Evan Parker: world-renowned sax extraordinaire, philanthropist and...agent?
This collaboration is the result of Parker's suggestion to bassist Adam Linson and Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble member/sonic manipulator Lawrence Casserly that the two men should "have a free ranging dialogue". The duo began a double-threaded email conversation (Thread A is about the idea of working together, Thread B details reasons behind the album's theme), and like Gregor Mendel, mixed their distinct strains to produce Integument, defined as "plant sheath" or "a natural outer covering or coat".
For the first half of the 48 hours of the album's creation, Linson and Casserly spent their efforts on straight performance then picked at these recordings with tweezers the next day. Despite the duo's previous limited contact, their fusion is transparent: Casserly's processing picks up where Linson leaves off — and vice versa. As the introductory bass pedal of "Stratum Spongiosum" soars, dips and picks up harmonics, metallic ethereal tones hitchhike and eventually hijack the acoustic sound, pulling it higher and higher before abandoning it in a stark atmosphere of nervous arco twitches. Linson's penchant for playing as crooked and style-free as possible on "Squamous Epithelium" is met with a bent, shadowy mulch of echoes and flabby, nondescript washes. On "Wandering Leukocytes", Casserly weaves synthetic throat-singing, enveloping Linson's lyrical psalm in a gooey web he abruptly shreds with his own non-affected baritone "ahhh". Bouncing bows, fingernails on strings and the amplification of these elements gives the first half of "Basement Membrane" a very enticing, almost Black Angels aesthetic; ultimately, the thumping increases, pedals are set on "feedback!" and the piece explodes in a subterranean tide of reverberation. The closer, "Chromatophores", is a kitchen sink of tricks from the previous tracks. After a violent seven-minute downpour of both men's brutality and flexing, Linson emerges from the sludge with a fey-yet-hyperactive burst of multiphonics. With these kernels, he builds a second furious assault. Casserly joins in with a chest-splitting wall of fractal-like sound and Linson moves to heavily delayed slaps and smacks before the duo detonates the piece, ending it with a sparkling drizzle and barely perceivable vibrations.
As mentioned, the musical marriage here is unshakable, like a tenured couple that finishes each other's sentences. At times, however, the works could benefit from a little independence of their parts (i.e. a few more isolated bass notes, secluded electronics that grow autonomous from the acoustics, an abandon of the unifying "call/echo, answer/echo" perpetual motion that dominates the disc). Nit-picking aside, Integument is a fascinating, haunting amalgam pieced together in the time it takes for many to assemble their gear.
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Dave Madden 2009-06-09
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