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 Bronshoj Vantarn 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
The Squid's Ear!
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
5/15/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
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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Ftarri / Hitorri.
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| Commissioned for the 2021 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, John Butcher's fantastic work for 14 improvisers of unique approach employs what Butcher refers to as "psychological orchestration"--imagining how each performer might respond to particular ideas & their sonic company--the score, which includes photographic imagery, directing specific solos, duos & small groupings. | |
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 | Butcher, John / Dominic Lash / Emil Karlsen Here and How (Bead) |
| Impeccably recorded in the studio, the long-running and varied collaborations of saxophonist John Butcher, double bassist Dominic Lash and drummer Emil Karlsen come together for the first time as a trio, recording eight succinct improvisations of remarkable technique and nearly telepathic dialog, allowing space for each player to display their masterful skill. | |
 | Butcher / Day / Eastley Angles Of Enquiry (Confront) |
| A six part improvisational inquiry from three experienced London investigators--John Butcher on saxophones, Terry Day on drums and Max Eastley performing on his self-developed electroacoustic monochord, along with percussion and a bird call--all three performing with unusual and extended techniques to create a uniqe sonic palette applied to extremely focused conversations. | |
 | Butcher / Charbin / Kanngiesser / Prevost The Art Of Noticing (Matchless) |
| "To celebrate drummer/percussionist Eddie Prévost's 80th birthday, Café Oto hosted four concerts once a week in June, 2022, each a differing configuration from Prévost's history; this 2nd concert brings together Prévost, Marjolaine Charbin (piano), Ute Kanngiesser (cello) and John Butcher (sax), the same group that recorded the contemporary album Sounds of Assembly on the Meena label. | |
 | Butcher, John / Pat Thomas / Dominic Lash / Steve Noble Fathom (577 Records) |
| The debut for UK saxophonist John Butcher on 577 Records is this exemplary 2021 live recording at Cafe OTO in London by the quartet of Butcher on tenor and soprano saxophones, Pat Thomas on piano, Dominic Lash on double bass and Steve Noble on drums, four of the UK's leading free improvisers demonstrating their prodigious abilities in concentrated conversation. | |
 | Russell, John / John Butcher / Dominic Lash But everything now left before it arrived (Meenna) |
| A live performance at the 2010 GIO Fest III in Glasgow, UK, from three of the UK's leading free improvisers--late guitarist John Russell, John Butcher on saxophones and Dominic Lash on double bass--a superb concert in five improvisations of incredible technical skill through both energetic and restrained passages, a brilliant example reminding us of the loss of the great guitarist. | |
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| Distributing the group--John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Lina Lapelyte, Lee Patterson, Pat Thomas, and Rhodri Davies--inside the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, Butcher chose 4 shamanic objects from the museum's ethnographic collection, evoking water, air, earth, spirit, ritual and utility, used as a score orchestrating varying combinations of players; intense and profound improvisation. | |
 | Butcher, John / Eddie Prevost Visionary Fantasies (Matchless) |
| A series of inspired solo and duo performances from AMM founder, percussionist Eddie Prevost and free improvising saxophonist John Butcher, captured live at London's Iklectik in 2018, splitting the album between solo and duo work as the two morph their instruments into incredible sonic devices, with intense concentration and dialog nothing short of fantastic. | |
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| At the same event in Scotland that John Butcher recorded his excellent "Resonant Spaces" album, he also joined forces with sound artist Akio Suzuki on a variety of objects and sound devices to record the first 5 tracks of this unusual album of very free improv, the last track by the duo recording at the 2015 Ftarri Festival at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo. | |
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| A studio album between three UK master improvisers -- John Butcher on sax, John Edwards on double bass, and Mark Sanders on drums -- the trio pushing the envelope in technique and dialog in nearly telepathic playing that transports the listener into their environment, as the music builds and releases in effortless ways that are stunning and exulant; highly recommended. | |
| Butcher, John / Michael Duch Fjordgata (Confront) | |
| A live recording at the Jazzfest Trondheim, Trondelag Senter for Samtidskunst, in May 2015 from the freely improvising duo of John Butcher and contrabassist Michael Duch, a superb extended concert of incredible reed technique and concept anchored by Duch's flexible bass work. | |
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| Chris Watson recorded John Butcher on acoustic & amplified sax and Rhodri Davies on acoustic & electric harp in Routing Lynn in Northumberland, then joined them live at a festival in Gateshead where the duo played alongside Watson's reworked recordings. | |
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| Drummer/percussionist Tony Buck and saxophonist John Butcher are the common elements in these two trios, one with guitarist Burkhard Stangl, and one with pianist Magda Mayas, using imaginative and unusual approaches to improvisation. | |
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| Dark and beautiful improvisation from saxophonist and electronics artist John Butcher and harpist Rhodri Davies, an incredible display of timbre, technique, and pacing. | |
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