Scarla O’Horror – Semiconductor Taxidermy For The Masses

Not Applicable

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.

On “The Rats Of Gillett Square”, the drums are a shuffling, riffling flurry with a sense of barely controlled agitation. Trumpet sits atop sax, dancing around this roaring river, bearing all at an excitable pace. The electronics are gradual in their appearance, a gentle insistence that starts to calm the horns and supplanting them with fairground shimmers.

The percussion meanwhile is impervious, although there is only so much steam that it can generate. When this happens, the electronics speckle and patter around the growing silence. Sweet reed notes and snare clumps forge new avenues, awaiting the electronics with bated breath. It is intriguing trying to work out how the various ingredients relate and then what prompts the players to follow their particular paths.

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.

It is not often we can say that a group is doing something unique; but here, the strange progression is changing the way improv players interact and causing them to react in fresh ways. It is an interesting and ultimately satisfying outcome but you can guarantee they won’t be sitting still. Who knows where this will lead?

-Mr Olivetti-