Fred Frith: Clearing Customs
Author: Daniel Spicer
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Wu Fei |
Label: |
Intakt |
Magazine Review Date: |
June/2011 |
Media Format: |
CD 176/2011 |
Catalogue Number: |
(CD 176/2011 |
RecordDate: |
29 November & 1 December 2007 |
If you were thinking of staging a ballet based on the movie Bladerunner, you could do worse than using this as the soundtrack. It's a single, semi-improvised, hour-plus piece that drifts along unhurriedly following a graphic structure notated by Frith: voluminous clouds of static and electronics waft by, periodically pierced by irruptions of plangent trumpet or stinging electric guitar and all strung together on a simple, recurring melodic loop which lazily coalesces every now and then before dissolving back into the mist. Frith's choice of instrumentalists for this multinational ensemble was inspired by the theatre director Peter Brook's concept of flinging together actors from completely different cultural backgrounds – so, here, we have traditional Indian percussion in dialogue with glitchy electronica and the lute-like Chinese guzheng skirting around staccato samples, with only the trumpet playing anything even remotely resembling jazz. It's a fascinating meeting of east and west, ancient and modern.
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