a r t i s t : IST
t i t l e : Lodi
d a t e : 2006
l a b e l : Confront CCS5
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : Dec/2006
t r a c k s : 03
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 63,3 MB
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Confront Collectors Series 5
Rhodri Davies harp
Mark Wastell violoncello
Simon H. Fell double bass
Though IST was formed as long ago as 1995, the group has a
scant discography. Anagrams To Avoid, a 1997 LP release on the
USA-based SIWA label, was joined later that year by
Consequences (Of Time And Place) (Confront). The following
year, Ghost Notes was issued by Bruce's Fingers to coincide
with a short tour by the group, during which, as well as
improvising, they interpreted scores by Earle Brown and
Karlheinz Stockhausen. In addition to four improvisations, the
CD included compositions by Phil Durrant, Stace Constantinou,
Guto Pryderi Puw, Carl Bergstrom-Nielson, Simon H. Fell and
Mark Wastell. Since then, IST has played on the Company In
Marseille double CD (Incus, 1999) with guitarist Derek Bailey
and hoofer/raconteur Will Gaines, and contributed tracks to
the following compilations: Total Music Meeting 2001:
Audiology - 11 Groups Live In Berlin (All, 2002) and Freedom
of the City 2003: Small Groups (Emanem, 2004). How did IST
begin? By happenstance rather than calculation. In 1995, Simon
H. Fell performed with an unknown harpist by the name of
Rhodri Davies in Huddersfield, where Rhodri was at university.
At around the same time, an unknown cellist called Mark
Wastell contacted Simon to ask whether they might play
together - in private, not with a view to doing gigs.
Graciously, Simon agreed. Later that year, when Rhodri
relocated to London, Simon brought him and Mark together and
the three of them began to play. What immediately became
apparent was that IST (as the trio would soon be known) had a
unique chemistry, and their often quiet, sparse, introspective
but tensile music, strewn with ghost notes, was different from
that of any other improvising string group. The IST concerts
that followed were among the first performances of MarkÆs
career, and, remarkably, the Anagrams To Avoid session was
recorded on the day that Rhodri and Mark met. This was the
beginning of their extensive joint involvement in various
informal line-ups for both concerts and recordings, and with
longstanding groups such as Broken Consort and The Sealed
Knot. Fast forward to 2002. In September of that year, IST was
invited to perform at the Contemporaneamente classical music
festival in the town of Lodi, Italy. The concert took place in
the frescoed nave of an octagonal medieval church, the
fabulous acoustic of which served the musicians, and the
recording, well. In a 2006 interview with Tomas Korber,
Wastell said this was "the best concert that group ever
played". In ideal circumstances, IST gave perhaps their finest
performance, and Lodi contains every second of it. The
recording is dedicated to the late Peter Kowald, who, the
previous evening at Contemporaneamente, had played his final
European concert
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01-Lodi part 1 [19:28]
02-Lodi part 2 [13:05]
03-Lodi part 3 [12:53]
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45:26 min