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Hugh Davies, Adam Bohman, Lee Patterson, Wark Wastell
For Hugh Davies
Hugh Davies, Adam Bohman, Lee Patterson, Wark Wastell
Featuring: Adam Bohman Hugh Davies Lee Patterson Mark Wastell
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Hugh Davies - invented instruments - playback of solo recordings
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Adam Bohman - prepared balalaika & amplified objects
Lee Patterson - amplified objects
Mark Wastell - cello
1. 2 springs + 3 7:56
2. 3 springs + 3 14:38
3. invented instruments + 2 (HD + AB & LP) 10:53
4. bowed diaphragms + 1 (HD + MW) 6:52
5. bowed diaphragms + 3 8:15
6. for hugh davies (AB/LP/MW) 12:48

Sleevenotes
‘for hugh davies’ pays homage to and celebrates the remarkable music of Hugh Davies. It was recorded almost three years to the day after his death in January 2005, and was released in July 2008. Hugh Davies was one of that outstanding first generation of European improvisers who emerged in the mid-1960's. He played in the Music Improvisation Company (along with Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and Jamie Muir), and was a founder-member of the legendary ensemble Gentle Fire, a group who – years ahead of their time – used live electronics and improvisational elements to interpret radical scores by composers such as John Cage and Christian Wolff.
From 1964-66 Hugh worked as an assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen, during the latter’s most radical and fruitful period as a composer. Hugh assisted on the production of Mikrophonie I, a stunning work based on the amplification of sounds produced on a large tam-tam as it is brushed, struck or stroked by a variety of different objects and materials. In a sense Hugh's music over the next 40 years was a deepening exploration of the soundworld opened up by Mikrophonie I, again usually using metal objects as a sound source, though far smaller ones than Stockhausen's giant tam-tam. Employing what he described as a “do-it-yourself approach to music”, Hugh built instruments from everyday objects such as springs, egg-slicers and fretsaw blades. These were rubbed, scratched, beaten or blown, and the resulting small sounds were amplified. Although thought of as a pioneer of the use of live electronics in improvisation, the only 'electronics' involved in the vast majority of his instruments was amplification.
for hugh davies uses a number of previously unpublished solo improvisations by Hugh dating from the 1970's. At the recording session these improvisations were played back to three musicians who have been deeply influenced by his work: Mark Wastell, Adam Bohman and Lee Patterson. The musicians improvised alongside Hugh's recordings, producing an unusual improvisational situation in which one of the voices was fixed and unable to respond to the playing of the others. The musicians had been given copies of Hugh's pieces three months in advance of the session, but in fact none of them chose to listen to them more than three times, as they wanted to leave plenty of room for spontaneity.
In the recording Mark Wastell plays cello – the instrument with which he emerged as an improviser in the 1990's, but which he has since largely abandoned. He chose to play it here because it was the instrument he'd used on the dozen occasions that he performed with Hugh. Adam Bohman and Lee Patterson worked from tables full of amplified objects similar to those that Hugh employed in his self-built instruments. Both acknowledge Hugh as a major influence, though Adam only played with him on a handful of occasions. Lee never played with Hugh, and the one time they 'met' at a conference, Lee was too awestruck to actually speak to him.
Ten pieces were recorded of which six have been selected, including two very different responses to Hugh’s ‘Music for Bowed Diaphragms’. On the final track the musicians improvise unaccompanied by Hugh's recordings as a joint homage to his memory.
The original recordings of Hugh's music around which the improvisers played are being issued on an ‘another timbre’ cdr: Hugh Davies - Performances 1969 - 1977

Reviews
“Totally fantastic. With Hugh Davies' voice as one part in four (or three or two on two tracks), his ratchetiness is subsumed within a lovely blanket of work from Adam Bohman (prepared balalaika/amplified objects), Lee Patterson (amplified objects) and Mark Wastell (unpacking his cello for the occasion). Each piece is something of a gem, including the final one, which is sans Davies, though dedicated to him. Beautiful recording. “ Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
“When Hugh Davies died in January 2005, the many heartfelt tributes that appeared provided a reminder as to just how influential a musician he was. Davies worked as an assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen during the mid ’60s, helping to produce works like “Mikrophonie I” which amplified the sounds of a large tam-tam as it was struck and brushed by a variety of objects. Expanding on that strategy, Davies made a career of developing a variety of amplified home-made instruments assembled from springs, saw blades, egg slicers, and other household detritus. As part of the first generation of British free improvisers, he was a member of the original incarnation of the Music Improvisation Company and continued to collaborate with Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and like-minded instrument makers like Max Eastley and David Toop while also pursuing performances of contemporary composition.
While his music sounds electronic, in reality it is the result of the hyper-amplification of tiny gestures: the close inspection of timbres and textures. For Hugh Davies is an homage recorded by Adam Bohman, Lee Patterson, and Mark Wastell. Each has been heavily influenced by his work— Bohman and Patterson with their use of contact-miked homemade instruments, and Wastell in his approach to the use of amplification of his cello as sound-source, and more recently, his own work with amplified tam-tam. For this session, the three formed a virtual quartet, improvising alongside recordings which Davies made in the ’70s. The three build on the nuanced spaces of Davies’ pieces, extending them through their expanded timbral spectrum. Wastell makes a rare return to cello. Bohman uses a prepared balalaika and joins Patterson at an arsenal of amplified objects. Davies’ recordings centre around a set of sound sources and dive in to explore their diminutive details, whether amplified springs, bowed diaphragms, or egg slicers. The trio adds gestural layers, picking up on the scrapes and scoured resonances. But there is never a sense of preciousness or hesitancy. After all, Davies was as apt to crash in and disrupt improvisational proceedings as he was to play with delicacy.
Wastell sits out one piece where Bohman and Patterson take a playful tack, accentuating a jagged sonic calligraphy. Wastell “duets” with Davies on one take of “Bowed Diaphragms”, and the tensile energy of his flayed amplified cello builds a bracing arc. The trio stretches out the abraded palette across a wider spectrum in another version of the piece. The session closes out with a trio, minus Davies’ source tapes, making clear the musical debt that these three owe.”
Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise
“In keeping with its adventurous approach, Another Timbre has put out two complementary releases, one a CD, the other a CD-R. Taken together, they make a fine tribute to Hugh Davies, the musician, composer, researcher, electronic pioneer and instrument inventor who died at the start of 2005, aged 61. The limited edition CD-R Hugh Davies - Performances 1969 - 1977 serves two useful purposes. Firstly, it brings six unissued vintage Davies performances into circulation--five solos plus a duet with Richard Orton. As with anything in Davies' (woefully small) discography, the pieces are endlessly intriguing. His ability to conjure a dazzling array of sounds from the most unpromising of sources is simply stunning....
Secondly, the CD-R allows us to hear in isolation the source materials that were used as the stimuli for Bohman, Patterson and Wastell on this CD proper. The music from the CD-R was played to them, they improvised around it, and the resulting music forms the CD. In their different ways, Bohman, Patterson and Wastell all owe a huge debt to Davies; their music would be vastly different without his pioneering work, hence their participation in this tribute. The most striking thing about this CD is that Davies' own playing remains central to the music. The other three players work out from his performance and expand the soundscape, but the agenda is clearly set by Davies own playing. The end result is more akin to a remix of a solo album than to a quartet performance. Only on the closing track, "For Hugh Davies," on which the three improvise without Davies' music as a stimulus, do they come out of his shadow, producing a taut, focused piece. It is indicative of how ahead of his time Davies was that the new piece sounds no more contemporary than anything that precedes it.
As an experimental way of paying tribute to a musician, this must be judged a great success. Doubtless, Davies himself would have heartily approved of the experiment. The results are extraordinary. It is a great CD. It is meaningless to compare these two releases trying to decide which is "better". Both are essential. They complement one another, each throwing light on the other, making the whole greater than the sum of the two.”
John Eyles, All About Jazz
