The Wire May 2008

The Remote Viewers
Control Room

Between 1999 and 2003 The Remote Viewers released six CDs, most of them on the Leo Lab label. The core group was a saxophone trio of David and Louise Petts, who were the principal composers, and Adrian Northover. Louise Petts also wrote lyrics and sang, and the group made imaginative use of lyrics by Bertolt Brecht and songs by David Sylvian, Portishead and Madonna. As their ideas developed, synthesizers, theremins and electronics assumed as great a role in the music as the saxophones. The group were always eclectic to a fault, and certain stylistic elements of their music seemed perpetually at odds with others: the rather stiff arrangements for saxophone trio sat uneasily with often spooky cabaret-style songs, which sat uneasily with free jazz squalls, which sat uneasily with robotic drums, chilly Techno-pop and electronic soundscapes. What Remote Viewers albums often sounded like was film soundtracks - evocative, atmospheric, and full of stylish touches and dark imaginings but somehow, despite the skill and imagination that had gone into their making, rather bitty and not wholly satisfying.
After a four year gap, Control Room continues in much the same vein, though there are differences too, the most significant of which is that Louise Petts only appears on the fourth CD, The Fiction Department, which is billed as a follow-up to the group's 2003 CD, Sudden Rooms In Different Buildings. Rather than cram disparate stylistic elements onto a single CD, the strategy here seems to be to give them a CD apiece. But a key question that needs to be asked of any large-scale project such as this is: does all of the work merit inclusion? The Fiction Department, a collection of songs that slink and throb and don't employ standard song structures, is easily the best thing on offer. Abrasive electronics scour the surface of Louise Petts's words on "Those In Darkness", and her deep, velvety voice suits the languorous solemnity of the music. When the saxophones periodically appear, they're well integrated into the structure and texture of the songs, and there's a marvellous solo on "The Unthinking Blade".
The other four CDs contain saxophones aplenty, and the fifth CD, Situations, consists of a solo saxophone set from Adrian Northover. Apart from a Cole Porter tune - "What Is This Thing Called Love?", on which he makes imaginative use of multitracking, echo and delay - the compositions are all his own. It's hard not to hear elements of both Evan Parker and John Butcher in Northover's playing, but he's a technically adept player and, over the length of the disc, his sound and character come through clearly. The pieces hang together well, as do the songs on The Fiction Department, and each in their own way is a success. What they have to do with each other is, however, unfathomable. Giving them a CD apiece was almost certainly the right decision.
The least enjoyable disc is the first, containing "October Rush", a 38 minute instrumental for flutes, saxophones, double bass, guitar and electronics. The music moves from section to section with a postmodern disregard for stylistic consistency, which presumably was Petts's intention. The second and third CDs have points in common, principal among which is the saxophone quartet (Petts, Northover, Lynch and Caroline Kraabel) that plays David Petts's suite-like compositions. CD three, An Affair Of Cyphers, presents the quartet plain and true. On CD two, The Art Of Empire, aspects of Petts's minimal and rather lugubrious compositions are reworked and enhanced to good effect by a series of guest electronicists, Darren Tate, Glenn Gupta and Kato Hideki. This CD works so well it rather puts An Affair Of Cyphers in the shade. At its best, Control Room is superb, but I suspect that only The Remote Viewers' most dedicated fans will enjoy everything it contains.

Brian Marley.

Jazzwise, May 2008

RV1-5 (5 CDs)
Sue Lynch I(flt, ts), John Edwards(b), Jon Dobie (g), Adrian Northover (as, ss, elec, autoharp), Glenn Gupta (elec), Dave Tucker (elec), David Petts (ts, elec), Caroline Kraabel (bs, as), Darren Tate (elec), Kato Hideki (elec) and Louise Petts (voc, as, elec).
Rec. date not given.

After five albums released on Leo Records between 1999 and 2002, The Remote Viewers struck out on their own in 2003, self-releasing Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings.
If they've been quiet for the last five years, this new self-release shows they haven't been idle. Here, the core trio of Adrian Northover, David Petts and Louise Petts is joined by collaborators old and new on a five-disc box set that's bursting with ideas.
Disc one contains a single 38-minute opus awash with electro-acoustic textures ranging from dreamy ambient interludes to bright, burning cascades of noise.
Bassist John Edwards is a brash presence throughout, his slash and burn attack enlivening proceedings, and guitarist John Dobie lets rip an incendiary solo. Overall, though, the piece is let down by woefully limp drum programmes that get you wondering how much more powerful this might have been if they'd got themselves a genuine sticksman.
The next two discs get round that problem by dispensing with a rhythm section altogether. Disc three presents a suite of chamber-Prog horn charts that showcase David Petts'
compositional palette, while Disc two employs a cadre of electronics gurus to rework those tunes into a dark, ambient landscape that comes on with the foreboding chatter of an approaching cloud of locusts.
Disc four foregrounds Louise Petts' rich, husky vocals in a relatively conventional song setting. You get the feeling they're striving for some of the damaged intensity of
Portishead's glowering torch songs but, again, it's let down by disappointingly lame drum-machine breaks.
For Disc five it's back to basics with a live solo soprano sax performance from Northover with obvious precedents in the extended Improv techniques of Lol Coxhill. You have to admire their chutzpah but a little quality control might have whittled these five discs down to a much more compelling double album.

Danlel Spicer

Bad Alchemy April 08

Gut 4 Jahre nach dem vermeintlichen Schwanenengesang Sudden Rooms In Different Buildings melden sich David Petts & Adrian Northoverzurück. Als ob sich in der Zwischenzeit - die Trennung von David & Louise Petts Schaffenspause zu nennen, wäre gefrevelt -etwas
angestaut hätte, entlädt sich auf Control Room (Selbstverlag, 5 x CD) das ganze Kompositionsspektrum von David Petts, kompromisslos düster und entschieden.

Bei RV1 -October Rush gruppieren sich um Adrian Northover an Alto- & Sopranosax zwei alte B-Shops-For-The-Poor-Weggefährten, der Gitarrero Jon Dobie und der Kontrabassist John Edwards, dazu die Flötistin Sue Lynch, die auch das Coverartwork beisteuerte, und
Glenn Gupta & Dave Tucker an Electronics als neue Rekruten.
Petts lieferte die Raumatmosphäre und die rhythmische Grundströmung. Streckenweise erinnert das an Geoff Serles
Sonicphonics, bei denen Northover und Dobie gegroovt hatten,
aber hauptsächlich knüpft es an den RV-typischen Wave Noir an, sowohl in seinen von Bläserunisoni getragenen konstruktivistischen
wie gothischen Zügen.
Darin verhaken sich Improvisationen von Edwards, der einmal mehr seinem Kontrabass die Peitsche und die Krallen zeigt, und von Dobie, der die Saiten rauchen und glühen lässt.
RV2 -The Art of Empire verwebt Saxophonlinien von Northover, Lynch, Caroline Kraabel und Petts selbst mit der gothischen Atmosphäre, die aus den Electronics von Tate bzw. Gupta, Northover oder Kato Hideki quillt. Neben vier Petts-Tracks mit so sprechenden Titeln wie ‚
Distant Intruder‘ und ‚Silent Weapons For A Quiet War‘ erklingt mit ‚Priere‘ ein Fragment aus den Pages mystiques von Satie. Dieses ‚Gebet‘ tastet mit elektronischen Tentakeln ins rosenkreuzerisch Okkulte, während die Saxophone eine alte Pilgermelodie anstimmen. Wie fauchende, unter Wasser detonierende, quecksilbrige oder metalloid knispelnde, dunkelwolkig eingehüllte Electronicsounds kollidieren und sich vermengen mit düsteren, doch trotz Beklemmung unbeirrten, wenn auch stark überrauschten, fiepigen Bläserchören oder
-kanons, das ist die unvergleichliche RV-Eigenart.
Drei der schon in RV2 eingemischten Saxophonquartette tauchen auf RV3 -An Affair Of Cyphers wieder auf, dazu fünf weitere, pur und streng. Bei ‚Grinding Stones with Eyes‘ scharrt Edwards dazu Bass, während nur Northover auch noch elektronische Fäden spinnt.
Der bestreitet auf eigene Rechnung RV5 -Situations mit sieben extremen, teils mehrspurigen Sopranosolos, die eigenartig zwischen Evan Parker und Lol Cohíll vexieren.
Bleibt noch RV4 - Fiction Department mit seinen neun Songs in der klassischen Besetzung mit Northover und David & Louise Petts. Wenn Louise P., auf elektronische Wolken und Wellen oder virtuelle Piano- und Stringfonds gebettet, in ihrer unverwechselbar dunkel flötenden
Manier ‚Green Closing‘ singt oder ‚Narrowed Clue‘, verfällt man wieder rettungslos dem süßen Weh ihrer ‚Melancholy Of Words‘. Oh, wie ihr Gesang aufsteigt bei ‚The Delicate Address‘, um unnahbar mit dem Soprano zu tanzen, und dann eintaucht in die Schattenzone
von ‚Into The Hollow Face‘. Durch ‚Those In Darkness‘ fegt ein beißender schwarzer Eissturm, noisiger Wave Noir zu Drummachinebeats, nach dem sich ‚Fatal Surface‘ wie todwund
dahin schleppt, zu Saxophonen und Piano in strengem Schwarz, bis ‚The Slow Sea‘ einen noch schlimmeren Sturm entfesselt. ‚The Unthinking Blade‘, lange wortlos, verrät dann, wo die Wunde herrührt - the blade is love, mit einem von Schmerz und Leidenschaft gebeuteltenSaxophonsolo. Der Rest ist abgrundtiefe Melancholie.

Rigobert Dittmann

. **(*) Low Shapes in Dark Heat
Leo Lab CD049 Adrian Northover (ss,as); Louise Petts
(as, syn, v); David Petts (ts, syn). 2 & 7/98
***Obliques Before Pale Skin
Leo Lab 061 As above, except add theremins to
instrumentation for Northover, Petts and Petts. 6 &
7/99
***(*)Stranded Depots
Leo Lab CD 076 As above. 00
***(*)The Minimum Programme of Humanity
Leo LR 342 As above. 11-12/01

The CIA and NASA still, we understand, take
remote sensing very seriously, but what are we to make
of this enigmatic trio? At moments, we might be
dealing with a conventional saxophone quartet who, in
the absence of the senior and most sensible member,
muck about in the studio for a couple of afternoons,
but then Louise Petts's remarkable voice and strange,
associative lyrics kick in and the spell is cast.
This is music of great privacy. Even when a
familiar theme does emerge - and Low Shapes includes a
tender version of the theme from television's Callan -
the associations are not necessarily shared. The
effect is somewhat akin to a session by Bristol's
lamented Startled Insects, but produced by and
guesting John Zorn and the sound-crew of The X-Files.
The second album opens with a minimally
unaccompanied reading of Jimmy Heusen's 'It Could
Happen to You', continues with Madonna's 'Secret'
and ends with a gorgeous version of Dmitri Tiomkin's
'Wild is the Wind'. What happens in between defies
straightforward description, beyond the fact that it
is a richer acoustic mix, with few of the London
Saxophone Quartet mannerisms that made the debut so
quirkily old-fashioned in places.
Surreal and funky, weary with the world but
helplessly fascinated by its many strangenesses, the
music has wound on through two more sets for Leo
(interestingly, the group has moved from the more
arcane Leo Lab sector to the main label with album
four). As they've grown and gone deeper into whatever
it is they're doing, The Viewers are now able to
impose themselves on source material which might seem
a complete wrong turning; so we get Gordon Jenkins and
Satie on Stranded Depots, and texts by Bertolt Brecht
on the often very disquieting The Minimum Programme of
Humanity, which makes a greater play with electronics
and synthesized percussion. Points of reference might
be Annette Peacock, Edith Sitwell and N.E. Simpson,
but we advise adventurous listeners to discover for
themselves.

The Penguin Guide to Jazz

Reviews of Sudden Rooms

francois couture

The Remote Viewers follow-up to The Minimum Programme
of Humanity is a puzzling album -- after a first
listen, it is not surprising that it was released on
the Petts' own label General Ear instead of Leo
Records. Now, that doesn't mean the album is not good,
but it sure requires more effort from the listener.
The six pieces consist mostly of electronic
soundscapes.

Louise Petts' rapturing voice appears only to
interpret Japan's old song Ghosts -- it never sounded
so other-wordly. As for the saxophones, they too make
themselves more discreet. So if you expect the group's
usual balance of songs, sax pieces and decadent
electronics, you will be disappointed at first. With
perseverance, Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings will
grow on you. Eroding the Dead Wall is not eroding just
that, but also the eardrums as high-pitched wails play
hide and seek with one another. External Securement
and The Unlistening Vent are sleek and creepy
electronic pieces, dark ambient for the anachronically
deranged. Inside the Unwanted Bond, the only sax trio
of the set, explores rough drones backed by
electronics. In The Frontier of Presence, Louise rolls
exotic bird calls off her tongue, looped and
multitracked to form, with the addition of ambient
drones and vocal hums, an overwhelming jungle.

Odd? Yes. Surprising? Not that much; The Remote
Viewers were ripe for a certain change in direction
and this album shows that they can outgrow the formula
established in their five previous albums while
remaining faithful to their aura of mystery and
seduction.

paris transatlantic review

dan warburton

After five albums on Leo, the Remotes have decided to
go it alone with Sudden Rooms.. - though Leo Feigin
assures me they haven't left the fold for good - which
kicks off with another extraordinary cover version (to
add to the Madonna and Portishead masterpieces on
their preceding outings): this time it's David
Sylvian's "Ghosts" that gets the Louise Petts
treatment, her silky smooth voice accompanied by
husband David's weird swoony harmonisations. One
imagines that Mr Sylvian, who's now hooked up with
such avant heroes as Derek Bailey and Christian
Fennesz, will appreciate the homage. Elsewhere, the
outlandish microtonal synth work and positively
disturbing saxophone arrangements might give you a
clue as to why the Remotes opted to release this
themselves. Five years on from their Leo debut they're
still one of the most original and as a result
under-appreciated outfits around, and it's ironic that
they're based in the city with perhaps the liveliest
improv scene in the world, London. Unless there are
some seismic changes in the world cultural map, The
Remote Viewers are rather unlikely to be playing in a
venue near you in the foreseeable future, so you'd be
advised to email Mr Petts forthwith and procure
yourself a copy of this little treasure.

signal to noise

kurt gottschalk

"Remote Viewing" is a parapsychological state
theoretically allowing one to connect with any person,
living or dead, or any event or place as if one were
actually experiencing it. It's also a rather
perplexing band name, frustratingly appropriate for
this rather perplexing saxophone trio.

If The Remote Viewers (Adrian Northover, Louise Petts
and David Petts are all active in the London
improvisers scene and all mutate their horns with
electronics in this setting) are remote viewing
anything, it's German cabarets between the wars. But
if remote viewing really works, it doesn't seem to get
that good a reception. The group gurgles and simmers
creating fever-dream torch songs. On previous records
(released on Leo Records' pay-to-play imprint Leo
Lab), that approach had a certain pomo charm. But
here the electronics are upped, Ms. Petts' played
down, and the result is more than moody; it's
downright creepy. Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings
is a realised record, and rather a frightening one; a
work that would likely make David Lynch feel uneasy.
And lest you think you've got the formula down, they
open with a dark cover of Japan's "Ghosts".

Synth pop from the '80s remote viewed from the 21st.
century by way of the 1930s isn't just a lot of time
travel - it's a trip.

jazzwise

duncan heining

I enjoyed the stark, grey cabaret of this group's
previous releases - The Minimum Programme of Humanity
and Stranded Depots (both on Leo) - but this is a
cocktail of minimalism. Essentially, it's a series of
electronic soundscapes into which are set occasional
snatches of voice or piping, keening sax. At its
best, it's highly affecting. Opening with Japan's
Ghosts, Louise Petts' voice teases out David Sylvian's
lyric with a mannered air of quiet distraction as her
overdubbed alto tinkers with its tune. Eroding the
Dead Wall sounds too much like a child playing with a
synthesizer. But by External Securement, it's as if a
strange understanding of sound and its manipulation
has emerged that is actually quite pleasing. Inside
the Unwanted Bond features all three on saxes and is
perhaps closest in style to their previous releases, a
structured abstraction, while Unlistening Vent is the
sound of industrialism, echoing and threatening. The
Frontier of Presence closes as its dream-like,
doom-like quality turns from soothing comfort to
outright despair. Waking from a nightmare to find the
horror was real, perhaps.

The whole has an experimental, unfinished quality -
like a diary rather than a complete, constructed
narrative or like seeing a number of fragments and
trying to piece the whole picture together.
Different.

cadence

jason bivins

The British trio, The Remote Viewers, has expanded
their saxophone-based free improvisation to include
electronics, and it's this approach that's documented
here. A fascinating example of this approach is found
on the opening Ghosts - not the Albert Ayler tune, but
the David Sylvian tune from his old pop band Japan.
It's pretty successful as a simple canon theme, though
at times it lags a bit with Louise Petts' slightly
worried (though, to her credit, nowhere near as
worried as Sylvian's) vocals. I like the spooky
Eroding which is all electronic (someone plays a
pinging sound that resembles a koto). On many of
these tracks, the players mix lo-fi electronics
(vintage sci-fi keyboards) with very contemporary
sounding rumbles, drones, and hisses. External
Securement is tonally and texturally in this vein but
for the synthesiser beat that strings the music along.
Towards the end of the piece, the music transforms
into a kind of slow techno-pop (the sort of thing that
might accompany a scene of menace or forbidding in a
very stylish action movie). Inside is like a chorus
of John Butchers, overtones and circular breathing
morphing into a steady rhythmic piece. It's very
nice. Vent is the kind of industrial echo-chamber
piece one might hear on a Voice Crack record. The
final piece is almost an extension of Vent until some
marimba/xylophone samples barge through the eerie
pitch-bending, like Steve Reich on acid. In short,
while this group covers an awful lot of ground - and
consequently doesn't always have the most distinct
musical personality - it's fine stuff.

jazz review

craig w. hurst

Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings by the London
based avant garde improvisatory ensemble The Remote
Viewers, is a collection of music that transcends
musical boundaries, expands the imagination, and
wrings out a range of feelings from peaceful to
painful. Certainly, the name of the group may infer
that the listener is going to experience music
reflecting an altered state of consciousness or some
other musically paranormal experience. Or the group's
name may just be an "inside" bit of whimsy on the part
of the musicians. Comprised of Adrian Northover, and
David and Louise Petts, The Remote Viewers use vocals,
soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, electronics and
pre recorded material to weave a rather other-worldly,
musical landscape that at times sounds much like the
soundtrack to psychological thriller genre film.

The ethereal nature of the music and the titles of
some of the pieces on Sudden Rooms in Different
Buildings certainly brings to mind a soundtrack for
warped subconscious images or as accompaniment to the
distortions that can occur during nightmares. This
music is not about catchy melodies or rhythms. This
music is an exploitation of different timbres and
musical textures that when woven together form a sonic
mosaic that, depending on the individual listener
could conjure in the mind different scenes or mental
pictures that could range from the macabre or painful
to simply bizarre and weird.

Sudden Rooms in Different Buildings will not be a
recording that will match the tastes of many
listeners. Upon initial exposure, many will dismiss
the recording as "more avant garde electronic noise"
and painful listening. There will be those detractors
that will insist that this is not music at all, but
rather some attempt at sonic chaos passed off as
modern art. The CD certainly did not match the
expectations of this listener-initially. However, just
as people enjoy viewing motion pictures that elicit
strong emotions because the subject matter deals with
horror or distorted images as a result of a
character's mental state, so too it was found on
repeated listening that this listener began to enjoy
the mental scenes conjured as influenced by the music
of The Remote Viewers' Sudden Rooms in Different
Buildings.

jazz review

comglenn astarita

Hailing from England, this trio is noted for its
cleverly articulated and irrefutably unique line of
tactics, spanning avant-garde jazz, and clever
employment of electronics. Aided by
saxophonist/synthesist Louise Petts' angelic vocals,
the trio generally covers at least one well-known pop
tune on each recording. Yet, the musicians
collectively explore the road less traveled so to
speak, witnessed here, on this independently produced
set.
They open with a rather ominous reading of prog-rock
artist, David Sylvian's piece titled "Ghosts,"
featuring high-pitched synth sounds weaving among the
saxophonists' concisely stated lines and Ms. Petts
waiflike vocals. With that, Adrian Northover, along
with Louise and David Petts experiment a bit more with
electronics throughout this production.

The trio conjures up peculiar vibes amid a hodgepodge
of delicately shifting patterns. A thought of
implanting a computer chip into a human brain comes to
mind, amid the rather freaky connotations of these
darkly ambient dreamscapes. They portray an eclectic
and at times, dour state of being, but the success
factor emanates from the artists' pleasingly twisted
viewpoints. The totality of this curiously interesting
endeavor might be akin to a passageway, or a labyrinth
that lacks a clearly defined endpoint. Whereas the
listener succumbs to the rather ethereal sound
sculptures set forth by these clever artisans.
Recommended.

expose

jim chokey

This is the sixth CD by The Remote Viewers, a British
avant-garde trio. The disk begins with a jazzy cover
of Japan's Ghosts, featuring sultry torch-singer
vocals by Louise Petts. Just a few seconds in,
however, the smoky-lounge mood is suddenly
deconstructed by the introduction of dark, minimalist
alto sax and an incessant buzz of atonal and arhythmic
electronic oscillations produced by fellow 'viewer'
David Petts. These electronics, which sound like a
cross between a hearing-test tone generator and a
swarm of electrified gnats nesting in your ear, do not
complement the sax and vocal lines, but clash
jarringly with them. That seems to be the point
though. This song - and indeed the whole album -
seems to be an exercise in the juxtaposition of a
'traditional' model of music (as something that has
melody and rhythm) alongside a post-Cage conception of
music (as any arrangement of sounds). The latter
approach dominates, and at least two of the tracks
wholly abandon tonality, rhythm, etc. for noisy
sound-scapes of pseudo-industrial churnings,
unidentifiable plunkings, eardrum-aching sax squonks,
and still more of those annoying insectoid electronic
oscillations. The most compelling tracks are Inside
the Unwanted Bond and The Frontier of Presence which
achieve a kind of uneasy coexistence between these two
musical poles, resulting in a dark, musical minimalism
that sounds a bit like Univers Zero's Heresie, but
with extended bursts of loud, grating, noise. This is
a memorable and intriguing album, but it will probably
be enjoyed only by the sonically adventurous.

Review of Low Shapes

cadence

walter horn

The "best of show" award goes to a trio called THE
REMOTE VIEWERS (Adrian Northover, ss, as; Louise
Petts, as, vcl, synth; David Petts, ts, synth) for
their very fine entry, LOW SHAPES IN DARK HEAT (Leo
Lab 049). Except for four covers, including ethereal
versions of Sun Ra's Astro Black and Ervin Drake's It
Was a Very Good Year, all the music is by David Petts.
He's a real talent. His eight tunes are understated,
elegantly constructed nightmares. Petts' seamless
transitions from glacial chordal movement to complex
counterpoint and back again is wonderful - kind of
like what you'd expect if Ligeti and Rova got together
in Eastern Europe for the purpose of of putting
together a concert for Count Dracula. Perhaps the
centerpiece of the disk, the eight-minute One Thousand
Unnamed Flowers is like a graveside elegy for
madman-with-saxophone and a slowly-moving synth and
wind chorale. It's in the Unanswered Question
tradition, and it deserves to be mentioned in the same
sentence with Ives' gem. The synth sounds utilized on
the disk tend to the analog whoosh and hiss, but a
couple of velvety organ patches and string pads are
also expertly used. Louise Petts' husky, senza vibrato
incantations are very unsettling. I think she might be
a siren from the undead, but it's hard not to want to
follow her. What makes this album so good? Partly it's
the expert use of repetition. Everwhere this technique
is depended on - as at the beginning of The Gap's
Defence - the drama is always heightened and never
stymied by its use. Petts never relies on ostinati
simply as a crutch or as a way of getting out of some
uncomfortable corner he's painted himself into. But,
of course, that's only one necessary condition for the
creation of excellence in music. As always, there are
no formulas or magic words for capturing the
beautiful. No precise quotients of abstraction,
concreteness, complexity, or simplicity are any
guarantee. What's needed is talent, devotion, and
serendipity.

Review of Minimum Programme

tower records

art lange

spoken word of the week

In his informative liner notes for the latest CD by
the British trio the REMOTE VIEWERS ('THE MINIMUM
PROGRAMME OF HUMANITY,' Leo Records, out now), Dan
Warburton reasonably frets over how the band might be
categorized -- name-dropping Xenakis, Cabaret
Voltaire, and Portishead in the process.

Though there are saxophones -- and a few intense
improvised sax solos -- in the mix, it isn't exactly
jazz; and despite the heavy emphasis on slow-moving
electronic textures it's neither trance nor ambient.
The music doesn't swing, and it doesn't trigger
techno-dance rhythms. Rather, it takes a refreshing
re-view of old school compositional procedures and
low-tech electronics, while creating a sonic
environment for Louise Petts' sparse vocalization of
Bertolt Brecht poems.

Flipping the usual relationship inside out, the music
doesn't illustrate the text, instead the words (chosen
from Brecht's "least political poetry") seem to
illuminate the sometimes ominous and often melancholy
musical terrain. This leads to melodramatic moments of
pounding percussion and synthesized strings ("The
Leavetaking"), dense multitracked voices and layered
distortions (Brecht's "Gothic Tale"), and occasional
lumpy horn fanfares ("Travelling in a Comfortable
Car") -- but also episodes of thoughtfully crafted
soundscapes, like the exquisitely modulated static
electronic contours and colors of "Changing the Wheel"
and the more complex arrangement, including allusions
to Xenakis and free jazz, behind "Once."

And if the prevalent mood mirrors the ruthless reality
and romantic pessimism of Brecht's poetry, is that
necessarily a bad thing?

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