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viewing 1 To 23 of 23 items
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2LP
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CORE 003LP
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Derek Bailey: guitar. Simon H. Fell: double bass. Recorded at Sound 323, London by Tim Fletcher on 15 August 2001. Remastered by Rupert Clervaux, September 2023. "Both Bailey and Fell are master musicians who improvise together at an intense and challenging level. This set bristles with focused energy. Both instruments sound closely mic'd so that we can hear each scrape, pluck and bow. At times, it seems as if Mr. Bailey is on the verge of exploding and then things calm do a bit only to flare up again. Mr. Fell sounds as if he is using a peg or wooden object on his bass at times and coaxing brittle percussive sounds. I found this set to be quite exciting, that edge-of-your-seat dynamic! Pretty incredible throughout!" --Bruce Lee Gallanter
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CORE 023CD
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The trio's music creates a strong sense of place, yet you can't quite put your finger on the exact location. There are crescendos that remind me of the vibrant frenzy once experienced in the Amazonian rainforest. Jan Bang injects into the mix both snippets of his co-creators' performances and samples collected over time for deployment in just the right context. You hear faint orchestral swells and then voices, both spoken and sung, the recordings degraded so far as to be barely recognizable. These add a strange authenticity to this imagined territory, the acoustic purity of David Toop and Mark Wastell's instruments providing a counterpoint that expands the stage.
Personnel: Jan Bang - live sampling, samples; David Toop - lapsteel guitar, flutes, whistles, small percussion, harmonica, elastic, paper; Mark Wastell - Paiste 32" tam tam, gongs, beaters, brushes, sticks, bow, autoharp. Recorded by Shaun Crook, London, November 22, 2019. Compositional structure by Mark Wastell. Mixed and mastered by Rupert Clervaux. Cover image by Crimson Wastell. Liner notes by David Nibloe. Design by Matthew Brandi. Produced by Mark Wastell.
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CD
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CORE 002EP
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Second release in Confront Recordings' CD EP length series. Personnel: Joachim Nordwall - analog synthesizer and effects, tape; Mark Wastell - tam tam, timpani. Originally released September 2014 on a clear lacquer dubplate in an edition of 20 copies. Cover photograph by David Sylvian. Design by Matthew Brandi. Composed by Joachim Nordwall. Produced by Mark Wastell.
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CORE 022CD
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"Each member of Jane In Ether is a formidable musician in her own right. The cream of the Berlin improv scene whose extended techniques of their respective instruments are, it's no exaggeration to say, ground breaking. I bore witness to this evolution in discipline as I've been fortunate enough to work with, and see all three perform in a variety of circumstances. When I heard Magda, Biliana, and Miako were forming a trio the news was both exciting and somehow inevitable as they complement one another sonically as they do in life. JIE's music has something of the quality of undiffused light, a clarity made all the more luminous and transparent by a true grounding in silence from which sounds emanate/resonate. Spare sentences where light slips through. Largely quiet conversations in a multiplicity of languages spoken as if sharing the same root. Roots of a tree displayed in a white gallery, in a Japanese garden. water, bells, air, wood, strings. the mechanics of chanting. The origins of the sounds unclear to the uninitiated. the forest speaks for itself, slowed until audible. what was spoken goes un." --David Sylvian Jane In Ether: Miako Klein - recorders; Magda Mayas - piano; Biliana Voutchkova - violin, voice.
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5CD
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CORE 021CD
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A More Attractive Way is a comprehensive study of live performances made by Ist between 1996 and 2000. "This five-CD set begins at the very outset of the group's career and features their debut concert at Club Orange in London and charts its way through further gigs in London, Billericay, Norwich and Cambridge. The 20-page booklet contains written contributions from Mark and Rhodri, Jo Fell, Simon Rose, Nick Smith, John Butcher, Phil Durrant, Graham Halliwell, and Chris Goode together with previously unpublished photographs. Ist are: Rhodri Davies - harp, preparations; Simon H. Fell - double bass, preparations; Mark Wastell - violoncello, preparations. ISt operate at such a pitch of invention they transcend the divide between art and science. Harp, upright bass and cello are played at the horizon of known technique. Simultaneously lush and abrasive, the trio push string sounds into new zones of strange beauty. Barbed bouquets explode before the ear, aural events that leave the imagination ransacked." --HIFI News & Record Review
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CD
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CORE 016CD
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On Live At OTOOTO & Permian, two guitarists from Japan, Taku Sugimoto and Takashi Masubuchi, ask a series of unresolved questions -- about time, about interplay, about tonality. Those who know Sugimoto's music will recognize here a certain tension, and a feeling for the apposite; these two traits have been core to his playing and composing since he first introduced himself to the broader listening public, in the '90s, with albums like Opposite. Masubuchi, who has also recently collaborated with Shizuo Uchida and Straytone, intersects with Sugimoto in a number of ways -- they share interests in Morton Feldman and in folk blues, both of which are evident here in the abstract. Personnel: Taku Sugimoto - electric guitar; Takashi Masubuchi - acoustic guitar.
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CORE 017CD
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"Imagination is central to the connection between the audience and these performers. What enthralls me is how the music can be approached in so many different ways. Sometimes I will listen whilst visualizing the creation of some vast abstract painting; Mark Wastell's chimes conjuring yellow flashes of light offset by electric color washes from Rhodri Davies's e-bowed harp, and organic surface textures brought to life through Burkhard Beins's found objects interacting with the surface of a meticulously mic'd drum skin. Or another day, let the imagination run free as the sound embraces you, as if being driven through a new city in a country and culture previously unexplored. Senses heightened, taking in sights and sounds never before encountered, unsure as to what lies around the next corner." --David J. Nibloe (from the booklet notes) Recorded at Cafe OTO, London on March 2, 2020 by Shaun Crook. Personnel: Burkhard Beins - amplified percussion; Rhodri Davies - amplified lap harp; Mark Wastell - dual 32" past tam tams, gongs, Nepalese singing bowls.
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CD
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CORE 014CD
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"The origins of this piece date back to the December 1st, 1991. I'd attended an all-day concert at the Red Rose Theatre in Finsbury Park, London -- a benefit gig for Terry Day -- featuring dozens of musicians in various groupings throughout the afternoon and evening. One of those musicians was John Stevens. This was my first exposure to John and his music and the beginning of a fascination still very much part of my every-day. John performed three times that afternoon; with his Spontaneous Music Ensemble -- comprising Nigel Coombes and Roger Smith later joined by Maggie Nicols and Phil Minton, in a trio with Larry Stabbins and Paul Rogers and in an unaccompanied role, reciting a text composed by himself. He gave no introduction or back story to the piece. It just existed as is. Gone in a few fleeting moments. A couple of years later I secured an audience recording of the concert made by Andy Isham. All of John's activity that day was on the recording and through repeated listening over the following two decades, I became very attached to the spoken word piece. Earlier this year I finally got around to transcribing the text, hoping that one day I'd be able to include it in a project. This little dream was enabled by Trestle Records and their generous offer to organize and record a session. Finally, John's inspirational words can be heard again and influence others the way they did me, as a young man, twenty-six years ago." --Mark Wastell (December 2017) The One Day Band sessions are an ongoing series of improvisations hosted by Trestle Records. Musicians, sometimes meeting for the first time, are invited to collaborate on a record made in a single day. The idea is to create a supportive studio environment to facilitate the production of new spontaneous music. Personnel: Jennifer Allum - violin; Douglas Benford - objects; Harry Broadbent - Rhodes piano; Bertrand Denzler - tenor saxophone; Phil Durrant - modular synth; Phil Julian - electronics; Dominic Lash - double bass; Stewart Lee - narration; Graham McKeachan - double bass; Mark Wastell - tam tam, harmonium.
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LP
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CORE 002LP
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Last remaining copies RSD 2020 release. Long anticipated vinyl reissue of a concert that took place at the I-and-E Festival at Trinity College, Dublin in 2006 by Keith Rowe (legendary AMM guitarist and one of the founding fathers of European improvised music) and Mark Wastell (pivotal London based experimentalist). The duo had formed the previous year for a show at ErstQuake Festival in New York and this was to be their second, and only, other performance together. Fully remastered. Cover art by David Sylvian. White vinyl.
"Keith Rowe and Mark Wastell -- This last performance balanced the evening well. Louder, more gestural, bringing the evening to a climax in two ways -- the temporal one and also by taking the audience on a long journey to the satisfactory end of the piece -- more musically referential towards the end especially as Rowe dropped in a distinct seesawing 6/4 rhythm. Theme and statement and variations... all here but not under the figure of traditional moves. But the strategies are very much the same. They just require a shift in the mode of listening." --Rod Warner
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CD
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CORE 012CD
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An in concert, Virtual Company performance from IST (on this occasion the duo of Simon H. Fell and Mark Wastell due to the snow-bound absence of Rhodri Davies) together with pre-recorded fragments of Derek Bailey and Will Gaines. IST's Virtual Company calls on "the powers of improvisation" (D. Bailey) to interface with the two musicians of IST with dozens of musical fragments drawn from both Bailey and Gaines performing solo. These are combined with sections of silence of unforeseeable length, and then combined with each other and the live musicians, all by means of random algorithms which will ensure that each performance will be both unpredictable and unrepeatable. IST, Derek, and Will performed together regularly in the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s -- Derek curated various Company events in London, Marseille and New York which sometime featured this group exclusively and, on occasions, other musicians. The quintet concerts from Marseille in 1999 (although performed under the short-lived group name cavanoconner) were eventually released as a double-CD on Incus, Company In Marseille (Incus 44/45, 2001). To add to this crucial document, Confront Recordings released Klinker (2018), another double-CD set, recorded on a hot and steamy night in August 2000 at The Klinker in London and which featured the quartet of Bailey, Gaines, Fell, and Wastell. Recorded at Cafe OTO, Dalston, London on March 2nd, 2018; Personnel - Simon H. Fell - double bass; Mark Wastell - violoncello, percussion; Derek Bailey - (virtual) guitar; Will Gaines - (virtual) tapdance.
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CORE 013CD
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"Further on from a few phone conversations last week (graciously enabled in the first instance by the ever-generous Alan Skidmore) and the swift dispatch from Germany of the demo disc, I'm very excited to announce that Tony Oxley, one of the great forefathers of European improvised music, will be releasing a disc on Confront Recordings. I've played the demo about fifteen times in the last three days and it's absolutely incredible. Tony is 81 years old and as evidenced here, is still making exceptionally vital music. Anyone who appreciates the sound of his electro-acoustic works from the seventies and eighties will not be disappointed!" --Mark Wastell, December 13th, 2019.
Recorded in Viersen, Germany on November 25th, 2019; Recorded, mixed, and edited by Karsten Lehl. Personnel: Tony Oxley - electronics and concept; Stefan Hölker - acoustic percussion.
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CORE 011CD
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"Transversal Time was composed by Rhodri Davies in 2017. For its starting point it assigns different time systems -- Standard Time, Decimal Time, and Hex Time -- to individual musicians. As a composition it encompasses many of those sensations and perceptions of time that are embodied by music. Improvising musicians develop acute sensitivities to body clock, breath, pulses and the silent transformations of time-between-time. So, a musician's heightened, fluid time becomes enfolded in this narrative situated within the house of clocks, all of them 'telling' different times. Also buried under the surface of the piece is François Jullien's book, In Praise of Blandness (1991), an exploration of the ancient Chinese value system based on simplicity, extreme subtlety, and the paradox of sounds that deepen in the mind of the listener if they are not fully sounded, better still left silent so that they retain something secret and virtual within. 'In short,' writes Jullien, 'they remain heavy with promise.'" --David Toop
Personnel: Rhodri Davies - pedal harp, electric harp; Ryoko Akama - electronics; Sarah Hughes - zither; Sofia Jernberg - vocals; Pia Palme - contrabass recorder; Adam Parkinson - programming; Lucy Railton - cello; Pat Thomas - piano, electronics; Dafne Vicente-Sandoval - bassoon. Co-commissioned by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Chapter, and Counterflows and supported by PRS Foundation's Beyond Borders. Live performance recorded on the April 13th, 2018 at Chapter, Cardiff by Simon Reynell. Mastered by Simon Reynell.
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CD
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CORE 008CD
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Personnel for The Map Is Not The Territory: Max Eastley - arc (electro-acoustic monochord); Fergus Kelly - invented instruments, found metals, electronics; Mark Wastell - tam tam, metal percussion, piano frame. Recorded in London, March 2017.
"The music presented here is enticing and exciting, staggering and interstellar. It's like somewhere in space, waves from the infinite, suspended in a vacuum, continuous and ephemeral. The three musicians manipulate the perception of time. The more the music slows, the more time passes quickly. One is left astounded when the final vibrations gently fade. A beautiful sound experience." --Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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CORE 010CD
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Personnel: Mike Cooper - lapsteel guitar, electronics; Mark Wastell - Paiste 32" tam tam, percussion, shruti box. Recorded at Studio 3, Stoke Newington, London on October 3rd, 2018 by Rupert Clervaux. Mixed and mastered by Rupert Clervaux and Mark Wastell. Produced by Mark Wastell. CD comes in printed, double-panel ekopack cardboard sleeve.
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CORE 009CD
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Compositions and arrangements for piano by Chris Burn. Performed by Philip Thomas. Recorded University of Huddersfield, September 16th-17th, 2009.
"The music on this disc is vivid and colorful, vivacious and brilliant, but it also rewards close and attentive listening, not just for the subtleties of the harmonics which are revealed after attacks, but also for the silences, the anticipations, and the overriding attention to sonority. Chris is a musician of extraordinary range and curiosity. As well as one of the most brilliant improvising pianists working today, he is an insightful interpreter of music by, amongst others, Henry Cowell (whose music he performed superbly and recorded in 1993 for the Acta label) and John Cage, and is a fine performer on trumpet and electronics. I am so thrilled that this recording enables a further glimpse into the work of Chris Burn, composer." --Philip Thomas, February 2018
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2CD
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CORE 007CD
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"John Coltrane's music developed at such a breakneck pace during the two decades that he was active that it would be hard to single out one moment that encapsulates his legacy. This memorial gig -- held on the 50th anniversary of Trane's death, aged 40, on July 17th 1967 -- solves that problem by focusing exclusively on the last couple of years of his life, by which time he had emerged as a champion and pioneer of the free-jazz avant-garde. The opening act -- a newly-formed international trio comprising Danish flautist (and sometime saxophonist) Julie Kjær and two drummers, Mark Wastell from the UK and Ståle Liavik Solberg from Norway -- takes inspiration from the 16-minute track 'To Be', from the 1967 album Expression (released just two months after Coltrane's death), on which he and Pharoah Sanders played flutes. At that time, Coltrane was also experimenting with multiple percussionists and, here, the twin drummers set up a restless undertow of small gestures, over which Kjær extemporises melodic fragments for flute with a calm determination. For the main event, the showcase's attention gazes further back to 1965 and Coltrane's Sun Ship -- with all five of the album's tracks reinterpreted by ursine British tenor giant Paul Dunmall's Sunship Quartet featuring the explosive rhythm section of bassist Olie Brice and criminally under-recorded drummer Tony Bianco, plus second tenor-man Howard Cottle. Using Trane's brief, fanfare-like heads as springboards into high-energy group improvisation, the quartet summon an utterly convincing and powerfully transporting free-jazz blast. When veteran UK horn man -- and fellow long-time Trane acolyte -- Alan Skidmore steps in to add a third tenor to the mix, a frisson of anticipation ripples through the room: not, these days at least, so well-known for avant-garde strategies, just what would Skid contribute? The answer is a rugged lyricism that slips beautifully through the cracks of the turbulent melee, illuminating it from within. To wrap things up, every player involved in the evening crowds the already cramped stage of Café Oto for a brief mass blow-out in the style of Coltrane's epochal large-group 1965 free-jazz session Ascension. A fine, noisy, passionate finale." --Daniel Spicer, Jazzwise Recorded live at Cafe OTO, London on July 17th, 2017 by Shaun Crook.
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LP
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CORE 001LP
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RSD 2019 release. White vinyl. Additional contribution from Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixer) recorded by Steve Bates and David Sylvian, Montreal. Tubular bell and concert bass drum recorded by Matthew Sansom, Surrey University, 2006. Original text by Bernard Marie Koltès. Compositional structure by Mark Wastell. Mixed and mastered by Rupert Clervaux. Personnel: Rhodri Davies - lap harp, table harp, vibraphone, radio; David Sylvian - voice, vocal treatments, electronics; Mark Wastell - tam tam, cracked ride cymbal, chimes, Indian temple bells, singing bowls, metal chain, tubular bell, concert bass drum. Voice recorded by David Sylvian, Los Angeles, USA. Instrumental parts recorded by Rupert Clervaux at Studio 3, London.
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CD
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CORE 006CD
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Mandhira de Saram and Benoît Delbecq met in 2016 in Paris and soon discovered that they loved playing together. They recorded Spinneret a year later, over a day of quiet and meditative composing, at curious distance from the animated playing they are both usually drawn to in their own projects. With a natural flair for exploring the possibilities of their instruments, they weave together a delicate tapestry of sound and texture, which hangs as though stretched and suspended in the air. Spinneret evokes something of a folk-tale, as these two internationally acclaimed players tell of a unique sonic landscape: vast, subtle, and timeless. Mandhira de Saram - violin; Benoît Delbecq - piano.
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CORE 005CD
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Arild Andersen (double-bass, electronics), Clive Bell (Thai mouth organ, shakuhachi, pi saw, shinobue), and Mark Wastell (percussion, shruti box). This genre defying trio release their debut offering, Tales Of Hackney. Quick to capture the energy and undeniable empathy of their celebrated live performances at Cafe OTO on September 24, 2017, the troika reconvened the following day for an intense ten-hour east London studio session. The beguiling, often meditative results see Andersen deploy his usual sensitivity of touch and evocative tone, as he works in empathetic tandem with Wastell's refined percussive textures and Bell's Asian woodwind armory.
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CONFRONT 014CD
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"Breath-Taking is the result of one of Akio Suzuki's rare visits to England. Suzuki's music proceeds from meditation and transforms quotidian objects (a stone flute, small stones, a 'silent toy') into fragile means of communication. David Toop makes a very compatible sound-mate. Here he uses an assortment of flutes and whistles, along with a whistling pot and 'organic materials' (a vague enough description to allow the listener to imagine at will). Upon first listen, one may think of two serious men making childlike music, but the level of contemplation found in this single, 37-minute piece dispels this first impression. The performance is not particularly striking, even from the point of view of such a quiet form of improvisation, but it is obvious that the music doesn't intend to strike or compel. It is born out of such simplicity that it simply exists; it is there, discreetly inhabiting one's listening space, and its sole presence is a marvel. One finds an interesting level of interaction between the artists and inventive, creative sound-making at play."--François Couture, All Music Guide.
Personnel: Akio Suzuki - kikkukikiriki, stone flute, small stones, pan pipe, ireba, silent toy; David Toop - flutes, bone whistle, dog whistles, stones, whistling pot, organic materials, feedback device. Recorded in London, 2003 by Akinori Yamasaki.
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2CD
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CORE 004CD
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"In publishing the entire performance from start to finish, this release allows us to experience these much-missed artists at work with a degree of intimacy and familiarity absent from (for example) prestigious festival performances. Of course, any new addition to the Bailey discography is an exciting development, but I feel I must also mention just how well Will Gaines plays on this gig. For those who might be unsure why Derek was always so happy to play with Will, listen to how Will uses his strongly idiosyncratic technique with invention, flexibility and imperturbability in the Company context. Similarly, hearing Bailey and Gaines exchange one-liners reminds me just how strongly Derek's early career in light entertainment imprinted his ideas about musical practice and performance ethics; with his combination of show business schmaltz and improvisational acuity Will was a marvellous foil for Derek. Listen to Will, having dangerously skirted raconteur territory in his solo introduction to 'WG / MW', suddenly getting serious and creative when Mark decides to join him. But most of all, listen to the constantly re-inventing interaction between these four relaxed performers, one distant Thursday night in De Beauvoir Town. During the 1990s I played extremely regularly in clubs such as The Klinker, sometimes as often as three or four times a week; the idea of playing frequently in low-pressure situations, with an ever-changing roster of colleagues, was the very essence of improvised music for many musicians of my generation. So, enjoy this marvellous opportunity to join us in the hot, sweaty, noisy, beery atmosphere of The Klinker Club in August 2000." --Simon H. Fell, January 2018
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CORE 001CD
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Additional contribution from Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixer) recorded by Steve Bates and David Sylvian, Montreal. Tubular bell and concert bass drum recorded by Matthew Sansom, Surrey University, 2006. Original text by Bernard Marie Koltès. Compositional structure by Mark Wastell. Mixed and mastered by Rupert Clervaux. Personnel: Rhodri Davies -- lap harp, table harp, vibraphone, radio; David Sylvian -- voice, vocal treatments, electronics; Mark Wastell -- tam tam, cracked ride cymbal, chimes, Indian temple bells, singing bowls, metal chain, tubular bell, concert bass drum. Voice recorded by David Sylvian, Los Angeles, USA. Instrumental parts recorded by Rupert Clervaux at Studio 3, London.
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CORE 003CD
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Electronics whizz, studio producer and Punkt co-director Jan Bang teams-up with vocalist Sidsel Endresen on Hum, an album released as part of Confront Recordings' Core Series. Recorded live in Oslo in 2016, Hum focuses on atomized gestures quarried from mutant combinations of voice and corrupted circuitry. Personnel: Sidsel Endresen - voice; Jan Bang - sampler, Dictaphone. Composed by Sidsel Endresen and Jan Bang. Copyright control (TONO). Recorded by Asle Karstad at Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene, Oslo. Mixed and produced by Jan Bang at Punkt Studio, Kristiansand.
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