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1 | Double Truth (Of Reason And Revelation) | 19:56 |
| 2 | Knowledge Is Power | 13:42 | |
| 3 | Rejecting Simple Enumeration | 13:50 | |
| 4 | The More Might Have Been Done, Or Sooner | 29:00 | |
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5 | Nil Novum | 12:06 |
| 6 | Skill Give Rise To Chance, And Chance To Skill | 9:32 | |
| 7 | NOt So Much for The Sake Of Arguing As For The Sake OF Living | 12:29 | |
| 8 | Let Us Attend to Present Business | 11:24 | |
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9 | Chastise Me, But Listen | 16:42 |
"Double album, double solos of two distinctive musicians, becoming duets in a relatively rare space between solo playing and ensemble. Reed and percussion start at different places, the working through breath, the other pulse of materials being struck, one typically characterised by line, the other by attack, producing in the first pitch configurations, in the second beat patterns (Prévost doesn't use the specifically pitched mallet instruments). Each player comes with a distinctive sonic identity, but they're frequently crossing. the main intersection is sonority. The saxophone can splutter, click and gesture, notably in the extreme registers and the rapid shifts between them, with just sound. Prévost makes long, sustained attackless sounds by bowing his cymbals and gong, and his invented string drum tosses up melodic fragments. Percussion drives and saxophone sings, Parker can drive just as hard and Prévost makes a singing sound. Sometimes you can't tell which of the two's sounds you're hearing." - Christian Wolff.
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Evan Parker / saxophones
Eddie Prévost / percussion
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Recorded at Gateway Studio, Kingston, England by Steve Lowe on February 23rd and April 13th 1997. Artwork 'Djebel Nefousa' by Brenda Mayo.
A founder-member of AMM (1965-2022)
“[Eddie Prévost’s] is one of the greatest metallurgists that music has produced. […] sparks delicately arcing through the air, of slow lava ingesting its surroundings, of the shifting grind of tectonic plates across each other, of the rustle and glint of a firebird darting between shadows, and of ore smashing into the surface of the earth; but perhaps this language is overwrought: all that needs to be remarked upon is Prévost's industry, his diligence.”
Nathan Moore — liner note to AMM’s ‘Indúsria’
Matchless Recordings mrcd105.
But beyond this work Prévost has also maintained a relationship with the jazz drum-kit.
“His free drumming flows superbly making perfect use of his formidable technique, but his most startling feature is his stylelessness. It’s as though there has never been an Elvin Jones or a Max Roach.” - review of a set with saxophonist Lou Gare, Melody Maker (27.03.1975)
“Prévost, meanwhile, was simply miraculous; it was fascinating to watch him and to compare his approach with that of a Kern or a Nilssen-Love. I can only say that he was possessed of an uncanny, burning intentness that navigated the ensemble through passages of stark, sculpted beauty, grave concentration and full-on, bristling energy.”
Blue Tomato, Vienna 2012. In concert with Marilyn Crispell and Harrison Smith. Richard Rees-Jones
“An excellent release from one of the finest percussionists around, jazz or otherwise.” review of Prévost’s solo CD ‘Collider’
Matchless Recordings mrcd106 – Brian Olewnic, Squidsear (2022).
“Relentlessly innovative yet full of swing and fire.” – Morning Star
"If you've ever been tempted by free improvisation, Parker is your gateway drug." - Stewart Lee
Evan Parker has been a consistently innovative presence in British free music since the 1960s. Parker played with John Stevens in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation and held a long-standing partnership with guitarist Derek Bailey. The two formed the Music Improvisation Company and later Incus Records. He also has tight associations with European free improvisations - playing on Peter Brötzmann's legendary 'Machine Gun' session (1968), with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens (A trio that continues to this day), Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, and Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO).
Though he has worked extensively in both large and small ensembles, Parker is perhaps best known for his solo soprano saxophone music, a singular body of work that in recent years has centred around his continuing exploration of techniques such as circular breathing, split tonguing, overblowing, multiphonics and cross-pattern fingering. These are technical devices, yet Parker's use of them is, he says, less analytical than intuitive; he has likened performing his solo work to entering a kind of trance-state. The resulting music is certainly hypnotic, an uninterrupted flow of snaky, densely-textured sound that Parker has described as "the illusion of polyphony". Many listeners have indeed found it hard to credit that one man can create such intricate, complex music in real time.
