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Tony Buck
Alister Spence / Tony Buck: Mythographer
by Dan McClenaghan
Duo recordings, no matter what the particular instrumentation, are able to showcase musical mind-melds. Two artists conversing, trading and extrapolating on each other's ideas. Pianist Alister Spence and drummer Tony Buck try the format on for size with Mythographer. This spontaneous, one-day-session recording opens with Dry Wood Talking." It sounds as if the talking is being done with sleigh bells in the beginning, in a tune that unfolds in a searching-for-the-center mode. And Yet She Turns," ...
read moreVellum: Glints
by Mark Corroto
To mark John Butcher's 65th birthday in 2019, a series of concerts were held (mostly in Berlin) which produced five well-appointed limited editions of 300 LPs from the folks at Ni Vu Ni Connu. The varied albums include Induction a trio with Burkhard Beins and Werner Dafeldecker, La Pierre Tachée a duo with Sophie Agnel, Shaped & Chased a trio with Thomas Lehn and Gino Robair, Lamenti Dall'infinito a quartet with Liz Allbee, Ignaz Schick, and Marta Zapparoli, and Glints ...
read moreFrank Gratkowski, Achim Kaufmann, Wilbert de Joode, Tony Buck: Flatbosc & Cautery
by John Sharpe
Adding a new member to a long-established group sometimes reinforces the chemistry, at other times it transforms. With the threesome of reedman Frank Gratkowski, pianist Achim Kaufmann and bassist Wilbert de Joode, a unit since 2002, the co-option of Necks drummer Tony Buck propels the outfit more explicitly towards the high-energy end of the free spectrum, compared with previous outings such as palaë (Leo, 2007) and oblengths (Leo, 2016). Recorded in concert in Koln, in May 2018, ...
read moreThe Necks: Three
by Mike Jurkovic
With their stubbornly spiky, hold-onto-your-hat mindset firmly rooted, a high fever runs wild on Three, The Necks' twenty-first release in its thirty-three year, unhindered-by-genre career. It starts like most of the trio's existential, kaleidoscopic excursions do: some minimalist point of blurred melodic frenzy is acted upon and the rest becomes an amalgam of theory and system... jazz, rock, industrial, whatever suits the moment. It can be irresponsibly reckless, remotely ambient, soulfully rewarding, cantankerous, glaringly indulgent or plain brilliant at any ...
read moreThe Necks: Three
by Mark Sullivan
Live performances by Australian free-improvising trio The Necks typically take the form of a single, slowly growing and morphing mass of sound. On recordings the musicians give themselves permission to sculpt the sound, so it is not a real-time document. Nevertheless their two previous albums Vertigo (Northern Spy Records, 2015) and Body (Northern Spy Records, 2018) both presented a single long track apiece, paralleling their live practice. This time the program is broken into three parts, each with its own ...
read moreDas B: Canopy
by Mark Corroto
The free improvisational quartet Das B releases its first recording Canopy, taken from a live performance at the Festival Konfrontationen, in Nickelsdorf, Austria 2017. Formed in 2015, the 'B' refers to Berlin, the nexus of activity for the four musicians heard here. The two Australians, drummer Tony Buck and bassist Mike Majkowski, join the Beirut-born trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj and Berlin-native pianist Magda Mayas in what is a natural development of the musicians' ongoing Berlin collaborations. Buck, maybe best known for ...
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