Legendary UK jazz promoter Tony Dudley-Evans, pictured, introduced Birmingham scene improvisers CollapseUncollapse broadcast last night for the first time in a Fizzle stream filmed at Sansom Studios in the Wythall area of the city.

Drummer Mark Sanders is the most familiar and internationally known of the players beyond their stature on the local scene, his style on this showing sharing more in common with the Anthony Braxton player Steve 'Dakiz' Davis in Belfast and perhaps even Terje Evensen in Norway than I have heard him on any occasions before. As for the electronics side, Monotron synth and more from Andrew Woodhead in alliance with Chris Mapp on bass guitar and pedals together share an affinity somehow with the outcomes of Irish improviser Shane Latimer's explorations.

Operating at the technologically driven nexus of electro-acoustic improvisation and ambient sounds rather than loud free-jazz and noise, a different sound entirely, the performance thrives on lulls and contrasting build-ups of scrabbling detail rather than abject hyperbole that you might find in other settings. An introverted sound or rather another way of looking at its unravelling is to delve into its rejections of certainty and belief instead more in consequential/inconsequential textural stretches that are painstakingly established and rendered abstract.

A galaxy away from the rites and rituals of mainstream jazz and a world distant too even from orthodox heritage free-jazz certainly as imposed from the top heading down the rigour of the discipline is what works best. Whether consciously or not an acceptance of the influential innovations long ago of Delia Derbyshire also spring to mind in the blend. SG

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