john butcher: resonant spaces

Blume present the first vinyl issue of John Butcher's Resonant Spaces, originally released on CD in 2008. More than a half century into its development, free improvisation remains nearly impossible to define. Of course there are concrete definitions, canons, and well-trod paths -- familiar idioms, structures, relationships, textures, and tones, but by its very nature -- something free, when practiced with faith, it is elusive, constantly shifting, and reforming in the hands of those who call the art form their own. Of the improvisers emerging from the remarkable European contexts over the last four decades, few demand the respect, or have plumbed the depths of the English saxophonist John Butcher. An entirely singular voice, since appearing on the scene during the late 1970s and early '80s, Butcher has continuously defied and shattered standing presumptions of his form. Exemplifying this, there may be no better example than a series of solo performances recorded on a lonely tour of remote areas of Scotland with Akio Susuki during 2006. Entitled Resonant Spaces, the album stands as one of his most ambitious, radical, and revelatory bodies of work. Across the '80s and '90s, he performed with the lion's share of Britain's leading lights: Derek Bailey, Phil Minton, John Russell, Phil Durrant, Steve Beresford, and countless others. It was during this period that he began to develop the trajectories for which he is often most recognized: solo performances, capitalizing on resonance, overtone, and space. Resonant Spaces is the fruit born of decades of work; a rare product of artistry, seeming to have simply appeared -- an organic disembodied form. Astounding on nearly every count -- miles from the social unrest from which this idiom was born -- an uncharted meditative realm -- a towering body of creativity and tone. Recorded in the wilds of Scotland against Neolithic standing stones, within an emptied oil storage tank, and caves, like all free improvisations, Resonant Spaces is a conversation, but one unlike others before. Where musicians working in ensembles and groups, shift, adapt, and respond to those with whom they share the stage, Butcher's conversation is with the unexpected responses of a given space and the returned transmogrified body of his creative self. A shimmering world of resonance, ambience, structure, and craft. Comes in full-color cover with printed inner sleeve housing a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve; Includes original insert that functions as Obi; Blue-colored vinyl; Edition of 250.