Decades from now, when the web has been wiped and rendered useless by a worm that reformats the memory of any device using the http protocol, and my own memory has been scrambled by erratic patterns of use, I may convince myself that I was at the gig where this CD was recorded. But it ain't so. I saw Mick Beck play in Sheffield well over ten times, I saw Derek Bailey once in the city of his birth (mentioned previously), and I can't remember when or in which ensemble, but I'm sure I saw Paul Hession play there at least once. I left Sheffield the year before this gig took place, but remain on the email lists for the improv gigs — even though I rarely spoke to them at gigs when I was there, I feel a strong sense of loyalty to those guys. Mostly because they've weathered the indifference of local audiences and national media for a quarter of a century now.
Beautifully recorded. Beck and Hession more than hold their own alongside their more widely-celebrated collaborator; Beck in particular pulling out all his tricks from the 'twanging' of his sax — something of a trademark of his — to all sorts of other means of coaxing noises out of it beyond its normal register.
As with most improv, the lack of repetition or pattern means that is resists being easily parsed or digested. At the same time it holds that promise that you'll hear something new or different with each listen. Some are able to find intelligent ways of describing it, nevertheless, but I'm not one of them.
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