etau |cs064

The first duo is Benjamin Duboc (double bass) and Edward Perraud (drums, percussion). They improvise their way through two lengthy pieces, playing around with the notion of silence and presence of sound. They let their sounds explode and then sustain for a while before dying out and a new explosion comes. Both players seem to prefer the lower end of the spectrum, the bass drum and the double bass suggest that, even when there is occasional high end scraping on cymbals and snares. There is definitely a spooky atmosphere in this recordings, which is quite intense. Their playing is more regular improvised […] Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly)

Choc zdarza sie napotkac plyty zarejestrowane w obsadzie zlozonej wylacznie z kontrabasu i perkusji, to nie rodza sie one na kamieniu i czesto traktowane sa jako ewenement, i zdarza sie, ze budza zainteresowanie tylko z powodu swej nieczestosci. Jednak spojrzenie na "ETAU" wylacznie przez pryzmat uzycia niecodziennego instrumentarium byloby dla tej plyty krzywdzace. Abstrahujac od uzytego przez duet Duboc-Perraud instrumentarium, przyznac po prostu nalezy, ze omawiana pozycja zawiera przeszlo trzy kwadranse pierwszorzednej muzyki. Kontrabas i perkusja uwolnione z ograniczajacej je roli zródla rytmu objawiaja sie tu jako instrumenty melodyczne, które smialo prowadzac narracje, buduja bogata fakture brzmieniowa dwóch epickich utworów. Dominuja grzmotom podobne, grozne pomruki kontrabasowego pizzicato oraz zlowieszczo niskie tony uderzanego i/lub pocieranego bebna basowego, ale co jakis czas mrok rozswietlaja blyskawice wysokich tonów dobywanych z talerzy i gongów oraz udreczonych smagnieciami smyczka strun. Muzycy graja niespiesznie, czesciej balansujac na linie rozpietej pomiedzy pojedynczymi, dlugo wybrzmiewajacymi dzwiekami i cisza, niz - choc i to sie zdarza - anektujac brzmieniem cala dostepna przestrzen. Mimo tego, ze przez wiekszosc czasu muzyka duetu powstaje w wyniku mini- i mikro-eksplozji - pojedynczych ciosów zadawanych instrumentom, czy tez pociagniec smyczkiem, to ani przez chwile nie odnosi sie wrazenia nieciaglosci. Duboc i Perraud to muzycy doswiadczeni, obyci we free jazzie, swobodnej improwizacji i muzyce wspólczesnej, no i co wazne, grajacy ze soba regularnie. Nie dziwi zatem wysoki poziom empatii, sprawiajacy, ze muzycy sa niczym jeden organizm, doskonale panujacy nad czasem i forma. Tadeusz Kosiek (Diapazon)

More than a duo of double bass and percussion, "Etau" resembles a Soundtrack to an avant garde theatre piece. One can figure a series of gestural pictures, imagine a sort of sonic tai-chi where the artists create textures of extroverted enthusiasm shadowed by a potential fear, all the while moving large quantities of energy. The well detailed recording captures every tiny noise, every single nuance: we can almost feel the air shifted by Duboc and Perraud around our body. This is music made of two solitudes in constant conversation trying to find a common ground for their embodiment, at first hesitant to let everybody know what they're made of, yet both positive about their final destination which instead remains unknown to the rest of us. We stand in awe, in front of a huge contradiction - brushed strings against drum blasts, silence maintained against silence blatantly ruptured. But we also manage to finally understand these doubtful tentatives of subverting the code of reductionism, which the players do by giving a soul to what is commonly perceived as noise, crackle, hiss, thump; all of the above sounds beautifully "alive" throughout the duration of this creation, born to be played loud and even louder. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

Finally (for now), we have Etau (CS 064). It’s a lovely, soft incantation from Benjamin Duboc (b) and Edward Perraud (d, perc). Muted thuds, groaning arco, rubbed toms and cymbals: these are long plangent sounds, which, on occasions, seem to clatter and fall apart. Somehow, there are times, during these two lengthy tracks, when the music seems to erupt and spill over its confines, when I’m reminded of AMM (albeit with a quite different instrumentation). It’s really about the spaces opening up, about sounds flaring and then fizzling out. At times, it seems that the pieces are perhaps a bit too similar, with a few too many sepulchral groans and so forth. But there’s an incandescent charm to this one. Jason Bivins (Bagatellen)

The last release I’ve been reviewing was a drum plus drum recording, following next is another rhythm section, but the sound and the global result of the combination is considerably different. First off this time the duo is based on drum and bass and differently from Field and Babel it’s not rhythmic music and is also far from pulsing solutions: Duboc’s and Perraud’s favorite game is to twist and shape the atmospheres. By some means the the two twenty minutes long suites featured on this cd revive the spirit of some of my favorite ensembles like Gruppo di Nuova Consonanza, AMM and more recently Civil War, I’m saying that since despite working on “free” improvisation (even if the term for the first two projects was/is really reductive) they had a contemporary classic, avant-garde approach that brought them to play something really out of time. The style of Perraud in particular reminds me of unbeatable Eddie Prevost and obviously some of his best tricks with cymbals, skins, ghost drumming and the “no sound is innocent” philosophy. It’s real, if you pay attention to it, their music is quite clear and outspoken regarding the fact they care really much about every single sound beaten, bowed, played on the record; they “play the room” following the rule number one in the bible the majority of improvisers worship, and they’re doing it really well. Ghostly moods, retained waiting games in order to explore the composition in a patient way, sound after sound everything has to come to surface and take for granted it will surface like a dead body whose lungs are still full of air. The main difference between the first and the second part of the cd is that in the second composition when they decide to play, they go for steady interventions, with that I don’t mean they sound better or more powerfully built, I just wonna say the work sounds in a less ethereal way and they counterpoint silence with more firm playing if compared to the first of the two tracks. Andrea Ferraris (Chain DLK)