CD Reviews: The Contest Of Pleasures: John Butcher/Axel Dorner/Xavier Charles “Alibi Daysâ
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Posted by: adminon Friday, August 11, 2006 - 05:00 PM |
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By Glenn Astarita
After the initial listen, it seems relatively amazing that this session was recorded without the use of electronics. With strategic mic placement, these cutting-edge European improvisers emit alien sound-sculpting vistas during four tracks recorded at a French cultural center. Complete with eerie drones, and the hornists’ cunning employment of mulit-phonics based techniques, the acoustic variant often equates to android-like environs.
Trumpeter Axel Dorner, clarinetist Xavier Charles and saxophonist John Butcher engage in long-range extended notes via cohesive manipulations and oscillating frameworks. In essence, this musical portraiture is a polytonal fantasy, where the artists explore cavernous regions of space. They engage in slithery trickles of sound with echoing effects, often translating into psycho-laden dreamscapes. On the piece titled “Les Cornichons,” the trio merges lower register notes with throaty resonance and animalistic noises. Topped with spacey movements and strange outbursts, the music is beyond classification. At times, shadowy in content and irrefutably intriguing from a multitude of standpoints, this improvisational extravaganza intimates much more than what many of us would anticipate. – Glenn Astarita
www.potlatch.fr
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