“Recorded live at the June 2006 Jazz à Poitiers festival this little gem features
the work of two truly extraordinary musicians, both of whom are giants from a technical
and creative point of view: Phil Minrton and Sophie Agnel, an unusual and very welcome
pairing in that ceaselessly changing world which is the improv scene. The former
is well-known, and has the weight of many years’ experience on his shoulders, but
refuses to give up and continues indomitably to explore the outer possibilities of
the human voice. He is now plumbing its most hidden depths, often gratingly, but
perhaps necessarily so, regressing to the most basic instincts from which he can
ultimately progress and evolve. Sophie Agnel is no less powerful, one of the most
interesting and original voices on today’s scene, though largely still undiscovered,
given that her discography is small (for myself, I remember a noteworthy cd on Potlatch
with Lionel Marchetti and Jerome Noetinger). Her approach to the piano is really
surprising, a mysterious and fascinating mixture of inside and outside piano. Resonances,
mictrotones, noises, dizzying cadences, squeaking strings, little hammerings and
other sounds which I can’t find the words to describe; all very measured,
melancholic yet incisive, like markings traced on the living flesh of the spirit.
Listening to the first track on the cd, which is a kind of dance
on the edge of a razor-blade, it’s hard to know what the sounds are. The vocalist
creates a whole dictionary of breaths and stammerings, and it’s difficult to believe
that the instrumental sounds are being produced solely by a pianist. Though it’s
not immediately obvious how they are being played, the strings of the piano are
resonated (I imagine) by a small bow, while at the same time on top of this chords
are produced, sometimes intense, sometimes steeped with nervousness, so that you’re
left puzzled as to how all these sounds can be produced with only two hands. Agnel
is certainly a musician whom I would like to see live so that I can see with my own
eyes just how she produces these sounds. It’s fantastic, and I wouldn’t want it
any different. In a way that logically seems impossible, and which few others could
certainly achieve, Minton’s singing blends easily into this dialogue with a pianist
who seamlessly combines harshness and fragility. Sobbing, writhing, purring, blethering,
always in his own particular style, though here he seems more introspective than
elsewhere. Those who have heard him often may know what to expect, but the combined
effect of the two musicians is really powerful.
One thing that helps the disc succeed is the unexpected variety
of the music, in which every track seems self-contained and sufficiently different
from the others, unlike on many cd’s where the division into tracks seems merely
for convenience. Thus, for example, the opening track is followed by something
completely different, a piece built from refuges and pauses, in which the piano
strings squeak and resonate luminously, while Minton, Janus-faced, is part avant-garde
lyricist and part meditating monk. While the third track, different again, combines
the mewing lamentations of Minton’s voice with Agnel’s emotive, dampened hammered
chords. Like a drama of the absurd, lacerating, torturing and moving.” -
Alfio Castorina - Kathodik webzine
“Subtle and fragile aren’t adjectives you’d usually use to describe the taproom brawl
of grunts, gurgles and growls that usually makes up a Phil Minton performance, but
these six untitled tracks are certainly that. The precision and delicacy of Sophie
Agnel’s prepared piano work make for a fine contrast with the energetic bravura of
Minton’s longstanding sparring partner on the 88 tuned drums, Veryan Weston. It’s
often hard to believe that such a wide range of sonorities could come from just one
instrument, let alone be produced by one pair of hands in real time. The woefully
under-recorded Agnel is at her most impressive in the third track, whose intricate
shimmering polyphony of bowed, plucked, strummed and struck timbres is as complex
as it is haunting. British performer Minton is such a distinctive voice in improvised
music that he tends to shine out in whatever ensemble he performs in, but here he’s
often content to hum and flutter discreetly behind Agnel’s glistening curtain of
harmonics. For the first six minutes he contributes little more than tiny gasps
and whimpers, finally producing recognisable notes only at the beginning of track
two, many the result of his trademark wheeze that allows him to produce - and, amazingly,
control - two pitches simultaneously. At high volume this can sound as dangerous
as a wounded lion, but here it’s as forlorn as a kitten trapped in a cupboard.” -
Dan Warburton, The Wire
“It’s not a given that the pairing of a voice and a piano will provide interesting
results, but “Tasting” is definitely on another level. I’m firmly convinced that
this is one of the best piano/vocals duos that I’ve ever heard. While Phil Minton’s
poetry of the unexpected gratifies via large quantities of systematically fulfilled
expectations - featuring monstrous technical expertise, irony and drama a go-go,
providential multiphonic nefariousness and hair-splitting precision - it must be
told that Agnel is the true revelation here. The pianist is gifted with a unique
style that fuses the inside and the outside of the instrument into a provocative
communion of fermentable sketches, mixing abrasive rubbing and soft hammering and
plucking of the strings with Minton’s overtone singing in masterful fashion, respecting
the dynamic palette with few touches and scarce chords, building cathedrals of
emotional intensity and harmonic suspension with effortless ingeniousness. The
six tracks are examples of a creativity that can be fresh-sounding and cinematic
at one and the same time, sort of a documentary about the secret life of an uncommon
kind of creature inhabiting the obscure sections of this vocal- /instrumental microcosm.
No assertion can really express the wealth of minute details and the stunning reciprocal
reactivity that identifies this splendid record.”
-
Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
”Tasting features the breathing, gasping and panting of Caliban himself, Phil Minton,
the voice of the disallowed, the untamed. Alongside Sophie Agnel scrapes at the
strings of her piano, knocking them straight as if they were crooked nails. In
the opening minutes she barely touches the keys, everything comes from the belly
of the instrument, the keyboard giving out only the dull thud of a blocked wire.
The 42-year-old Parisian seems to be employing a special electronic delay, otherwise
I cannot explain many of the effects she produces. Then she herself begins to buzz
as though she is trying to calm Minton down. But he is still splashing like a child
in the rain, sounds which Agnel mimics with a distant roll of thunder. Minton makes
himself small, a squashed stammering being on the threshold of articulacy, a wolf-child
who imitates the noises of the world and thereby creates a primordial counterpoint.
Agnel is ‘Nature’, ‘Mother’, Setebos [the god worshiped by Caliban’s mother], who
is drawn to the echoing sounds of a singer who doesn’t seem to know himself whether
he is the wind, a child or a cuttlefish. A more strange, delicate and astonishing
music can hardly have been made.”
- Rigobert Dittmann – Bad Alchemy [NB Sophie Agnel uses no electronic
manipulation of the piano]
“In Tasting Sophie Agnel and Phil Minton invite us to join a subtle pursuit; to taste,
to touch, to palpate and to grasp. At first with the greatest delicacy and then
with a stylish confidence, Agnel and Minton draw from piano and voice ephemeral
flickering highlights which illuminate this nocturnal music. The listener is drawn
on and absorbed into a music which is both serene and teeming with activity.....
It is a joy to hear the soft murmurs and poetic touches of a music which seeks out
other themes, explores living dreams and attempts new ascents.”
-
Guillaume Tarche, Improjazz
“Six unique improvisations for piano and voice, played by Sophie Agnel and the amazing
voice artist Phil Minton. Minton grunts, gasps, screams, whispers and growls, and
is perfectly complemented by Agnel's precise and delicate attack on the piano. These
two exciting artists take us through complex and twisted improvisations with impressive
results. I always have a sense of excitement when I put on a new Phil Minton CD.
He is truly one of today’s greatest improvisers, and this CD is a fascinating release,
which catches you completely, with its perfect mix of the raw and beautiful.” -
Henrik Kaldahl, Jazznet Denmark
“Agnel operates mainly inside the piano, where she put objects such as plastic cups,
billiard balls and pieces of inner tube. The results are high-pitched, crystalline
tones or deep rumbles, while Minton wails, groans and babbles. The beginning of the
album is particularly impressive, with Minton murmuring in an animal way. This disc
is well worth listening to, and is the product of two improvisers who clearly understand
each other well. “
-
Piotr Tkacz - nowamuzyka75
“The unearthly wailing of the piano of Sophie Agnel and the percussive blurting of
Phil Minton (or is it the other way around?) combine to create a mysterious soundscape
unheard anywhere else. Agnel has taken the prepared piano to the limit, in fact it
seldom is recognizable as that box in your parlour. Minton has long plumbed the
depths of the larynx, no surprise there, but seems extra stimulated by the freakish
sounds emanating from the 88 tortured souls under Agnel's control." -
Brian Ritchie, Salamanca Arts
“Phil Minton’s explorations of vocalized abjection are some of the most hilarious
and disturbing sounds in contemporary music. His contorted, speaking-in-tongues
demeanour at live performances only adds to the sense of someone channeling his inner
goblins. Sophie Agnel works directly with the piano’s innards to create precisely
delineated sound-tableaus. Tasting covers an extraordinarily wide emotional and
textural range despite the generally sotto voce nature of the music. The opening
track, for instance, is virtually a Mintonian etude on whispers and gasps (there’s
not a sung note on the whole track), and Agnel supports him with string-sounds that
split the difference between hurdy gurdy and a pot scoured with steel wool. Some
of the quietest moments are the most intense: there’s one thrilling passage where
Minton lays out and Agnel’s contribution narrows down to a juddering, toneless throb;
on another track Minton somehow uncorks a grandly melismatic Middle Eastern lament
without raising his voice. Agnel’s discography is still small, but this album suggests
a player who should be more
widely known: she has an uncanny knack for making sounds shine out from the piano
while still suggesting all the treacherous acoustic depths hidden away inside the
instrument.” - Nate Dorward - Coda
