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CD
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TROST 242CD
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Conducted work by Mats Gustafsson for two identical nine-piece chamber ensembles, four soloists, tape machine, turntable, and conductor. Soloists featured: Anders Nyqvist (trumpets, slide and piccolo); Colin Stetson (amplified bass saxophone); Hedvig Mollestad (guitar); Per-Åke Holmlander (tuba); Jerome Noetinger (revox tape machines); Dieb13 (turntables); Mats Gustafsson (conductor). Recorded at the Avant Art festival, Warsaw, Poland, 2022. Mixed by Mikael Werliin and Mats Gustafsson, spring 2023.
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CVSD 087CD
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Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson might have a separate discography for his solo records. He's investigated the possibilities of unaccompanied reed music from almost every angle. Presented with the opportunity to make a new solo record under the isolation of the pandemic, Gustafsson returned to a project he'd conceptualized but never realized: the playing-card pieces of Peter Brötzmann. Although these Fluxus-like prompts are better known through the two card sets the German saxophonist created in the 1990s, which resulted in two CDs with his Chicago Tentet, Images and Signs (both released on Okka Disk in 2004), Brötzmann had in fact been using cards since the 1970s. Recording in his home studio in Nickelsdorf, Austria, Gustafsson used two of these sets of compositional prompts, one designed for the ICP Tentet and another intended as a spur for Brötzmann's own solo work. The instrumentation on Naja includes the entire saxophone family from sopranino to bass, as well as a piece for mouthpieces; this is also a rare opportunity to hear Gustafsson play more than one horn at the same time, a Roland Kirk move that he'd long ago sworn off but was prompted to do by the cards. In addition to nine pieces using the cards, Gustafsson played one non-card composition from Brötzmann's solo FMP LP 14, Love Poems. Stunningly mixed and mastered by Martin Siewert, with liner notes by Gustafsson, photos of the card boxes and the first photograph of Gustafsson and Brötzmann. Cover art, as on all Black Cross Solo Sessions CDs, by Christopher Wool.
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CD
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CVSD 012CD
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2014 release. One of the most celebrated folks in improvised music, Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson made three ultra-limited edition vinyl LPs, each featuring a different dedication to a favorite musician from the past. Released in batches of 99, these records found Gustafsson playing compositions by Duke Ellington, Albert (and his brother Donald) Ayler, and the important post-bop baritone player Lars Gullin. Long out-of-print, these priceless slabs of free music have quickly become sought after collector's items. Torturing The Saxophone compiles all three LPs, plus some extra material, featuring Gustafsson at both his most experimental and his most lyrical. He purrs his way through Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood", then demolishes "Come Sunday". He draws out Gullin's "Danny's Dream", rendering it truly dreamlike, perhaps nightmarish. Gustafsson shared the LPs with his new friend R. Crumb, the famous comics artist and shellac enthusiast. Crumb's stunned response provides liner notes for the CD ("... I was kind of shocked at what a negative, unpleasant experience it was... "), and the perfect title. Only one way to hear what rubbed Crumb so hard the wrong way -- listen in to hear what pain and possible injury Mats Gustafsson inflicts upon his horns.
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LP
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XRAY 004LP
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Clear 180-gram LP in screenprinted sleeve. Limited edition of 500. The two side-long pieces on Mats Gustafsson's Piano Mating sound like two holes puncturing the fabric of reality; holes that disobey laws of time and space; black holes, even. The pieces are pure, simple-sounding, slowly ascending drones that feel convincingly like conveyor belts for the soul. X-Ray Records asked Gustafsson to compose an album using an instrument with which he'd never recorded before. He responded with one of the most bizarre instruments ever, the Dubreq PianoMate. It's a synthesizer from the 1970s designed to be operated in conjunction with a piano, but Gustafsson here manipulates the machine on its own to wring out strange, expressive sonic prayers. "Microtonal electronic maracas is perhaps an apt description," says Gustafsson. "It is just a totally different beast compared to anything else I ever played. The PianoMate does whatever it wants really. But I can control pitch and volume and detune it while playing. The microtonal clusters that it offers are highly inspirational to work with and really something that is quite hard to achieve on the saxophones. And I just love the sound of it. That color really kicks my mind and ass." Compositionally, Gustafsson let the unique restrictions and limited tonal palette of the PianoMate guide him rather than attempting to bend the unwieldy instrument to his will. "Making this music was a lot about creating a specific state of mind. Letting the music take over," he explains. "Letting the sounds create the music. Slow. Listening for it and going for it. Never pushing it. Hard to describe, actually. And of course, part of the mystery of it all." Although he admits he rarely listens back to his recordings once he's finished with them, Gustafsson says that Piano Mating has brought something new and indefinable to his iconoclastic music. "I really hear very different things every time I listen back to these recordings. I found them still very surprising and, funnily enough, very inspirational to me. In my sax playing, I get a lot of inspiration from listening to the PianoMate. I love my PianoMate! -- there should be one in every household!!!"
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