REVIEWS [b]

Brian Locke Ensemble - Rêve (Yellocello) Release date 22.10.07

Released to coincide with a full premiere concert at the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, St. Luke's, Brian Lock has launched on a terrific new avenue to his already rampant repertoire. An internationally renowned film and media composer and live electronics artist, Lock has gathered together an impressive ensemble of innovative musicians to realise a project which is startingly original and certainly genre-defying. Rêve is highly polished yet bursting with life, artistic risk and new culture. Sitting in total comfort with Lock's subtle dance-age electronica are the traditional sounds of European orchestral intruments; clarinet (Neyire Ashworth), cello (improv / mutli-artiste Zoe Martlew) and harp (avant garde and film music specialist Hugh Webb). The CD is made up of Concerto for Clarinet, Percussion, Birds and Computers (three movements), Sonata for Cello and Mixing Desk (four movements) and Concerto for the Sound of a Harp & Other Sounds (three movements). A very positive 52 minutes, equally perfect for a relaxing dinner or working background as well as being spiritually stimulating on a close listening with your decent speakers or headphones, probably stunning live!

Brian Lock Music

Blood and Bone Orchestra. Live 17 Jan 2005 (CD - Carbon Records CR114)

Although now a couple of years old I wanted to mention this here for a couple of reasons. First is that it comes bolted to a piece of wood. Brilliantly novel, a nice shiny wingnut holding the CD to a genuine piece of old American pinewood, this piece of wood is from America, yeah I can smell the spirit of the land of the free, it's true! The package from Joe included some CD releases including a Lasse Marhaug, a 7" split vinyl with Cock ESP and Ovo, and a bright yellow Carbon tee-shirt. Hooyaa! But the thing that excites me most is the piece of wood. I love America, don't you? I've never been but I'm sure I will one day, I actually dream about it. Weird. Anyways, sticking this disc in the drawer to my complete and utter bewilderment I find I could be easily listening to our own group The Tajalli Vortex! Sporadic noise from tenor sax, bass, drums and electronics, even in a similar style to the stuff I've just been mixing this very morning. Hey this little beauty is live and the crowd love it. And I got me a real piece of America!
www.bloodandboneorchestra.com
www.carbonrecords.com

Bill Thompson: Tripartite Collision (State Sanctioned Recordings SSRCD002 - ltd.200)

Second great release from home grown label belonging to Rob Hart aka Eaten By Children. Scotland based Thompson has been involved in 'sonic art' for ten years and has seen the inside of the BBC, Resonance FM and various. Here two contrasting live pieces demonstrate the slow build technique, similar to some of Hart's work. The title track running in at 11.52 left me wanting more even though it is almost entirely made up of a (quality) underlying sub bass drone and a few contemplative high and mid range fizzes. The quality of the audio is something that is paramount here and the material contrasts with examples in the similar vein, which are in their plenty. I got more in the second track but this time a longer (32.19) and even more introspective, especially after a grand first phase of 17 minutes, leaving it on to attend to a visit from my mother found it as a background conducive to chat even though on the surface slightly ominous and unsettling. Stoners will like this (after your mother's gone!) as there's plenty of imagination and colour after the central section; a single, wavering drone of some six minutes where time disappears. So not to worry you pacey types (!) as (uber-gradually) sizzly, meditative friends join in again to the end warp-out, leaving ( in the silence which is now anything but, as a passing car freaks out my state) an awareness of the live molecules in everything...
www.billthompson.org
www.statesanctioned.com
Eaten By Children

Brothers Yemen: Xonfononconconcon (CD-R)

Excellent title! Nicely wrapped in some weird industrial perforated coloured card with a sticker 'I was very good when I had my hearing test'. I traded this for a Fusion CD-r with them at a recent gig at the Cricketers and glad I did. It was a weird gig, very meditative and relaxing. Candlelit, laddy on lappy, dude on the floor machines and lassie on treated electric violin and things. I reclined on a pile of wires and fat red-hot pipes and drifted away... Mmmm why can't all music be this good? First track on the CD-r is 18 mins of heady and sweet Buddhist temple breeze - not under or overstated at all, just right, plenty of atmosphere and abstract sounds too. Second ultra deep drone is 5 mins finishing with some laughing echoing out (bit stoned?). Third is a mix of the two for a bit then (slightly wavering) wailing female voice gives it a spooky edge and the intensity starts to increase. I wonder what they're using to get these sounds as it sounds possibly like a single live take. Haha.. the cheering crowd have been left in at the end so thats that answered. Yeah, nice one.