Over the last decade or so Australian born now French resident percussionist and sound artist Will Guthrie has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to move between jazz, rock and quite musical realms and into more experimental directions using contact microphones and junk to create these incredibly articulate musique concrete sound pieces. It’s pretty clear that the guy can play almost anything. Spike-S is a 7-inch on Norwegian label Pica Disk. And it’s mental. The first side is an all out assault of kick-ass pedal to the metal kit drumming. He pummels those bastards under a noisy drony mess of raw searing noise. It’s some kind of urban frenetic free jazz that feels like it’s wafting in from a window in a nameless city, competing with multiple urban sounds and at the mercy of the breeze. It feels like it was recorded in a sock, all gritty dingy, ill defined, lo fi distorted. I had to check if my needle was on its way out.
Side B feels like the same piece, haphazardly cut up and jammed almost subliminally into a musique concrete piece, under all manner of bells, feedback pitches, whizzes and distorted static. It’s a non linear narrative that slowly builds into a wheezing, screeching cacophony that is abruptly cut and replaced by these strange mechanical hiccups. It’s here where Guthrie gets to play with his noisy toys and this electro acoustic work is dynamic, at times abrupt and highly textural. Yet there’s not a lot to hold on to. The process/recording techniques intentionally obscure the music – particularly on side A. Guthrie states that the melody came from a folk melody from an LP he discovered in Brittany and that both pieces share not only this but the same percussion. Yet you’d be hard pressed to work this out on your own. These are some very interesting but seriously out there recordings.
Bob Baker Fish
