a r t i s t : The Contest Of Pleasures
t i t l e : Albi Days
d a t e : 2006
l a b e l : Potlatch P205
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : May/2006
t r a c k s : 05
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 83,1 MB
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The Contest of Pleasures
John Butcher tenor and soprano saxophones
Xavier Charles clarinet
Axel Dorner trumpet
Recorded by Laurent Sassi at GMEA, Centre de CrΘation Musicale
d'Albi-Tarn, in march/april 2005.
"Every acoustic musician is at the mercy of the sound of the
room they play in. Whilst there may be awkward mismatches for
composed music, improvisers can, if they wish, radically shape
their music to the acoustics in which they find themselves.
In Albi we explored this interplay a little further. Laurent
Sassi recorded the trio in the large hall of L'Athanor
cultural centre, in the extremely resonant antechamber of the
Chapelle, in the Chapelle itself and in the dry studio of
GMEA. Some situations used multiple instrument microphones,
others room mics. We played inside the Chapelle, with the
microphones outside the room; in the studio, where two mics
per instrument could create parallel trios; in L'Athanor, with
Laurent manipulating a live mix from distant microphones
placed all around the room.
The four of us then made pieces, edited from the many hours of
music. Music concrete, composition maybe, that still, most of
the time, to me anyway, sounds like musicians improvising
together." (John Butcher)
"For this recording, John Butcher, Xavier Charles and Axel
Dorner (I believe the group name, if it wasn't such for their
first disc, is now 'The Contest of Pleasures') recorded
numerous hours of improvisation in and around Albi-Tarn, a
town nestled in the Pyrenees, in various environments from
chapels to music studios. The results were then processed by
the musicians, one track each by Dorner and Charles, two by
Butcher and, for good measure, another by sound engineer
Laurent Sassi. Butcher, in his liners, states that for him the
outcomes generally still sound like group improvisation and I
think that's by and large true although, if one tilts one's
ears in a certain manner, the pieces can almost as easily be
heard as collages.
In any case, the music reads very well. It's far louder and
more strident than the previous disc, the horns rarely shying
away from entering banshee territory; angry banshees at that.
Charles' Les Oignons (the works once again deriving their
titles from the gustatory world) begins with a surprisingly
'normal' muted trumpet tone which morphs into an array of
brass sounds very reminiscent of the general sound of Xenakis'
Pithoprakta. I realize I referenced the late composer in
another recent review and maybe it's a connective phase I'm
going through a la Eno of a couple years back, but much of
this piece, and a fine one it is, carried Xenakis-like echoes
for me. It's chock full of fascinating sounds and sonic
contrasts, laid out more episodically than depth-wise, but
compelling throughout including a brief suspension of musician
activities near the end when you can pick-up automotive sounds
outside the performing space.
The first of the two Butcher concoctions, Garden Cress,
initially travels through lower volume breaths and sputters
but soon catapults up into an ear-rending cascade of
wind-driven shrieks, subsiding ultimately into a bed of
key-clicks and glottal pops. Maybe more than any other track,
this is the one that, had I been informed it was a pure,
real-time improvisation, I wouldnÆt have batted a lash. His
next, Winter Squash, has some deliciously layered dronage,
overtones abounding, veering more often into harsher sound
areas than sonant ones; again, I hear tinges of Xenakis wind
ensembles. Here, as elsewhere, it took this listener several
exposures before the music began to sink in and really cohere.
It helped, I found, to listen on headphones to more fully
appreciate the spatial separation, presumably an element of
the post-production processing, although the notes also refer
to elaborate placement of microphones so, who knows?
Dorner's Karfiol (I looked it upùcauliflower) kind of picks up
where Winter Squash left off, though upping the harshness
factor and reverting to the episodic character of CharlesÆ
piece. This is the one track that I couldn't quite get a
handle on, that never amounted to more than the sum of its
parts for me.
Sassi's contribution, Les cornichons, is something of a wild
card, the most overtly electronic of the bunch, utilizing
clear samples and phased repetitions at the start. He
constructs a real nice, forceful track, choosing an intriguing
sound palette, varying the amplitude in interesting ways
(including forays into extreme overtones) and, generally,
creating a complex, difficult-to-dissect composition, probably
my favorite piece on the disc, a mild surprise considering the
caliber of the three principals.
Some good, tough music to munch on here, perhaps more acidic
and chewy than you might expect." (Brian Olewnick l Bagatellen
l April 2006)
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01-Les Oignons [17:24]
02-Garden Cress [06:30]
03-Winter Squash [07:17]
04-Karfiol [17:40]
05-Les Cornichons [11:56]
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60:47 min