It has been a year or so since the initial volume of the Matthew Bourne and Shiver collaboration and the anticipation for this follow-up can finally settle.
Recorded over two post-lockdown days, these recordings are consumed by a desire to play together in a room again after such a lay-off and that air of desire is palpable. This recording, encompassing the second day of the session, is alive with the possibility and their interaction and generosity is plain to hear.
This second disc is an extraordinary suite of pieces that, although clearly coming from the same session, are very different in feel to the first volume. You can imagine that by day two, they are warm and comfortable, conscious of what the other players have to offer and how far they can be pushed so the spangly, discordant start is portentous with its misbehaving echoes and doomy stumbling. The four players produce an integrated melée, a piano-led monstrosity with bass like an AT-AT or some blind, multi-limbed beast.It is an intriguing and slightly unsettling opener; but Matthew’s mischievous and secretive piano, jumping between the high and low register like some parkour runner, resets the balance. It wants to be romantic but can’t deal with the conformity; and when Shiver appears, it all becomes stranger, like a hall of mirrors.
You think you recognise the sounds, but they veer away, lurking at the edge of your hearing. Chris Sharkey‘s processing is disruptive, like a bad influence on some already tearaway kids. The piano and bass try to behave, but all around sounds quake and quiver, percussion flitting in between, filling in spaces whether invited or not and we find familiar piano motifs subsumed under the playful rubble. After the hubbub of the opening two pieces, “Pasadena Gravy” is strangely removed; a deserted, dust-laden outpost where sounds are scorched and stretched. Golden chains move listlessly in the nearest thing to structure so far, a sun droning strongly with an odd sense of revolution that dissolves into a heat haze.Each piece is a dramatic change from what came before so the slow, disparate spiral assailed by rhythmic gestures of “From Ohio”, with its pugnacious bass-broken typewriters, gives no indication of the slow burn finale “Cactus & Roulette”. A contemplative piano étude and creaking hull percussion make for a long, slow build. Tension lurks in the spaces and the juxtaposition of human piano and ethereal, discordant electronics is bashed in by the searing guitar solo that emerges. It feels like they are stretching for nirvana but trying to compress time simultaneously. As the foundations shake, so it all starts to become intangible, drifting and dying.
If you liked the previous issue then this is essential; but to be honest, if you like to be tested sonically, then this is just the ticket. A tour de force and a lesson in what can be accomplished in a weekend.-Mr Olivetti-
