A remarkable set of duos recorded live at three concerts during April 2019 in Bloomington IN, Nashville, TN and Columbus, OH, between Polyorchard leader, double bassist David Menestres, and trombonist Jeb Bishop, two free improvisers using extended and unusual approaches to their instruments as a means to fascinating dialog as they engage their listeners.
Label: Out & Gone Records Catalog ID: OG13 Squidco Product Code: 29008
Format: 2 CDRs Condition: New Released: 2020 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded live in Bloomington Indiana, Nashville, Tennessee and Columbus, Ohio, on April 15th, 16th and 17th, 2019, by David Menestres. Mastered by Andrew Weathers.
"I began close listening to 1+1 in the Uwharrie Forest, the smallest of the four National Forests in North Carolina. I was listening to the black metal project Xasthur, and had spent days thinking intensely on the subject of grass and shades of green. Perhaps my listening to this album is more about black metal, herbaceous plants and the visible spectrum than one might think, as it's impossible for me to divorce the role my environment plays with the way I listen, the phenomenology of space acting upon me. I questioned whether I should listen to this album whilst asleep. I'm still awake.
This album is a work of spirals, a continuous curve traced by a point moving round a fixed point in the same plane while steadily increasing (or diminishing) its distance from this. Bishop's breath is a key component to the album, an active yet disembodied third player whilst Menestres' double bass often sounds like tree limbs feeding back on themselves, how we know wind makes itself heard.
As sculptors of sound, listening to these gentlemen might make you wonder what the aroma between two halos smells like, the nonphysical, psychical space where your sensory experience has no bounds. You might hear a phantom door open or the sound of bees. Menestres' ballooning is akin to the musique concrète of Pierre Henry on "Variations for a Door and a Sigh." Yet, the album is acoustic with no manipulation or application of audio effect. As it decays, Bishop's playing in the last track "genesis of the blue cell" becomes a voice. Something has come forth, an emergence. The album cycles and begins with breath in "early blooming parentheses." The ouroboros eats its tail."