at29 küchen - rowe - wright
martin küchen alto saxophone
keith rowe electronics
seymour wright alto saxophone
total time: 35:40
recorded in midhopestones, near sheffield, june 2009
audio excerpt
“Another Timbre's new series of discs on the guitar in improvised music gives us two alto saxophonists at the table of the veteran guitarist Keith Rowe. Seymour Wright has previously played with – amongst others - Eddie Prevost, so we are roughly in AMM-territory. And it suits Martin Küchen excellently, one of the very few Swedish saxophonists who works without dramatic gestures, focusing on small sounds and a deconstructive music. The dryness of his playing has been its real coherence and strength (and this is meant as praise).
Keith Rowe's guitar is on a table surrounded by radio equipment and various other electronic devices. It is a sound body, a bringer of unexpected sounds, especially those which disrupt ordinary rhythms and expectations. Rowe's music is not open in the usual sense. He is absorbed in his own soundworld, exploring and following through different pathways. This can clearly be heard here: as if in a trance he offers up a few notes that actually sound like a guitar, then listens, and then tries again, this time involving a radio tuned to whatever programme is on so that a voice draws in and drifts through the electronic sounds. So the saxophonists can appear like intruders, reworking the long tones of their instruments into short pops and scratches so that it's hard to tell whether the sounds I am hearing are coming from reeds or the body of the guitar.
Rowe's presence is good for the saxophonists; they can allow themselves to become infused within his sound world. They drop inside the body of their instruments to marvel at its hollow, lonely sound. Together they construct a sound tunnel within which Rowe can play out his fragmented dadaistic games. And they take liberties, detonating and challenging Rowe's self-imposed limits. A continual process in which melancholy breaths form little scraps of melody until a flow is suggested, teasing, irritating and touching but never trapped by Rowe's electronics, moving around as if by coincidence. It is a heady mixture: an utterly abstract music which is broken up and yet still flows over me as a listener in a safe and cohesive way.
But I can also hear Rowe's absolutist approach to music. No compromise, no bargain, no ingratiation. A music that applies the same harshness and severity both to the outside world and to its constant flow of commercial music. Rowe is a musician who is equally critical from an ideological and a moral perspective. The music must never be compromised; it is broken, fragmented and pulled around constantly, sometimes bouncing out into the outside world.
The two saxophonists broaden his soundworld, subjecting it to the same process of critical interruption to which his streams of sound often subject the outside world. It's a process of give and take, occurring in slow motion, needing time to unfold. And this process of three musicians carefully negotiating with each other produces one of Rowe's most absorbing discs, and a great moment for Martin Küchen. It's an album where friction and heat are the key words.”
Thomas Millroth, Sound of Music
“Rowe's ongoing "battle" with the saxophone continues, perhaps an updating of the Doneda/Leimgruber collaboration, "The Difference Between a Fish" (Potlatch). Here, however, he's in the company of younger musicians who, at least on the surface, are somewhat more in tune with his concerns and the result is decidedly happier, if not earthshaking. Both Küchen and Wright retain enough recognizable saxophonics to present a challenge to Rowe and the odd, reedy shriek or bellow surfaces now and then, but by and large they sublimate those urges, operating near one or another periphery of their horns, with attached, vibrating metals in play as well as the growls, breaths, and buzzes one would expect. Rowe is quite recognizable himself, especially with the hand-held fans and their telltale buzz-saw emanations; this may well have been during a still ongoing phase where he's re-examining approaches from the recent past, ones he'd abandoned for a few years. In any case, these are all rather technical concerns, and if one simply lies back and concentrates on the music, ignoring its sources, it's a satisfying affair. I don't hear the same level of concentration on Rowe's part as I do when he's collaborating with, say, Sachiko M, more that he's content to sink into the existing pool of sounds, prodding gently at times but more often being accommodating. This leaves the saxophonists to push matters along and they do with both care and garrulousness.
It's a good performance and had I been in attendance, I'd have left satisfied. I do think it reveals a bit more on repeated listens, especially the denser interplay between Rowe and the more metallic expostulations from the saxophones, some luscious texture in there. If there's a problem, it might be that for all the lovely portions, the whole feels a tad loose. A minor quibble, though. It's well worth hearing for the contributions of all involved.” Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
“Three new releases on Another Timbre, with its quickly growing catalogue of improvised music. The first release is a recording on June 14 2009 at the church of St. James the lesser near Sheffield by Martin Kuchen (alto saxophone), Seymour Wright (alto saxophone) and the 'famous' Keith Rowe (electric guitar). This is quite some intense playing here. These thirty-five minutes contain some extreme material - not extreme as overtly loud (save for the last few minutes, with some piercing tone material), but an extreme exploration of the sounds that one can produce with such instruments. Its hard to recognize the instruments - especially the saxophones, but also Rowe's guitar treatments is excellent. Through they explore their instruments for all those qualities which one never thought they would have, but also these three keep an open ear as to what the others are doing and respond to that. Certainly not easy music, but one that needs attention. If you do that, it will reveal some great beauty.” Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly