Browse by Artist: BUTCHER/PHIL DURRANT, JOHN

Artist:	BUTCHER/PHIL DURRANT, JOHN
Title:	Requests and Antisongs
Label:	ERSTWHILE
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	ERST 007CD

"John Butcher and Phil Durrant have both been prominent members of the English improv scene since the mid-eighties, releasing everything from solo records to being members in all-star orchestras. In 1984, they formed a trio with John Russell, with Durrant on violin, a band which is in its 17th year together. In 1997, the two began their electromanipulation project, in which Durrant transforms Butcher's sounds electronically in real time, interacting with Butcher's live playing. The music has three potential strands; the amplified saxophone and two electronic processing chains -- individual controlled by Durrant -- which are triggered and/or derived from the saxophone's signal. No sampling is used. The electronics transform external sounds in real time, with MIDI faders enabling fast parameter manipulation. Numerous techniques are utilized to avoid the deadening blanket of digital delay, and many treatments employ feedback loops between effects modules, which 'generate' their own material. Feedback delay can be split for separate treatments, and, varying the delay time and gating the delay gives the impression of a 'frozen' sound without recourse to sampling. Other processes, such as self-oscillating filters, have inherent sounds that are transformed by the pitch and velocity of the incoming saxophone signal. Some treatments are virtually instantaneous, some evolve over many seconds, others have a life of their own. Throughout this, the characteristics of how the treatments react together depend on the current saxophone input, creating, for both musicians, the challenge of trying to make expressive use of a system that neither individual fully controls. The musicians' experiences as composers and improvisers are both vital for the duo. In many ways, Butcher has to approach the situation far more spontaneously than in his acoustic work, because Durrant is continually realigning the language of his saxophone, moment by moment. Equally Durrant's use of live electronics is usually with his own violin, where he can work to his own ideas and rhythm. In the duo he has to anticipate Butcher's placements and choices of material -- a process he finds leads to far more risk taking."

Artist:	BUTCHER/PHIL DURRANT, JOHN
Title:	Secret Measures
Label:	WOBBLY RAIL
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	WOB 006CD

"London-based saxophonist John Butcher has been active in the improv/new music scene since the early 1980's, performing and recording with Derek Bailey, Butch Morris, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins and others. On Secret Measures, the duo utilize three separate streams of sound: Butcher's live amplified saxophone and two separate treatment chains controlled by Durrant, to create an evolving, dynamic flow of sound and noise. Durrant fights the predictability of so much digital electronics -- in particular the deadening blanket of regular digital delay; he uses modulation to create random changes in the pitch and rhythm of the repeated sounds, and often 'scrambles' the sounds to make them unrecognizable as the original trigger played by Butcher. This also means that traditional reed techniques of multiphonics and overblowing can not be relied upon, as some of the most violent, dense sections of this music might arise when the saxophone is actually being played quite cleanly and simply. The result is an improvised music, which far from being some monstrous man-meets-machine music, finds both musicians equally explorative. Butcher, always one to explore the outer reaches of the saxophone rather than rely on the weight of its jazz history, finds himself pushing even further out as Durrant transforms delicate melodic flurries into landslides of thudding percussion or a stentorian roar is whisked into a telephone bleep." -- Richard Sanderson

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