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LP
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WEAVIL 055LP
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2022 restock; The trio of Alan Wilkinson, John Edwards, and Steve Noble continue to plot their course ever outward and ever upward. These new songs, recorded in South London at that wonderful performance space -- at the heart of the improve scene here at this moment -- Iklectik, are the very beating heart of improvised music. It's not that they are good, or even representative -- such relative terms fail to express the continuum of which these sounds are a key part. This is music that evades the strictures of scientific measurement or critical theory. It just is. Wilkinson is a master of the tribal, balls-out approach to sax playing. He lets it all hang out. But there is great subtlety in what he does with his horn, in the range of inflection, the space between the phrases, the singing tone. At times he sounds like a tight knit sax section in a swinging big band all on his own. There is definitely jazz in there. Edwards and Noble form the rhythmic base for much that is good and beautiful in the improv scene today. Years of playing together and individual brilliance mean they mesh like the gears of a micro-tuned machine. Together the trio make music. And that is all that needs saying. Personnel: Alan Wilkinson - alto, baritone saxophones, bass clarinet; John Edwards - double bass; Steve Noble - drums.
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CD
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WEAVIL 033CD
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Bo' Weavil Recordings presents a live recording of UK free jazz trio Alan Wilkinson (baritone/alto sax, voice), John Edwards (bass), and Steve Noble (drums/percussion). Let's face it, the recording, the thing (CD, vinyl, iPod), is a convenient form of storing and a flawed attempt at revisiting the ecstasy of the live experience. Live music is at the heart of civilization and culture. Live music is real music -- the recording is simply the run-out groove of time, a means to try and capture the experience. This trio is defined by live performance. The relationship between them, fused into an innate musical understanding through constant exposure to one another in the fiery amphitheater of improvisation, driven by their individuality, bursts into fissive conflagration in live performance. Resourcefully, remorselessly, inventive; muscular and graceful as the needs be -- as the moment requires -- they are live, alive, life. You can't possibly experience this group in all their live magnificence on this wonderful recording, made at Cafe Oto in London's Dalston in the summer of 2008. But what you do have is a document, an authentification if you like, of these three consummate musicians live. This is what it's like; all you have to do is close your eyes, spin the volume dial clockwise, conjure up what you would imagine to be Cafe Oto in your mind's eye and revisit the ecstasy of the live experience.
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WEAVIL 023CD
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Originally released in 2007, Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old-fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive, places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Ayler, Sanders, Graves, and Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances. Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking back/up to the 1960s. Wilkinson/Edwards/Noble are producing new, vital music of and for now. John Edwards pins down the trio with precision and energy -- his tremendous internal rhythm on display to full effect throughout. Alan Wilkinson is a ferocious improviser, probably best known for membership in the demon Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio. Obliquity features full-spectrum Wilkinson: flat-out, take-no-prisoners saxophonication, squeals, coughs, sustained improvisational experimentation, and East London tribal chanting. Steve Noble is an upright drummer with a surgeon's accuracy, his crisp percussion work has accompanied dancers, funksters, poets and tuba players. But he's not played better than here: great power allied with grace, a subtle touch and solid time -- the drumming drives the music on to real heights.
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WEAVIL 023LP
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Limited 2022 restock; LP version.Originally released in 2007, Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old-fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive, places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Ayler, Sanders, Graves, and Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances. Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking back/up to the 1960s. Wilkinson/Edwards/Noble are producing new, vital music of and for now. John Edwards pins down the trio with precision and energy -- his tremendous internal rhythm on display to full effect throughout. Alan Wilkinson is a ferocious improviser, probably best known for membership in the demon Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio. Obliquity features full-spectrum Wilkinson: flat-out, take-no-prisoners saxophonication, squeals, coughs, sustained improvisational experimentation, and East London tribal chanting. Steve Noble is an upright drummer with a surgeon's accuracy, his crisp percussion work has accompanied dancers, funksters, poets and tuba players. But he's not played better than here: great power allied with grace, a subtle touch and solid time -- the drumming drives the music on to real heights.
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