Music Arcades: Outward Sound Ensemble: Cloudburst

Too often in recent years I've bought my annual three-album package from Discus, and then left them to one side in favour of more "pressing" Music Arcades listening. This has meant that when their number comes up here, I'm often listening for the first time. True to form, this one sat on my shelf, unattended to, for a year or more. But late one night I picked it up more or less at random to accompany some reading.

Listening after dark is always on headphones. About a minute in (54 seconds, to be precise) I heard a knock that sounded like it came from next door. It was probably during the witching hour, and it's not unusual to hear Louis or Phil burst into a snatch of song at that time of night, but a bang on the wall…? Pausing the CD, I took the headphones off. No sound. I put them back on, rewound a bit, and pressed play again. The same sound, off to my right. It was then that I got the CD leaflet out.

In the studio, the OSE [Outward Sound Ensemble] play live direct to 2-track digital tape. There are no synthesizers or samplers employed, only the sparse instrumentation listed [Herb Bayley, trombone, cornet; Chris Meloche, prepared table-top guitar & treatments; Martin Archer, violectronics]. The recordings are purely "live" with no overdubbing or edits. There is also no mixing console used to balance the sound. All balance is obtained by the placement of the sound producing elements in relation to the stereo binaural microphone system.

Ah, at last, a more convincing use of binaural "artificial head" recording than the other instance I've noted here. Listening on headphones is definitely the right way to hear this album.

I can't quite square all the hard-line "no overdubs" commitments with the fact that, while Bayley and Meloche were doing their recording in London, Ontario (during which a thunderstorm began, presumably the origin of the Cloudburst title), Martin Archer's contribution was recorded in Sheffield. "Martin recorded an hour of sounds using a manipulated violin set-up [and] Bayley and Meloche both agreed this material would fit well within the framework of their soundscapes." I guess the explanation must be that the Canadians played Martin's recording in the studio as they were performing, and re-recorded it to the binaural microphones. Of course, it doesn't matter — but for the emphasis made in the notes about this being a verité document of an organic moment in time.

Yes, Martin Archer, again. Yet another imaginative collaboration, in yet another genre quite different from anything I've heard before (Transient v Resident might be the closest comparison). With tiresome predictability, it's accomplished and rather good. The press notice on the website references AMM, and that "prepared table-top guitar" sounds like Keith Rowe's set-up. But I'm also thinking, in terms of ethos if not of sound palette, of Conrad Schnitzler.

Buy direct from Discus