WIRE - Julian Cowley

somethingtobesaid

Somethingtobesaid was created by saxophonist John Butcher for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2008, an hour-long composition realised by musicians who mostly follow his instructions and at times are invited to improvise. Shortly before he joined the multinational octet for this performance, Californian percussionist Gino Robair told me how he felt strong affinity with Butcher's taste for generating electronic timbres and textures with purely acoustic means. Much of the musical action here takes place around that interface.

The group features Thomas Lehn's analogue synth wizardry, Robair's 'energised sufraces' and turntable input from dieb13, along with Butcher's saxophones, Chris Burn's piano and the sinewy springy double bass combination of John Edwards and Adam Linson. Some of the composer's directions took their bearings from sound now audible in the performance - ghostly vocal snippets retrieved from a disused answering machine; the frictional hum of multitracked wine glasses. Occasionally chains of acoustic events tumble together, swirl and disperse in ways that suggest the dynamics of studio-produced electronic music - there's a very good example about five minutes in from the start. But Butcher is guiding the instrumental cross-currents too, regulating combinations within the group, keeping the music shapely, cohesive and uncluttered without sacrificing vitality.

Wired and unplugged sound sources find common ground, but it's not a matter of mimicry or camouflage. Rather it's a means of focussing and concentrating the flow of energy from technique, and the outcome is singular and often strangely beautiful music. Substantial too - like the loaf of bread in Philip Butcher's splendid painting on the cover. Something said; something really worth saying.

SIGNAL TO NOISE - Bill Meyer

somethingtobesaid

A quarter century after the release of his first album Fonetiks, English tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher is at the top of his game. Recent duos with Christoph Kurzmann and Eddie Prévost have demonstrated the flexibility and attunement to his partners that make him a top-flight improviser, while the solo albums Resonant Spaces and The Geometry of Sentiment exemplify his immaculate control over his horns, the clarity of his ideas, and the astuteness of his response to various environments.
With somethingtobesaid he asserts his command of two more roles not usually associated with his name, composer and bandleader. Although he brings a strong presence to any ensemble, unseemly displays of dominance are anathema to Butchers aesthetic. In both ad hoc and established groups he has worked as a collaborator, and has only brought in prepared ideas when, as in Polwechsel, the group invites that sort of contribution from its members. But here he is leading a group with his name on it, which he assembled to perform a piece commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Given Butcher's commitment to collective improvisation, he approached the project with concern; could his direction provide an outcome that was worth the erosion of the individual members' freedom of expression? The recorded results say yes. For a start, the album's single continuous piece unfolds in gripping fashion, transitioning from one remarkable array of sounds and textures to the next in ways that can't be predicted, but sound quite right after you've heard them.
The strong personalities within the group (which includes Chris Burn, piano; Clare Cooper, harp and ghuzeng; dieb13, turntables; John Edwards, bass; Thomas Lehn, synthesizer; Adam Linson, double bass and electronics; Gino Robair, percussion and energized surfaces) make their presence known, sometimes by moving to the foreground and at other times by interjecting a small but telling comment.

Butcher's prepared material includes notated passages, explicit instructions, and recordings of answering machine voices and wine glasses; none distracts from the music's inexorable progress.
The pre-recorded elements complement dieb13's varispeed vinyl manipulations to both humanize and extend the fabric of the sound, while the play between the unusual and the conventional - especially from old mates Burn and Butcher - enhances the impression that anything could happen, but only the right things will.