Impeccably recorded inside the Brønshøj Water Tower, in Copenhagen, Denmark, a highly resonant space built 100 years ago, where UK tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher continues his investigations into spaces with natural delay and decay, through 11 improvisations of discriminating pacing as he finds incredible beauty in floating and shifting tones and instrument errata; exquisite.
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John Butcher-tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
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Label: Ftarri / Hitorri
Catalog ID: hitorri-964
Squidco Product Code: 33925
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2023
Country: Japan
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded in the Brønshøj Water Tower, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 17th, 2022, by Jesper Bagger Hviid.
"In the summer of 2022 Thomas Buhl-Wiggers, of the Cejero festival and label, kindly invited me to play inside the mammoth Bronshoj water tower. The very resonant spaces I've worked in before include a giant gasometer, a hollowed-out Japanese mountain, an underground reservoir, a Victorian mausoleum and a massive World War II oil tank. I'm still fascinated by how different these enormous environments all sounded and felt. They each inspired different approaches in trying to find the music for the actual space, and my recent experience within this extraordinary construction was no exception. The Bronshoj Vandtarn is a concrete water-tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It's 20m wide and 34m high - smaller than some similar shapes I've played in, but with a large, lingering reverberation. Some sounds seem to float away as if through liquid, others acquire a shifting haze, and some just prefer to sit around."-John Butcher
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for John Butcher "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." ^ Hide Bio for John Butcher
11/27/2023
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Track Listing:
1. Shimmers Of Connect i 4:52
2. Shimmers Of Connect ii 4:41
3. Shimmers Of Connect iii 4:38
4. Sympathetic Magic (Concrete) 6:37
5. Elusive Sidestep 6:06
6. Signs And Symptoms 3:46
7. Far Flung 3:33
8. Summer Incantation 1:42
9. Very Hush-Hush 4:02
10. Laval 2:39
11. On Springs 3:37
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Solo Artist Recordings
John Butcher
Recordings Utilizing the Natural Resonance of a Space
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