Label:
Incus Records – 17
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album - Country: UK / Released: 1976
Style:
Free Improvisation
Side A recorded
in mono in London on 4 July 1969.
Side B recorded
in stereo in London on 18 June 1970.
Painting
– Jamie Muir
Producer
[Post Production] – John Hadden
Recorded
By – Bob Woolford (tracks: 5, 6)
The
back cover features a quote from 'The Wellsprings of Music' by Curt Sachs.
A1
- Pointing . . . 7:10
A2
- Untitled 3 . . . 6:32
A3
- Untitled 4 . . . 4:10
A4
- Bedrest . . . 7:38
B1
- Its Tongue Trapped To The Rock By A Limpet, The Water Rat Succumbed To The Incoming
Tide . . . 8:55
B2
- In The Victim's Absence . . . 10:35
Derek Bailey – guitar
Evan Parker – soprano
saxophone, autoharp [amplified]
Hugh Davies – electronics
[live], organ
Jamie Muir – percussion, painting
This LP covers the
historic beginnings of the British free music scene and its founding fathers:
Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Hugh Davies, and future King Crimson drummer Jamie
Muir. These recordings come off amazingly well, considering the first four were
recorded in mono. And while there are six pieces here, it's almost impossible
to talk about them as separate entities, since what was at work in the group
consciousness was to create a free jazz music in the U.K. that was distinct from
what was happening in America and elsewhere in Europe at the time. Therefore in
the brave spirit of rabid experimentation and oh so serious creative spirit, we
have an amalgam of recordings that suggest the future of a free music that
turned out very differently than its origins suggest. This collective is
exactly that; none of these players -- especially not Parker or Bailey -- had
developed into the kinds of soloists that they are today, not only in terms of
technical expertise, but in terms of vision. What one can hear in the bravado
here is indecision, misdirection, and wrongheaded musical obfuscation that
proved to be liberating obstacles in the long run. The one constant here, the
thread, if you will, is the sense of dynamics that became the trademark of the
new music and has remained ever since. This is a document that does sound
dated, but only in a way that tells a story. It's is a necessary addition to
anyone's library who is interested in improvised music.
_
By THOM JUREK
If
you find it, buy this album!
