jazzmen such as Mark Isham, John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler to the rock and fusion guitarists Robert Fripp, Bill Nelson, and David Torn. All three albums married strong melodies to intricate atmospheres.

"The details are what always interested me. And so I just began to spend more and more time on those details, until they came to the forefront of the material-textures and atmospherics. I began to elaborate on those more and more and push the rhythmic element a little bit further back."

Other projects from that period included ambient works with trumpeter Jon Hassell and Can alumnus Holger Czukay, as well as a collection of photographic collages titled Perspectives, whose exhibition in Tokyo sparked the documentary video, Preparations For a Journey. Regular collaborations with composer and Yellow Magic Orchestra star Ryuichi Sakamoto yielded Sylvian's first international hit, "Forbidden Colours."

In the early '90s, Sylvian embarked on a series of acclaimed tours with Robert Fripp, leading to their 1993 studio release 'The First Day' as well as their 1994 multi-media installation 'Redemption - Approaching Silence' in Tokyo's P3 gallery. This followed Sylvian's first foray into the world of art installations in 1990, when in collaboration with Russell Mills, Sylvian created the installation entitled 'Ember Glance (the permanence of memory)' also held in Tokyo. And 1991 saw the release of Rain Tree Crow, a Japan reunion under a different name. But Sylvian grew less prolific as the decade wore on, enjoying his new marriage to Ingrid Chavez and taking four years to finish 1999's Dead Bees on a Cake. As seductive yet eclectic as any of his prior work, Dead Bees included the hit single "I Surrender," where Sylvian crafts an eye-openingly beautiful vessel around his spiritual journey. Immediately following Dead Bees on a Cake, Sylvian also released a retrospective of his work titled Everything and Nothing, a re-arrangement and re-evaluation of his career dating back to Japan.

Sylvian's work with his spiritual teachers has led him through a rigorous process of study and self-examination. Says Sylvian, "I've never come across anything that is as pinpoint accurate as the message you get through the guru. You go through this process with other people who have common goals, you see them confronting their fears, the tests that they're put through, and you look at the manner in which they're tested and think, 'I could handle that.' But when the opportunity for you to learn from your fears comes along, it's like, 'Jesus Christ, give me any other lesson you choose, but not that one.'"

His determination to confront his vulnerabilities led to arguably his most powerful album to date, 2003's Blemish. Recorded in his home studio in six weeks, with contributions received via the Internet from improv legend Derek Bailey and electronica artist Christian Fennesz, Blemish captured Sylvian in the process of breaking up with his wife. "I wanted to get into those difficult emotions, and penetrate them as deeply as I felt I was capable of doing, in the security of that working space. So although there were elements of my life that were bringing all these negative emotions to the fore, what I was doing in the studio was taking them further - whereas in life we try to restrain them, we hold them back. We don't allow ourselves to go too far with it because they feel dangerous, they feel threatening," says Sylvian. "Living through these emotions was very difficult, but finding a voice for them was so cathartic. After that six-week period, I'd felt I'd worked through some very difficult emotions. I felt an enormous amount of release."

Blemish also marked the debut of his own independent label, SamadhiSound. "I think of [SamadhiSound] as being global, and not necessarily based in the States. It's stretched between the States, Europe, and Japan. I think nowadays it doesn't really matter where we are physically located. We create our own culture around us to a large extent, whether it's what we're listening to, what we're watching, what we're reading - it can have very little to do with one's immediate cultural environment. We are in a global culture in that respect." Samadhi has featured artists from around the world, including new releases by Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Harold Budd, Thomas Feiner, and David Toop, and the last studio recordings by Derek Bailey. This reach is also borne out in a remix album, The Only Daughter, where pieces from Blemish are reinterpreted by artists including Burnt Friedman, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, and Jan Bang and Erik Honoré.

Most of the pieces on Blemish depart from traditional pop song forms, a process that began all the way back with "Ghosts" and that continues in his solo work. More recently, he has also released Snow Borne Sorrow and Money for All, an LP and EP from the band Nine Horses. Nine Horses is a trio that includes his brother and regular collaborator Steve Jansen and electronica artist Burnt Friedman, as well as contributions from singer Stina Nordenstem, trumpeter Arve Henriksen, and Ryuichi Sakamoto on piano. Alluring and urbane, the project's trip-hop textures belie its troubled lyrics, inspired by both personal affairs and world concerns. His single with Sakamoto, "World Citizen" - recently featured on the soundtrack to the film Babel - bluntly captures his concerns as a global artist living in post-9/11 America. "It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs. But it was a request from Ryuichi to give it a bash. And I felt that there was very little dissent being vocalized in the States," says Sylvian. "I feel furious at what's being done in the name of the American people."

In 2009, the project that began in Blemish continues with Manafon, an album that assembles the world's leading free improvisers, including Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Fennesz, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, and John Tilbury, among several others. In small ensembles, the improvisers create backdrops for the skeletal songs, and challenge the relationship between improvisation and composition, ensembles and lead voices, and intimacy and solitude. Lyrically challenging, it is also one of the most astonishingly and unpredictably beautiful works Sylvian has produced.

Most recently Sylvian revisited the presentation of his music in forms beyond the CD. 'When loud weather buffeted Naoshima' was commissioned by the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation on the island of Naoshima, Japan, as part of the NAOSHIMA STANDARD 2 exhibition which ran from Oct 2006 to April 2007. The composition was site specific. In fact, Sylvian has said that the work isn't really complete until the sounds of the town Honmura are incorporated into the listening experience. The piece has since been added to the foundation's permanent collection. In 2009, Sylvian collaborated with composer Dai Fujikura and a small ensemble on the audio installation "When we return you won't recognize us," located on Gran Canaria of the Canary Islands. The work was inspired by a 2003 genetics research article focusing on the Canary Islands, which discovered that despite Spanish colonization and the slave trade, fully half to three-quarters of the population retains its aboriginal genetic lineage. As Sylvian writes, "My interest lay in the connection between the physical or scientific reality of our biological make-up, the links to lineage (genetic genealogy), location and, to move beyond the realm of science into intuitive logic, the interior life of a community or people. An implied cultural heritage."

With the release of Manafon, Sylvian continues to confront the challenges, both personal and global, that have enriched his work for three decades. And he continues to follow this path - with patience, perseverance, and beauty.
"-Chris Dahlen

-David Sylvian Website (http://www.davidsylvian.com/biography/)
3/13/2024

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)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. There Is No Love 30:16

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation and Experimental Forms
Unusual Vocal Forms
Spoken Word
Trio Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items

Search for other titles on the label:
Confront.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Nicols, Maggie / Matilda Rolfsson / Mark Wastell
Semiotic Drift
(Confront)
Extending the duo of British improvisers, legendary vocalist and leader of London's The Gathering, Maggie Nicols, also performing on taps and percussion, and Confront label-leader, percussionist Mark Wastell performing on cymbals and frame drum, with Swedish percussionist Matilda Rolfsson on bass drum, captured in a captivating concert at All Ears in Oslo in 2023.
Jones / Lash / Wastel
Meditating With The Father, Son, And Holy Ghost
(Confront)
An interpretation and reimagining of the opening track of Coltrane's Meditations, from the UK trio of Ed Jones on tenor & soprano saxophones, Dominic Lash on double bass and Mark Wastell on tam tam, gongs, cymbal & percussion, performed live at Cafe OTO in London in 2023, transforming the original recording's density into a slowly opening, evolving work of beauty.
Davies, Rhodri
Trem
(Amgen Records)
Reissuing his 2003 album on the Confront label, Rhodri Davies' first solo album is a captivating set of uniquely voiced free improvisation, using a pedal harp, radio and tape recorders and percussive devices, and recorded in the natural resonance of All Angels, St Michael and All Angels Church in London, creating narrative and drama through Davie's intuitive sense of timing.
Davies, Rhodri
Over Shadows
(Amgen Records)
An extended solo titled for author Redell Olsen's book secure portable space (Reality Street), performed on Lever harp and EBows by UK electroacoustic improviser Rhodri Davies, recorded at Old School, Bracon Ash, in Norfolk in 2004 by Graham Halliwell and edited by Benedict Drew and John Wall, creating a richly evolving work of haunting plateaus and valleys.
Guionnet, Jean-Luc / Rhodri Davies
Dyslexic Harp (Deciphered In The Dark)
(Amgen Records)
Recording in Brussels, Rhodri Davies performs a composition for pedal harp written for and dedicated to him by composer and saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet, using liberal periods of space that creates hanging anticipation amidst beautiful moments of fragmented string sequence and percussive response using the frame of the harp, leaving the listener in a state of fascinated expectancy.
Davies, Rhodri / Nikos Velitotis
Hotel Art Head [BOOK]
(gwasg amgen)
A curious book of images from artists including Rhodri Davies, John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Richard Dawson, &c. photographed in a location familiar to a touring musician--a budget hotel room--pictured laying on the bed with each artist's head covered by that room's hotel wall painting, from typically insipid to perplexingly unexpected.
Davies, Rhodri
Dwa Dni
(Amgen Records)
Two recording sessions yielding 15 recordings of solo harp improvisations in Rhodri Davies' fifth release on his Amgen imprint, beautifully intricate works from exuberant to introspective, with titles borrowed from the works of Lisa Jarnot, Ed Luker, Nathaniel Mackey, Redell Olsen, Sun Ra, Nisha Ramayya, Sarah Riggs and Leslie Scalapino, and cover art by Jean-Luc Guionnet.
Davies, Rhodri
For Simon H. Fell
(Amgen Records)
Influenced by bassist Simon H. Fell since first hearing him in 1994 in a quartet with Peter Brotzmann, harpist Rhodri Davies approached Fell to work together, enjoying 20 years of collaborations in many group settings; in 2020 Simon H. Fell became seriously ill and passed in June of that year, this extended improvisation being Rhodri Davies' heartfelt tribute to the great improviser.
Wastell, Mark
Cello-intern Solos
(Confront)
Beginning in February 2022 on the 1st Saturday of the month Mark Wastell would bring his cello to the Hundred Years Gallery in London with the grace of gallery owners Graham MacKeachan and Montse Gallego and play, not as a performance, not as a rehearsal, just to play and record his improvisations as he expands his reach on the instrument, heard here in 17 fascinating excerpts.
Bang, Jan / David Toop / Mark Wastell
Compound Full Of Bones, Translucent Thousands
(Confront)
An extended improvisation interweaving acoustic and electronic instruments in a beautifully coherent evolution of mysterious and approachable sources, from the trio of Jan Bang, David Toop and Mark Wastell, combining tam tams, gongs, flutes, lapsteel, live sampling, gongs, brushes, elastic, paper and more to captivate the curious listener.
Oceans Of Silver & Blood
Acetate [CD EP]
(Confront)
Reissuing their limited 2014 release on Joachim Nordwall Editions, the Oceans Of Silver & Blood duo of Joachim Nordwall on analog synthesizer, effects & tape and percussionist Mark Wastell on tam tam and timpani present two pieces, the first an environmental work underpinned by subtle percussion, the second a richly resonating work of threatening warmth.
Davies, Rhodri
An Air Swept Clean of All Distance
(Amgen Records)
First release on the Alt.Vinyl label in 2014, this album finds harpist Rhodri Davies performing on the same instrument as his prior album Wound Response, but here with no amplification, preparations or distortion, improvising through "tumbling phrases, arpeggios and articulate rhythms", in a compelling album of assertive and joyful playing.
Davies, Rhodri
Wound Response
(Amgen Records)
First released in 2012 on the Alt.Vinyl label and now reissued on his own Amgen label, Rhodri Davies performs solo in Newcastle upon Tyne on lap harp and electronics, using two main techniques: over-articulation of the strings (what harpists are taught not to do) and attacking the strings with a plectrum, forcing the tuning into new relationships until the strings eventually break.
Frequency Disasters (Beresford / Magaletti / Martino)
Frequency Disasters
(Confront)
Pianist & improviser Steve Beresford performing on prepared piano, toys & electronic, percussionist Valentina Magaletti and bass player Pierpaolo Martino are heard in this cataclysmically interesting album based around Beresford's compositions, each piece a vignette that merges elements of free improv, rock, sound & avant structures in inventive and compelling ways.
Sealed Knot, The (Beins / Davies / Wastell)
Twenty
(Confront)
After twenty years playing together, the Sealed Knot trio of Burkhard Beins on amplified percussion, Rhodri Davies on amplified lap harp, and Mark Wastell on dual 32 past tam tams, gongs & nepalese singing bowls, performed live at Cafe OTO to record this beautifully captured, contemplative concert of tone, texture and ringing sound, like a 20-year dream reflected.
Grady, Spencer / Fermata Ark / Mark Wastell
Thus : Excerpts From A Smaller Work
(Confront)
UK sound artist Fermata Ark, aka Harry Smith, composed this work from improvisations recorded by Mark Wastell performing on cello, double bass and harmonium, and Spencer Grady performing on 5-string banjo, ebow, violin bow and brass slide, creating an extended work of immersive and mesmerizing textures and tones, sounds rising and falling in sublime and passionate ways.
Seen, The
For Sake Of Joy Of Study Of Oneself Together
(Confront)
Inspired by a work by John Stevens from 1991, Mark Wastell developed this work merging narration and improvisation by transcribing the text from Steven's performance, preseanted here by an electroacoustic ensemble including Phil Durrant, Dominic Lash, Bertrand Denzler, Jennifer Allum &c, yielding an enveloping and fascinatingly mysterious piece presented in two versions.
Virtual Company (Fell / Wastell / Bailey / Gaines)
Virtual Company
(Confront)
IST, configured as the duo of double bassist Simon H. Fell and cellist/percussionist Mark Wastell, performing a virtual quartet at London's Cafe OTO, using using pre-recorded fragments of solo work from late guitarist Derek Bailey and tap dancer Will Gaines, combined with sections of silence of unforeseeable length, and then combined with the live musicians; amazing.
Davies, Rhodri
Transversal Time
(Confront)
Assigning different times systems--standard time, decimal and hex time--to different musicians, harpist Rhodri Davies develops an electroacoustic improvisational environment of unusual perception and sensation, performed live in Cardiff in 2018 with Ryoko Akama, Sara Hughes, Sofia Jernberg, Pia Palme, Andre Parkinson, Lucy Railton, Pat Thomas, & Dafne Vicente.
Cooper, Mike / Mark Wastell
Sound Mirrors
(Confront)
Lapsteel guitarist and electronic artist Mike Cooper and percussionist Mark Wastell, employing a paiste 32" tam tam and a shruti box, pay homage to the large acoustic sound mirrors used in Britain from 1916 to 1930 as an early form or radar, each of their detailed improvisation referencing one of the locations on the British south and northeast coasts.
Eastley, Max / Fergus Kelly / Mark Wastell
The Map Is Not The Territory
(Confront)
The 8th release on Confront's Core series of factory-pressed CDs brings together improvisers Max Eastley, Fergus Kelly and Mark Wastell, employing electroacoustic devices, invented instruments, metal percussion, a piano frame and tam tam to create a rich and mysterious sound world, darkly hopeful emanations in a nighttime traversal across unknown lands.
Kleeb, Hildegard / Roland Dahinden / Alexandre Babel
Lines
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
The long-running duo since 1987 of spouses, pianist Hildegard Kleeb and trombonist Roland Dahinden, are joined by Swiss-born/ Berlin-based percussionist & vibraphonist Alexandre Babel for an album of interweaving and contrasting instrumental lines, blurring the boundaries between contemporary music and improvisation through exceptional mastery and dialog.
Andersen, Arild / Clive Bell / Mark Wastell
Tales Of Hackney
(Confront)
World instrumentation of shakuhachi, thai flute, shinobue, thai mouth organ, and shruti box blends with western orchestration of double bass, percussion and electronics as Clive Bell, Arild Andersen, and Mark Wastell come together in the studio after their well-received concert at Cafe Oto in London to develop these beautifully lyrical improvisations.
Collusion Duo (Nick Smith / Mark Wastell)
Refraction
(Confront)
Violinist and percussionist Nick Smith, having access to St. Mary's Church at Great Baddow for music performance and rehearsals, made his first use of the space in 1996 in a duo with Mark Wastell on violincello, preparations and percussion, where they used the acoustics of the church to enhance their detailed and absorbing improvisations.
Davies, Angharad / Rhodri Davies / Michael Duch / Lina Lapelyte / John Lely & John Tilbury
Goldsmiths
(Another Timbre)
An extended group improvisation and compositions by Lely, Sarah Hughes, and Jurg Frey, subtle and beautiful performances by Angharad Davies (violin), Rhodri Davies (electric harp), Michael Duch (bass), Lina Lapelyte (violin), John Lely (objects & electronics) & John Tilbury (piano).
Beuger, Antoine
Two . Too (For Erwin-Josef Speckmann) [2 CDs]
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
Jurg Frey on clarinet and Irene Kurka on soprano vocals perform Wandelweiser composer Antoine Beuger's extended composition "Two"; then the duo of Rhodri Davies on harp and Ko Ishikawa on sho are layered on the first recording, creating a refreshingly new take on the piece.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC