Plus Equals [Digipak]

This album is related to the two-CD set Spin Networks released under the name fORCH. Incidentally, Furt's Plus Equals is actually titled Equals and billed as Furt Plus. Both projects were realized as part of an invite from the SWR's 2005 NEW Jazz Meeting to form an improvising ensemble around the unsung heroes of experimental sampling, Furt (Richard Barrett and Paul Obermayer). This residency, which brought together a nice cross-section of free improvisers from Germany and the U.K., began with Furt recording their six guests in solo and duo settings. These recordings serve as sound banks for both projects. Plus Equals features seven pieces. In the first six, the duo (working as a single entity, on two sampling keyboards and three computers) is "duetting" in turn with each guest (Phil Minton, Paul Lovens, John Butcher, Ute Wassermann, Rhodri Davies, and Wolfgang Mitterer). And in each of these tracks, Furt presents to the live performer a distorted image of himself or herself to duet with. For instance, the album begins with Phil Minton, whose acrobatic vocals are multiplied, transmogrified, and polluted with other electronic sounds and occasional treated samples from the other sampled improvisers. Duos? Trios? Ensemble pieces boiled down to three players? The maths are complicated, but the project is a stunning way to approach the duo/trio format differently. Since Barrett and Obermayer are working here with a restricted palette of samples, the music on this album is somewhat less dense and "maximalist" than on their other releases (although "Solution E" featuring Davies invalidates that opinion), and it showcases the depth found in the duo's music, a depth that can be obfuscated by the barrage of seemingly unrelated sounds that is this group's standard form of delivery. This is not a "real improviser with live treatments" thing, the electronic aspect is both more remote from the performance and more closely tied to the personality of the performer. The seventh and final piece features Furt using samples from all six musicians. Impressive, exhilarating music.|