““In keeping with its adventurous approach, Another Timbre has put out two complementary
releases, one a CD, the other a CD-R. Taken together, they make a fine tribute to
Hugh Davies, the musician, composer, researcher, electronic pioneer and instrument
inventor who died at the start of 2005, aged 61. The limited edition CD-R Hugh
Davies - Performances 1969 - 1977 serves two useful purposes. Firstly, it brings
six unissued vintage Davies performances into circulation--five solos plus a duet
with Richard Orton. As with anything in Davies' (woefully small) discography, the
pieces are endlessly intriguing. His ability to conjure a dazzling array of sounds
from the most unpromising of sources is simply stunning....
Secondly, the CD-R allows us to hear in isolation the source materials that were
used as the stimuli for Bohman, Patterson and Wastell on this CD proper. The music
from the CD-R was played to them, they improvised around it, and the resulting music
forms the CD. In their different ways, Bohman, Patterson and Wastell all owe a huge
debt to Davies; their music would be vastly different without his pioneering work,
hence their participation in this tribute. The most striking thing about this CD
is that Davies' own playing remains central to the music. The other three players
work out from his performance and expand the soundscape, but the agenda is clearly
set by Davies own playing. The end result is more akin to a remix of a solo album
than to a quartet performance. Only on the closing track, "For Hugh Davies," on
which the three improvise without Davies' music as a stimulus, do they come out of
his shadow, producing a taut, focused piece. It is indicative of how ahead of his
time Davies was that the new piece sounds no more contemporary than anything that
precedes it.
As an experimental way of paying tribute to a musician, this must be judged a great
success. Doubtless, Davies himself would have heartily approved of the experiment.
The results are extraordinary. It is a great CD. It is meaningless to compare
these two releases trying to decide which is "better". Both are essential. They
complement one another, each throwing light on the other, making the whole greater
than the sum of the two.” - John Eyles, All About Jazz
“Totally fantastic. With Hugh Davies' voice as one part in four (or three or two
on two tracks), his ratchetiness is subsumed within a lovely blanket of work from
Adam Bohman (prepared balalaika/amplified objects), Lee Patterson (amplified objects)
and Mark Wastell (unpacking his cello for the occasion). Each piece is something
of a gem, including the final one, which is sans Davies, though dedicated to him.
Beautiful recording. “ - Brian
Olewnick, Just Outside
“When Hugh Davies died in January 2005, the many heartfelt tributes that appeared
provided a reminder as to just how influential a musician he was. Davies worked
as an assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen during the mid ’60s, helping to produce
works like “Mikrophonie I” which amplified the sounds of a large tam-tam as it was
struck and brushed by a variety of objects. Expanding on that strategy, Davies made
a career of developing a variety of amplified home-made instruments assembled from
springs, saw blades, egg slicers, and other household detritus. As part of the
first generation of British free improvisers, he was a member of the original incarnation
of the Music Improvisation Company and continued to collaborate with Evan Parker,
Derek Bailey and like-minded instrument makers like Max Eastley and David Toop while
also pursuing performances of contemporary composition.
While his music sounds electronic, in reality it is the result of the hyper-amplification
of tiny gestures: the close inspection of timbres and textures. For Hugh Davies
is an homage recorded by Adam Bohman, Lee Patterson, and Mark Wastell. Each has
been heavily influenced by his work— Bohman and Patterson with their use of contact-miked
homemade instruments, and Wastell in his approach to the use of amplification of
his cello as sound-source, and more recently, his own work with amplified tam-tam.
For this session, the three formed a virtual quartet, improvising alongside recordings
which Davies made in the ’70s. The three build on the nuanced spaces of Davies’
pieces, extending them through their expanded timbral spectrum. Wastell makes a
rare return to cello. Bohman uses a prepared balalaika and joins Patterson at an
arsenal of amplified objects. Davies’ recordings centre around a set of sound sources
and dive in to explore their diminutive details, whether amplified springs, bowed
diaphragms, or egg slicers. The trio adds gestural layers, picking up on the scrapes
and scoured resonances. But there is never a sense of preciousness or hesitancy.
After all, Davies was as apt to crash in and disrupt improvisational proceedings
as he was to play with delicacy.
Wastell sits out one piece where Bohman and Patterson take a playful tack,
accentuating a jagged sonic calligraphy. Wastell “duets” with Davies on one take
of “Bowed Diaphragms”, and the tensile energy of his flayed amplified cello builds
a bracing arc. The trio stretches out the abraded palette across a wider spectrum
in another version of the piece. The session closes out with a trio, minus Davies’
source tapes, making clear the musical debt that these three owe.”
-
Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise
“In January this year, as an act of homage to and celebration of the music of pioneering
instrument builder Hugh Davies, who died on new Year’s Day 2005, Another Timbre label
manager Simon Reynell invited improvisors Adam Bohman, Lee patterson and Mark Wastell
- all of whom cite Davies as a formative influence on their work - to play along
with recordings of Davies he had unearthed from the National Sound Archive. The
nmusicians were provided with copies of the original recordings before the session
in a North london church, but in the interest of freshness and spontaneity had listened
to them only once or twice.
After 15 listens to For Hugh Davies I still feel I’m barely scratching
the surface of this at times frustratingly complex assemblage of scrapes, scratches,
twangs and tweaks. For the record Bohman is on the left channel, Patterson on the
right, and Davies is spread between inside left and inside right. Wastell - on cello
here, the instrument he played in a live collaboration with Davies - is in the middle
except on bowed diaphragms + 1, where he moves around the stereo space, dragging
his instrument across the floor of the church. Even so, it’s often hard to work
out exactly who’s doing what, and how it relates to the Davies material... One change
that is immediately apparent is how different in character the archive recordings
are from the ensemble pieces they spawn. The second half of a rumbunctious mid-70’s
Davies performance at Ronnie cott’s takes on a markedly different dynamic in invented
instruments + 2, starting out tense and wiry and ending in forlorn disintegration.
Long stretches of sustained sonority - there’s rarely anything stable enough to
be called a drone here - impose a whole new structure on the material, and the same
Davies source recording can and does yiled two surprisingly different results. Compare
Wastell’s frighteningly focused cello scrapes on bowed diaphragms + 1 with Bohman’s
inscrutable clatter on bowed diaphragms + 3. New London Silence this is not.
For Hugh Davies is an enthralling listen...Bohman, Patterson and Wastell
respond to Davies with creativity, intelligence and enthusiasm, but how I wish Davies
had been there to answer back.” - Dan Warburton, The Wire
“On For Hugh Davies Adam Bohman, Lee Patterson and Mark Wastell manipulate respectively
a prepared balalaika, amplified objects and cello, and bring into play the recordings
of the Hugh Davies Performances 1969 – 1977 cd-r, interacting with portions of the
early tapes, respecting the essential concept yet at the same time adding their own
sauce. The pieces were made using all the possible combinations: Wastell is the Chosen
One who's featured in a "solo duet" with the original tape, then we have Bohman/Patterson
v. Davies and the rest of the tracks feature all three v. the Old Master until the
final trio minus Hugh. The record is an exercise in attentive listening, the timbres
meshing in ways that don't really surprise but still manage to rub the listener the
right way most of the time. A careful sense of spacing and the ever accurate choice
of the moments in which the harsh must replace the faint (and vice versa) represent
an impartial testimony of the players' admiration for the craft of this resourceful
sonic artisan. It's perhaps best experienced at low volume, ears pricked up to catch
infinitesimal vibrations and small cracks amidst the umbrae of a cautious materiality.”
-
Massimo Ricci. ParisTransatlantic
“For Hugh Davies is an odd amalgam of the dedicatee’s solo work (on tape) and group
music by way of three improvisers accompanying and giving the illusion of interacting
with Davies’ instruments. Cellist Mark Wastell is ostensibly at the helm of this
disc, and he’s joined by electro-acoustic improvisers Lee Patterson and Adam Bohman
on six improvisations, five of which include tapes from Performances. Yes, it might
seem a bit morbid to have the focus of the dedication in ghostly absence as the trio
accompanies Davies’ bowed and plucked springs with guttural string growls, metallic
clatter and dog-whistle harmonics. The analog could be found in improvising with
pre-recorded tape, which is nothing new in the world of contemporary music. Regardless,
whether or not this is an illusory effect, the music does seem like an honest-to-goodness
quartet, sounds of indeterminate origin merging and jousting in a tonal world of
industrial dark corners and tortured acoustic playing. Though these pieces use the
exact performances from the CD-R above (Hugh Davies – Performanmces 1969 -1977),
one wouldn’t recognize them, so couched in collectivity they’ve become. In this way,
Wastell, Patterson and Bohman are more than just resurrecting—they’re breathing continued
life into Hugh Davies’ legacy, whether he’s around to experience it or not.”
~
Clifford Allen, Bagatellen
return to catalogue home
or order
from the sleevenotes: ‘for hugh davies’ pays homage to and celebrates the remarkable
music of Hugh Davies. It was recorded almost three years to the day after his death
in January 2005, and was released in July 2008. Hugh Davies was one of that outstanding
first generation of European improvisers who emerged in the mid-1960's. He played
in the Music Improvisation Company (along with Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and Jamie
Muir), and was a founder-member of the legendary ensemble Gentle Fire, a group who
– years ahead of their time – used live electronics and improvisational elements
to interpret radical scores by composers such as John Cage and Christian Wolff.
From 1964-66 Hugh worked as an assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen, during the latter’s
most radical and fruitful period as a composer. Hugh assisted on the production
of Mikrophonie I, a stunning work based on the amplification of sounds produced
on a large tam-tam as it is brushed, struck or stroked by a variety of different
objects and materials. In a sense Hugh's music over the next 40 years was a deepening
exploration of the soundworld opened up by Mikrophonie I, again usually using metal
objects as a sound source, though far smaller ones than Stockhausen's giant tam-tam.
Employing what he described as a “do-it-yourself approach to music”, Hugh built
instruments from everyday objects such as springs, egg-slicers and fretsaw blades.
These were rubbed, scratched, beaten or blown, and the resulting small sounds were
amplified. Although thought of as a pioneer of the use of live electronics in improvisation,
the only 'electronics' involved in the vast majority of his instruments was amplification.
for hugh davies uses a number of previously unpublished solo improvisations by Hugh
dating from the 1970's. At the recording session these improvisations were played
back to three musicians who have been deeply influenced by his work: Mark Wastell,
Adam Bohman and Lee Patterson. The musicians improvised alongside Hugh's recordings,
producing an unusual improvisational situation in which one of the voices was fixed
and unable to respond to the playing of the others. The musicians had been given
copies of Hugh's pieces three months in advance of the session, but in fact none
of them chose to listen to them more than three times, as they wanted to leave plenty
of room for spontaneity.
In the recording Mark Wastell plays cello – the instrument with which he emerged
as an improviser in the 1990's, but which he has since largely abandoned. He chose
to play it here because it was the instrument he'd used on the dozen occasions that
he performed with Hugh. Adam Bohman and Lee Patterson worked from tables full of
amplified objects similar to those that Hugh employed in his self-built instruments.
Both acknowledge Hugh as a major influence, though Adam only played with him on
a handful of occasions. Lee never played with Hugh, and the one time they 'met'
at a conference, Lee was too awestruck to actually speak to him.
Ten pieces were recorded of which six have been selected, including two very different
responses to Hugh’s ‘Music for Bowed Diaphragms’. On the final track the musicians
improvise unaccompanied by Hugh's recordings as a joint homage to his memory.
The original recordings of Hugh's music around which the improvisers played are being
issued simultaneously on an ‘another timbre’ limited edition cdr: Hugh Davies -
Performances 1969 - 1977
