Recorded live at a small bookstore in Dallas called The Wild Detectives, Success presents two symbiotic improvisers generating dense layers of sonic texture. Extensions of electric guitar and saxophone are precipitated into the listener’s consciousness like rampant cloud seeding; billowing forth surges of peripheral energy, an overflow continuously trimmed from the edges and falling to the floor. Often one’s sense of instrument distinction becomes blurred. Despite sounds being created separately by both forced air and amplified electromagnetic feedback, timbres converge with the room itself to create an enormous presence and a unifying, exhausting, gratifying listen, neatly augmented by the palpable presence of room tone.

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Steve Baczkowski / tenor, baritone saxophones
Bill Nace / electric guitar

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Recorded live at The Wild Detectives, Dallas TX, August 16, 2019 by Stephen Lucas

Mastered by Mark Alan Miller

Available as 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC   

"Pure noise is easy enough to tune out once you get acclimated to it. On Success, a thrilling recording of a live performance from 2019, free-improvising saxophonist Steve Baczkowski and guitarist Bill Nace keep you on the knife’s edge of your attention. Never merely bludgeoning, each responds sensitively to the other’s extremity, as well as to the audience and the room itself. Moreso than your average lo-fi live recording, Success is heavy on extraneous sounds, which actually enhance the music. Background clatter—clinking beer glasses?—drifts into the mix like a percussionist with a particularly light touch. Even the occasional snippet of crowd conversation adds to the almost unbearable intensity. In quiet moments, I judge them for talking over the music, but also feel for them the way I feel for unsuspecting victims in a horror film, chattering away, oblivious to whatever’s coming next." - Andy Cush, Pitchfork