We arrived in the middle of the first set, unfortunately.. but it was a crowded house which augured well... Bruce Coates was taking an impassioned solo, backed by John Edwards' impeccable,imperious bass, soon to be joined by the other member of the trio, David Ryan... Difficult to get an exact take as obviously we had missed the previous ebb and flow – but it sounded good and full, on the surprisingly wide stage of the Rose of England in Nottingham – one of those familiar beat-up rooms we all know and love... Without amplification you take a few chances on your audience's ability not to talk too loudly and disrupt the music for others – by and large this gambit paid off...
For the second set the trio were joined by local drum hero Patrick 'Patch' Farmer, on a larger kit than I have seen him use before. In the presence of three stalwarts of the Jazz/Improv scene, he was far from over-awed and took no prisoners, powering under and across – and over – the music as it unfolded. A wide variety of style and sound on display – it's obvious these guys have great conventional command of their instruments but also have a battery of 'extended techniques' (in the now time-honoured phrase) at their disposals... Edwards moves from semi-orthodox arco to bowing under the bridge, for example – or wetting his right hand fingers to vigorously rub the wood of his bass, producing high squeaky noises. Coates adopted a strange one-legged stance at times (eerily reminiscent of Ian Anderson fronting lumpy old rock band Jethro Tull – is he still around and ripping off Roland Kirk?)that enabled him to mute the bell of his saxophones against his leg for timbral variation. Given where I was standing, my sight line did not pick up David Ryan so clearly, but it seemed that he stuck to his horns' (relatively) more conventional soundworlds – at times the stage position perhaps did not favour him as well as the others with regard to volume – but he delivered some gorgeous clarinet in heartfelt outpourings and his bass clarinet ran deep in tandem with Edwards bass to provide a murkily oceanic sonic medium for Coates to fly high over on his alto and soprano. The quartet gave a stimulating performance, throughout which the attention of the audience was generally held by long, complex and beautiful improvisations... even some of the chatterers shut up after a while (or disappeared to the bar)– and, I suppose you have to be fair and consider what this music is like for the relatively uninitiated – because there was a good crowd, as I said above, which demonstrates the ability of the organisers to get their people out, some of whom may not be very familiar with these more arcane sound worlds. I wondered if the success of the gig was partly because of the visual aspect which is obviously not available on recordings of improvisations(video aside) – 'Patch' Farmer is a remarkable sight, for example, physically involving himself with his drums, rubbing, banging, ratcheting, scraping surfaces alongside his exemplary stick/mallet work - you could see what was going down and consequently be drawn in to the performance by curiosity (and an open mind) – a relentlessly physical process as much as it was driven by high intelligence – interlocking of the body, brain - and emotions. They travelled across a wide area of reference – from free jazz to the more abstract sonics/noise which one could term 'Post-Cagean' where the essentially linear melodic line is disrupted and splintered into different directions – but there were few seams showing. Fascinating to watch Patch respond to the various challenges thrown up... for example, one section where Edwards was relying on scratches and bumps from the surface of his bass to generate sound... Patch followed him effortlessly into this more 'pulseless' area and found complementary responses from his kit. This requires, of course, a percussional knowledge beyond even the usual unconventional drum strategies and the ability to respond in kind. Patch Farmer goes from strength to strength... Coates's flamboyant note-crammed solos contrasted well with the more understated Ryan who delivered elegant clarinet/bass clarinet work, all backed by the rather splendid bass of John Edwards - a muscularly virtuoso performance, especially given the strength needed to rip into those strings with the visceral attack he displayed – he must have fingers of steel... ... And all credit to KneeKnees and Good Name for a Racehorse in raising such a good audience... not an easy task as we at the Sporadic know! It looks like they are successfully bridging the noise rock and improv worlds – which increasingly overlap anyway.
I even bought a CD...
...and Olya said they were 'Funbizzle.'
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