The lesser-spotted Scarla O’Horror appears to be the slightly lesser-spotted Leverton Fox along with reeds man James Allsopp.
The members of this singular quartet have played together in various permutations for the last twenty years, ever pushing the sound envelope; but here the angle is an acute one. Recording over one day, they based their improvisations on sounds that were generated by synthesisers programmed to listen to and respond to what the players were initially playing. An oddly circular conundrum that turns the idea of AI generation on its head and an intriguing proposition to say the least.
Spread over three tracks, the opening piece on Semiconductor Taxidermy For The Masses is a short taster, a sheen of tension, its slow build, tracking the players as they watch one another, stepping carefully, gradually releasing the brakes. If anyone remembers the wonderful soundtrack to Walter Hill‘s Driver, the panicked sax blasts on evoke that glowering atmosphere and is over far too soon.
As experiments go, it is a successful one; but there is more to come with the relative calm of “Ermine Chowder” and although the percussion here is restrained, the electronics still elicit a forbidding atmosphere. Things are on high alert with danger at every turn, sounds slightly awry, silences filled with dread. Where previously the momentum felt more secure, here stasis is filled with subtle infection, the sweet, jazzy trumpet a Trojan horse, granular shapes shifting below the surface, stealthy progress irresistible.
-Mr Olivetti-