Improvisations

This disc is a case in point for argument on how to place a value on completely free improvisation. These sounds, which are music as such, cannot be described in conventional terms since the musicians that make the music do everything within their power to subvert the very authority of musical principle. Even the relatively benign concept of dynamic is challenged here. And so there is no argument at all; there are only the interactions of various sounds coming from Fred Frith's array of stringed instruments like the guitar, the violin, small instruments, and voice, and those percussionary implements brought to the performance by Jean-Pierre Drouet. For 62-plus minutes there is simply the "go" principle, where all opportunities are seized and no sound is left unturned. Rhythms, polyrhythms, and microtonalities crack and shatter all over the place in a sustained gleeful purpose of noisemaking for its own sake. There are moments of sublime beauty here, where drums and guitar act as extensions of one another's thoughts, and segments of such callous dissonance the only thing a listener can do is laugh. Which is what music-making, sound-breaking, code-shattering free improvisation is all about. ~ Thom Jurek|