yoshihide/m/parker/edwards/marsh/butcher: quintet/sextet

The final night of Otomo Yoshihide's and Sachiko M's first residency at London's Café OTO in 2009 saw the pair joined by the long-running trio of Evan Parker, John Edwards, Tony Marsh and special guest John Butcher. Butcher played duos with both Otomo and Sachiko and joined the quintet for a rousing sextet: stunning twin saxophone interplay, the unparalleled openness of the Marsh/Edwards rhythm pairing, Sachiko's deft high-frequency interventions and Otomo's guitar at the center -- moving between abrasive textural invention and suggestive single note runs of ever-shifting melody. Otomo Yoshihide is one of the most important musicians of the Japanese underground/avant-garde. He moves between free jazz, noise, improvisation, composition and the unclassifiable with a generosity that opens up the possibilities for expression in all of the constellations with which he's involved. After the earthquake/tsunami struck his native Fukushima in early 2011, Otomo played very little outside of Japan, dedicating a considerable amount of energy to the relief efforts there, including the annual international Project Fukushima concerts. He played London's Café OTO in 2013 for two stunning multi-day residencies, including a revision of the remarkable piano solo he first performed in 2009 and a ripping quintet with John Butcher, Mats Gustafsson, Guillaume Viltard and Mark Sanders. Sachiko M has been active as a sampler player since 1994. Early in her career she was involved in the cut-up and "plunderphonic" (or "plagiaristic") sampling movements. In 1998, in a drastic departure from those approaches, she originated the revolutionary method she uses to this day -- manipulating the sampler's internal test tones. With the 2000 release of Sine Wave Solo, her extreme solo recording consisting entirely of sine waves, Sachiko M suddenly became the focus of intense interest on the international scene, including European music festivals and Britain's Wire magazine. Since then, she's been active on an irregular basis in a number of projects -- including the experimental electronic music duo Filament, the electronics trio I.S.O., a duo with Toshimaru Nakamura, and the duo Cosmos with Ami Yoshida -- in addition to collaborating with various musicians from other countries. Evan Parker has been a consistently innovative presence in British free music since the 1960s. Parker played with John Stevens in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation and held a long-standing partnership with guitarist Derek Bailey. The two formed the Music Improvisation Company and later Incus Records. He also has tight associations with European free improvisations -- playing on Peter Brötzmann's legendary Machine Gun session (1968), with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens (a trio that continues to this day), Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath, and Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO). John Edwards has played with Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke, and many others. Tony Marsh was a vital presence in London's improvised music scene right up until his shocking passing in April 2012. John Butcher is a saxophonist of rare grace and power, who has expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone far beyond the conventions of jazz and other musics, to encompass a staggering range of harmonics, multiphonics, overtones, percussive sounds, and electronic feedback. But his playing is far more than merely an array of special effects: it's characterized by an intensity that propels it into strange new places that are both incredibly beautiful and deeply exhilarating. Otomo Yoshihide (guitar), Sachiko M (sampler), Evan Parker (saxophones), John Edwards (double bass), Tony Marsh (drums), John Butcher (saxophones, side B). First pressing of 500. Three-color screenprinted sleeve designed by Paul Abbott and printed by Pat @ Heavyrock Screenprinting on archival-quality card. Mastered and cut by Andreas "Lupo" Lubich at Calyx. Pressed at Record Industry in The Netherlands on high-quality heavyweight vinyl.