It’s sparse yet feels like you’re wading through clutter, through odd bits and pieces, and strange fragments of sound making junk as acoustic instruments rattle, pick, boom and twang and successfully coagulate into one overriding force. It’s a unique alternate universe of rustling and unsettled twitching that’s surprisingly patient, surprisingly restrained, surprisingly silent in parts, and one that when the Tourette’s induced torrent of bluster appears, manages to avoid making any violent scenes and gently evaporates into minimalist territory. Part experimental sound design and wholly improvised, Ataxia, which is the medical term to describe complete loss of muscular coordination, lacks any discernable grooves or melodies and is the documentation of the meeting of three local sound artists. With Anthony Pateras on a piano prepared with bolts and coins beautifully documented on the cover, and the Bucketrider, Lazy and Western Grey duo of David Brown on prepared guitar and Sean Baxter on percussion, Ataxia highlights some of the more abstract and restrained work of these renowned improvisers. The trio coordinate an amazing array of sounds and textures, much of which are impossible to discern which participant created it. Launching through six tracks, the trio utilise a number of different techniques, yet repeatedly arrive at a similar minimal, almost silent location, which allows the individual sounds an additional emphasis or resonance. Whilst for some its stop start nature might be a little confronting, others may find a certain freeform rhythm. When things do get going, and the textures become denser and the sounds more flowing, such as hexadactyly, it really does become crazy, almost overwhelming, feeling like the sounds are all travelling together in the same furious flood, rattling, rubbing, banging against each other, causing a chemical reaction that will send both them and the listener ricocheting off into strange new sonic worlds.
Bob Baker Fish
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