IST's 1997 album, recorded at the Natural Music Club in Stockwell, London. Representing epsode 2 in the development of this group, the music sits interestingly between 'Anagrams To Avoid' and 'Ghost Notes'. The music is often still quite active, but with the first signs of the distilled nature heard in later work. The recording quality is surprisingly good, with just a few typical digital artefacts to remind us that this was captured on a 1990s portable digital recorder, plus a little occasional traffic noise to remind that this was London, after all.
"Imagine three sailors improvising a route over a mythic sea . . . . . intricate music, resonant with folk memories. Davies, Fell and Wastell conjure a magic from the complex shuffle of plink-plonk, squeal and scrape." Gus Garside RUBBERNECK
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Rhodri Davies / harp
Mark Wastell / violoncello
Simon H. Fell / double bass
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Recorded live at the Natural Music Club, Stockwell, United Kingdom, 1997-04-09.
Available as 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. Buntata Le Rusg - 6:35
2. Betingol - 16:13
3. Improvised Explosive Device - 8:34
4. Joe Parsley - 17:23
5. Tangled Mess ... A Cross Section - 1:19
6. Broad Strokes - For Franz Kline - 9:07
Mark Wastell is a versatile improvising musician who has played a central role in the British improvised music scene for over a quarter of a century. He has performed and recorded extensively and his varied resume includes projects with Derek Bailey, Phil Durrant, John Butcher, Lasse Marhaug, Rhodri Davies, Simon H. Fell, Burkhard Beins, John Tilbury, Mattin, Mark Sanders, Tony Conrad, Evan Parker, Tim Barnes, Bernhard Günter, Keith Rowe, John Zorn, Peter Kowald, Joachim Nordwall, Otomo Yoshihide, Paul Dunmall, David Toop, Alan Wilkinson, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Julie Tippetts, Alan Skidmore, Mike Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Stewart Lee, Clive Bell, Arild Andersen, Jan Bang, Maggie Nicols, Thurston Moore and David Sylvian.
Rhodri Davies is immersed in the worlds of improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance. He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water, ice, dry ice and fire harp installations and has released six solo albums. His regular groups include: HEN OGLEDD, Cranc, Common Objects and a duo with John Butcher. He has worked with the following artists: David Sylvian, Jenny Hval, Derek Bailey, Sofia Jernberg, Lina Lapelyte, Pat Thomas, Simon H Fell and Will Gaines.
For the last ten years Davies has been closely associated with the pioneering composer Eliane Radigue performing seventeen of her pieces. She composed OCCAM I for Davies in 2011, the first in an ongoing series of solo and ensemble pieces for individual instrumentalists in which a performer’s personal performance technique and particular relationship to their instrument function as the compositional material of the piece. New pieces for solo harp have also been composed for him by: Christian Wolff, Carole Finer, Philip Corner, Phill Niblock, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Mieko Shiomi and Yasunao Tone.
In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on ‘Self-cancellation’, a large-scale audio-visual collaboration in London and Glasgow. In 2012 he was the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award, he was a Chapter Associate Artist (2016-19) and in 2017 he received a Creative Wales Award. He is a co-organiser of the NAWR concert series in Swansea.
Simon Fell has spent much of the past 20 years trying to refine various syntheses of composition, improvisation and jazz. In 1989, he was awarded an Arts Council Jazz Bursary to complete the composition Compilation II for 9 musicians and electronics; a recording was released in 1990. Fell was awarded a composer's research and development bursary by the Arts Council in 1993 to compose Compilation III, a large-scale work for concert pianist, free jazz trio, rock guitarist, jazz orchestra, electronics and tape; a recording of a revised version for 42 musicians appeared in 1998. He has also received commissions from, among others, Eastern Arts, The Termite Club, Leeds University, Haverhill Town Council and Yorkshire & Humberside Arts. His compositions for London Improvisers Orchestra include Papers, Happy Families, Köln Klang, Ellington 100 (Strayhorn 85) and Three Mondrians; recent works for SFQ include Thirteen Rectangles, Six Bells Pieces and ...the old style...
