The recently launched Besom Presse imprint (out of Los Angeles) gifts us with a vinyl album by bagpipe master David Watson and celebrated percussionist Tony Buck, of The Necks renown. Two long-ish tracks, not totally improvised and definitely multi-tracked in certain sections, at once slightly dissimilar and absolutely cohesive.
“Beating” starts with Watson laying out extended tones all alone, progressively stockpiling a considerable amount of quavering striations directly pointing at the nape of the neck in a classic case of “therapeutic droning” setting. Later on Buck enters the scene, softly at first then providing irregularly cyclical/mildly obsessive poly-patterns, ultimately superimposing his own brand of shamanism to push the temperature towards the scale’s highest. In “Exhale”, Buck’s rolling nimbleness informs the music from the early stages as Watson produces a veritable spate of pitches. Some of the latter depart from the buzzing organism to hover over the brain in the shape of harsh – but still hypnotic – melodic cells. Around the 12th minute, Buck remains solitary for a while with natural-sounding, bicycle wheel-like figurations soon rejoined by his comrade’s blazing spurts. The interlacing of reiterative pulse, edgy lines and scathing partials glues the ears to the headphones; however, should you elect to play the material loud in an apartment, a good chance exists that the neighbours won’t be happy.
A reminder for the forgetful: the basis of subconscious knowledge is frequently born from the ripples of an apparent stasis. And when that stasis is eventually broken, the process of apprehension becomes even more interesting.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 