the mirror unit cs311

[Indem THE MIRROR UNIT aus dem Australier Tim O'Dwyer und aus Georg Wissel (von The WisselTangCamatta) besteht, ist Wind Makes Weather (CS 311) das Duett zweier besonderer Altosaxophonisten. O'Dwyer lehrt zwar fernab am Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore, fand aber im Sommer 2014 während seines Aufenthaltes an der Akademie der Künste der Welt in Köln Gelegenheiten zu allen möglichen Kollaborationen. Dieses Mit­einander wurde realisiert im Peter Kowald, ort e. V. in Wuppertal. Als Image dafür wählten sie William Turners 'Margate, from the sea', ein unvollendetes Seestück, auf dem der Wind Wolken und kabbelige Wellen vermischt und verwischt. Es wäre Unsinn, den beiden Altoisten da etwas Programmatisches anzudichten. Aber es gibt unüberhörbare Analogien zum Spiel der Farben und des Windes in ihrem elementaren Einklang, dessen Mischmasch sich aus lauter kleinen Differenzen ergibt. Die turbulenten Klangkürzel scheinen von einem gemeinsamen Zug durchwirkt. Brüderlich teilen sich die beiden ihren Pustekuchen, den Schiffszwieback und den Spaß an Schnurren und Kinkerlitzchen. Es wird tonlos gehaucht und lauthals gefaucht, mit und ohne Mundstück getutet oder gezischt, aus letzten Löchern geflötet und aus hinterletzten gepfiffen, es wird gekeckert, geklackt, geschlürft, durch Plastikbecher als Dämpfer gemaunzt, wie mit Vogelpfeifen geknört oder rostig gekrächzt. Bei völliger Flaute scheinen sie Kakerlaken dressieren oder sich den Schuh aufblasen zu wollen. Dabei sind sie so beisammen wie Klang und Echo, wie Welle und Welle. Nur das 'Wissel - rechts' und 'O'Dwyer - links' verraten, aus welcher Ecke was kommt. Eher selten werden Kontraste inszeniert aus Geräusch und Klang, rau und glatt. Ganz zuletzt lassen die beiden durch Hoch­geschwindigkeitsgesprudel durchblicken, dass Allerweltsvirtuosität für sie ein Klacks ist, über den sie längst hinaus sind. Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemie)

On ne pourrait  recommander l’entièreté du catalogue Creative Sources vu son expansion faramineuse, mais la sagacité et l’esprit d’analyse de son responsable, Ernesto Rodrigues, fait que nombre de parutions récentes sont de réels plaisirs de l’écoute et certaines peuvent servir de pièces à convictions dans un grand jury « sérieux » en ce qui concerne la validité de l’improvisation libre comme méthode de création musicale contemporaine. Des enregistrements qui n’auraient pas à rougir face à celle de compositeurs chevronnés au niveau du contenu et de la fascination de l’auditeur averti. Voici un excellent exemple : the Mirror Unit. Il était une époque où les duos de saxophone faisaient florès : les années’ 74 jusque 81, lors du grand boom de la free-music post free-jazz. Braxton, Lacy, Evan Parker montraient alors la voie. The Mirror Unit, qui réunit face-à-face deux saxophonistes parmi les meilleurs de la scène improvisée, est la plus belle prolongation de cet esprit novateur qu’il m’ait été donné d’entendre dans cette démarche : deux becs, deux anches, deux colonnes d’air, des clés, deux souffles, le tout animé par une collusion totale et avec l’aide de préparations de l’instrument, le sax alto. Tim O’Dwyer et Georg Wissel créent ici une œuvre singulière, une musique exigeante, voluptueuse, radicale, inspirée. L’un est originaire d’Australie, l’autre de Cologne. Certains croient que la musique improvisée s’arrête à quelques noms – notoriété oblige - balisés par une critique moutonnière. Voici donc un chef d’œuvre, égal à mon avis, à l’excellente collaboration d’Evan Parker et Urs Leimgruber, Twins (Clean Feed). Avec ingéniosité, ils ont trafiqué leurs saxophones en y insérant des objets (gobelets plastiques, par exemple) pour produire d’autres sons. Si leur connivence dans le jeu « conventionnel » est totale avec ces figures et ces intervalles qui s’emboîtent comme par miracle (#1 Authentic City), leur osmose dans les sifflements et bruissements d’infra-sons, scories du souffle, est renversante. Une basse cour déjantée mue par une logique insoupçonnable… la variété des timbres, leur dynamique et leurs interrelations font que des écoutes répétées en délivrent à chaque fois une multiplicité d’instants de grâce. Leur musique basée sur une écoute mutuelle exigeante se présente à la fois comme une recherche de sons effrénée et une architecture minutieuse. Chaque pièce (il y en a huit) a son propre champ d’investigation et pourrait faire figure de composition. Je ne vous fais pas la description par le détail, car, comme je l’ai déjà écrit, c’est une perte de temps, tant cette musique est belle à écouter et réécouter encore et encore…  Un tel chef d’œuvre ne pouvait qu’être enregistré  à Wuppertal au Peter Kowald Ort. Pochette ornée d'une peinture de Turner. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (orynx)

Devising a concert for unaccompanied improvised saxophone is difficult enough; expanding the idea for two reeds presents even more challenges; and when both reeds involved are from the identical saxophone the potential for failure mixed with adventure puts the show in the category of climbing previously unexplored mountains. Yet within seven months of one another two German based duos created these live shows which provide some of the thrills and chills of an adventure in uncharted territory along with breath-taking satisfaction when they reach their goals. But like 19th century explorers who came up with conflicting paths to the Arctic, each CD is a triumph in a unique fashion.
Parnassia Palustris pairs Berlin-based soprano saxophonist Frank Paul Schubert, known for his membership in bands with the likes of Alexander von Schlippenbach, with fellow soprano specialist Udo Schindler, who, from his Munich base, juggles careers as improviser and architect. Wind Makes Weather features two specialists in alto saxophonist and preparations: Köln-based Georg Wissel and Australian Tim O’Dwyer, who heads the School of Contemporary Music in Singapore, but at that time was a fellow at Köln’s Akademie der Kunst der Welt. In a way what Schindler/Schubert and Wissel/O’Dwyer do in programs of similar lengths is analogous to the famous mirror scene in The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. While Harpo, garbed as Groucho is making the same moves as his brother as if his mirror image, while the resemblance is close it isn’t perfect. So it is with the duos here
Another important difference is that despite a teeth-clenching display of extended techniques, Schindler/Schubert’s four tracks pulsate with an underlying swing feel. There aren’t melodies, but singly or together the two impart a basic rhythm throughout. Perhaps it’s the results of the “preparations” on the other hand, but Wissel/O’Dwyer appear more preoccupied with saxophone property exploration. Each part of the instrument(s) gets its due with the metal body and keys as much a part of the show as air blown into the horn’s body tube. Periodically as well the two are involved in musical ping-pong matches, lobbing similar notes, tonal, phrases and cries back and forth between them. A signal-processed fuelled arrangement as on “Old Believer” may winnow its way from broad tongue slaps to pinpointed whines, but it’s still a 21st Century variant of traditional cutting contests of Jazz lore.
Otherwise the experimental textures are most prominent, with sounds including those resembling percussive flatulence, wolf cries, dog whistles and sibilate hoots glazing the interaction on such tunes as “Morse”, as door-stopper-like resonation from the processes add more percussiveness. Besides that passages are given over to reed snuffles and tongue fluttering, with both players miniaturizing their concepts enough to probe the innermost parts of their horns and the metal that surrounds them. Eventually after gurgles, silences and stratospheric tones have all been exhibited, the climax comes with the oddly named “Howling through Marram Grass”, which contrarily doesn’t howl but instead finds them discharging more common reed tones as they relax into an ending.
Changing German cities from windy weather to northern marsh grass, Schindler and Schubert act most like laboratory tone scientists on the first and longest track, “Celebrate the Light”. Displaying figurative test tubes filled with squeals and moans, whispers and hiccups, one player always appears to be blasting off for the stratosphere with unchecked wails, while the other sticks to terra firma with bucolic romping. In a wonderful instance of polyphony in the first section the two sound as if they’re improvising within a giant church bell so that the resonations bring out auxiliary vibrations as well as the initial tones. Often playing a half-step apart like race horses in harness, they unite rapid tongue quivers at the end for gratifying unison cries.
Progressively abbreviating each subsequent track, so that the concluding “Lithely Built” is a less-than-two-minute exercise in harmonized squeaks and blows, the rest of the performance provides space for free expression. Without abandoning underlying melody and rhythm, every sort of broken tone, dissonant pitch and sputtering tongue and mouth gymnastic has its place. As one saxophonist specializes in upwards corkscrew movement and the other in stuttering chirps, they’re evenly matched but without rancor. An instance of this is evident on “Painted Green” where one saxophonist rappels from guttural to altissimo peeps and the other outputs even higher tones.
Here are two variants on the dual saxophone meeting, each valid and each valuable. Ken Waxman (JazzWord)

According to the explanation of saxophone players George Wisell and Tim O'Dwyer, the musicians behind this project (I should refer to them as 'units'), its name depends on the fact that they perform as if one reflects in the other, so that one acts like the mirror for the other and vice versa. The amazing aspect of their specularity, coming from a reciprocal knowledge and based also on the adoption of similar performative techniques, is the way by which they try to portray social situations, characters or even non-musical codes. The titles of each improvisations included in this output - entirely improvised and recorded live at the Peter Kowald Ort in Wuppertal on the 18th of June 2014 -, which became part of the huge catalogue of the Portuguese label Creative Sources in 2015, could be guidelines of what they are going to represent, even if the analogy is not that easy: for instance the scrawny structure, the constant segmented hops and even some occasional scream-like noises of "Arthropod" could be matched to arthropods' exoskeleton, their segmented bodies and sometimes the concern these invertebrates can inspire. Think about a mumbling, hardly busy and sometimes clumsy maid, while listening to "Whistling Maid", or some typically urban auditory startles, while listening to the opening "Authentic City". The author's winds could be imagined as a way to blink their coordinates in Morse code in the track "Morse", detectors of coming thunder storms in the title track of "Wind Makes Weather" or even the pencils of a sketch artist (check the sound of "Old Believer" and tell if it doesn't render the idea somehow...). The above-mentioned specularity could be better appreciated by the decision of recording each saxophone into two separate channels, Georg on the right channel and Tim on the left. Vito Camarretta (Chain DLK)