a r t i s t : Trio Sowari
t i t l e : Three Dances
d a t e : 2005
l a b e l : Potlatch P105
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : May/2006
t r a c k s : 03
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 75,8 MB
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Trio Sowari
Phil Durrant: software sampler/synth/treatments
Bertrand Denzler: tenor saxophone
Burkhard Beins: percussion & objects
Recorded at "La Muse en Circuit" on november 21, 2004
Three Dances is the debut release by Trio Sowari, a group made
up of three experienced European improvisers: Phil Durrant
(software sampler, synthesizer and treatments), Bertrand
Denzler (tenor saxophone) and Burkhard Beins (percussion and
objects). Recorded at La Muse en Circuit outside Paris on
November 21st 2004, the disc contains three fairly lengthy
tracks.
In the first, Rondo, the group's soundworld of hisses,
gurgles, crackles, reverberations, stridulations and extended
tones is fashioned into an engagingly episodic sequence of
fleet consecutive responses and entwined passages of sinewy
enfoldings and uncouplings. Along the way, the music explores
a wide range of densities and volumes (including silence),
and, unlike the more uniformly high-pitched electro-acoustic
improvisations common today, often possesses quite a punch in
the lower register. The improvising is generally excellent -
attentive, adept and creative - although a few passages are
marked by rather fixed or obvious responses.
The second track, Bolero, is quieter, beginning with a
bubbling surface of small gestures, later replaced by more
persistent rumblings and extended tones from Durrant's
electronics and punctuating bursts of drag and flutter from
Beins and Denzler. Once again, there is much of interest but
not quite the same intensity of connection that possessed the
musicians on Rondo.
The final track, Tumble opens strongly with some gripping
exchanges and concatenations built out of single sounds, both
short and extended, from each player. As the improvisation
proceeds, the trio's approach diversifies, taking in
everything from furtive low volume exchanges to huge
electronic surges, metallic episodes and undulating fields of
electronic and acoustic sound. There are moments, especially
towards the end of the track, when the groups falls into
uniformly agitated playing or orthodox arcs of tension and
release, but what is more prominent is the collective
willingness to allow the music to mutate creatively and an
ability to fashion fresh and stimulating contributions moment
by moment.
Trio Sowari's search for combinations and sequences of sounds
that establish meaning without submitting to conventional
aesthetic theories and responses is a fine illustration of
what Cornelius Cardew referred to in his sleeve notes to AMM's
1968 The Crypt - 12th June : "searching for sounds and for the
responses that attach to them".
But can you dance to it? Would you want to, even if you could?
The social institution of dance typically serves as a process
of physical entrainment ('muscular bonding' in the words of
dance historian William McNeill) whereby the individual is
imbued with an unreflective and mobilizable identity as a
member of an existing group and inculcated into the values of
the group's dominant powers and ideologies. Are there other
approaches to dance that go beyond idiot spasms in the service
of tribe, nation, state, sub-culture or commodity, that act in
contemporary conditions other than by dressing oblivious
social submission in the tattered rags of simulated ecstasy or
conventional elegance? If nothing else, perhaps Trio SowariÆs
provocative title and alluringly caliginous cavorting invite
us to explore these questions in mind and body.
Wayne Spencer l Paristransatlantic l August 2005
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01-Rondo [15:46]
02-Bolero [11:04]
03-Tumble [25:22]
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52:12 min