Looking ahead. Surely a shoo-in to make the playlist and gain Corey Mwamba's interest on BBC Radio 3 show Freeness. Let's see. Of most interest to readers into musique concrète and the avant side of electronica erstwhile Human trumpeter Alex Bonney and bassist Pierre Alexandre Tremblay with our friends electric the invisible choir as it were plus drummer Emil Karlsen participate.
Texturally this Schrödinger's cat of an undertaking is impressive. But consider, beyond this store cupboard of fragments is there a whole lot more than a thought experiment? Certainly while resolutely avant-garde The Undanced Dance nevertheless is not very far away from the sort of soundtrack you hear in key transitional moments of pause between gore and aftermath on just after the watershed television crime dramas.
Another impression is that The Undanced Dance recorded at Huddersfield University is pretty free - there is no strict beat. The drum style is at times multi-directional, meaning a Rashied Ali-like style. The pulsar imperative all concerned seek is a form of sonic metal detecting, mining for moments that actually in the end garners something to covet.
Anything detectorist Bonney is on rewards close listening. And it's the fifth track here where his Wadada Leo Smith-meets-Don Cherry approach makes its presence felt most amid the bric-a-brac of electronics strewn around him. As a digital artefact The Undanced Dance chimes far more idiomatically than a sound that may more easily inhabit a physical format given how perfect modern music technology and a disciplined free-improv yearning are for the genre.
Drummer Emil Karlsen continues to reward following and is also on The Way We Speak with flautist Neil Metcalfe and the distinguished Evan Parker ElectroAcoustic Ensemble violinist Philipp Wachsmann also on the Bead Records label.
FURTHER READING AND LISTENING:
The Undanced Dance is out in February. Light.box, top left-to-right Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Alex Bonney
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