|
Warburton
/ Fuchs / Guionnet / Perraud
RETURN OF THE NEW THING
Leo CD LR 280 (1999)
" …une célébration
toute en finesse d'une vision décalée du jazz contemporain, servie par
une composition et une interprétation hors pair de musiciens tout autant
techniciens confirmés que producteurs d'affects musicaux profondément
touchants. "
Jerôme Schmidt,
www.chronicart
" Les quatre musiciens
nous offrent un moment d'une intensité qui va peut-être renouveler un
genre complet en le propulsant dans des sphères nouvelles… La cohésion
est à un niveau rarement atteint pour un premier disque.. Une formation
qui sait s'ancrer dans ce que le jazz a de plus noble : une musique populaire
que la radicalité ne masque à aucun instant, au contraire. Ce disque a
la qualité des grands, l'ouverture. "
Patrick Gentet,
Improjazz
" The aptly
titled "Y2K" is where the intensity erupts into hyper-drive, eventually
hard-charging the beat to the extreme. Whoa! More buried treasure from
the audio-explorers over at the Leo label."
Bruce Lee
Gallanter, DMG, New York City
" Dan Warburton's
outfit were this event's genuine new find. Recalling The Joe Manieri Trio's
revelatory performance at the first Leo Records festival back in 1996,
Warburton, on piano and violin, with his group of young, top notch French
players, stretched the barest of tunes until they snapped, burst and split
at the seams and left the crowd hungry for more..."
Phil England,
The Wire
" Bien que risquée,
cette idée se montre payante puisqu'elle conjugue deux types d'énergie
: l'une centrifuge, volatilise le matériau sonore et concentre l'attention
sur les timbres et la forme ; l'autre, centripète, ramasse les forces
sur elles-mêmes à fin de bonds et de rebonds : swing, groove, etc. Le
passage de l'une à l'autre, ou, plus exactement, de l'une dans l'autre
requiert une virtuosité toute auriculaire, mais aussi une lucidité quant
à sa position dans l'histoire en quoi la modernité fait nid."
Philippe
Alen, Improjazz
" What they
have produced is a highly creative document of some very exciting, even
thrilling, improvisations that combine sophisticated compositional skills
with excellent free jazz that weaves in and out of rivers and hills. The
conventional instrumentation of alto sax, piano, bass, and percussion
is misleading, as the members of the quartet create a unique collective
sound. While they are capable of energizing fury, they are also adept
at producing challenging collages of soft sounds."
Steven Loewy,
All Music Guide
Warburton
/ Guionnet / La Casa
METRO PRE SAINT GERVAIS
Chloë Chloë 002 (2002)
"As you might
guess from the title, this was recorded in a Paris Métro station one night
in July 2001 by violinist and Wire contributor Dan Warburton, alto saxophonist
Jean-Luc Guionnet and microphonist Eric La Casa. This "environmental"
music makes an interesting (and beautiful) study in advanced counterpoint:
a counterpoint of proximities whose reverberant characters announce themselves
subliminally yet resoundingly, and the temporal counterpoint between the
slow, patient music makers and the spasmodic infusions of commuters and
the trains that disgorge them. One realizes what would in real-time have
been a tedious wait for a train has been filled by the apparition of these
soundspaces in the tunnels, filling the dead time with a poetry of echoes,
ghosts, vapors wafting away into the cool Paris night."
Tom Djll,
The Wire
"J'ai la mémoire
de ce son, celui du métro parisien, bruits de portes qui claquent, sirènes,
ce son lourd du metal on metal qui écrase plus sûrement qu'il emporte.
Toujours ces mêmes sons, porteurs de cette angoisse du départ et de l'énigme
de l'arrivée. Ce disque est porteur d'histoire, mais à la façon des Histoire(s)
du cinéma de Jean-Luc Godard, image temps dépliée dans les différents
" points de son " d'Eric La Casa, mixage entre métro, ces infimes histoires
individuelles qui passent, happées par les micros et ces deux putains
de grands instrumentistes qui creusent dans le son. Voix d'annonces de
la RATP, diva sans visage récitant sa poésie administrative, ritournelles
inquiétantes, comme accompagnée par les intonarumori du métro disparaissant,
reste quelques notes mourantes du violon et du saxophone. Ce disque parle
de passage plus cruellement que beaucoup d'autres, il y aura forcément
une fin au bout de cette nuit inversée, la poésie s'éteindra, les néons
clignoteront seuls, les musiciens partis. L'histoire ne dit pas s'ils
ont fait la manche et ce qu'ils auraient eu pour salaire de leur belle
besogne."
Michel Henritzi
"Right from
the onset, when Guionnet's hollow alto combines with Warburton's gentle
violin drone and the faint sounds of an oncoming train to mirror the opening
to Star Trek, there's no doubt this will be an unsettling recording. Maybe
everyone who's ever ridden on a subway has felt it, the out-of-body strangeness
resulting from those wonderful echoes as well as from being deep below
the surface of the Earth. La Casa's role here is to handle and adjust
the microphones to include, exclude, and produce announcements, chit chat,
click-clack, engine roar, and feedback in allotments that will produce
the most telling effects on the listener's nervous system. With his help,
each train arrival is turned into an event of the highest drama. Guionnet
hisses, snorts and coos the way the most majestic trains have always managed
to -sometimes invitingly, sometimes threateningly. His microtonal departures
from both the underground ambience and Warburton's eerie drones are also
disturbingly effective."
Walter Horn,
Signal To Noise
"Possiamo immaginare
le facce dei presenti alla performance: un silente andare per cammini
minimalisti con un violino che ronza quieto e femmineo e un sax che adombra
di volute fumogene l'atmosfera mentre La Casa si perita di registrare
quel che accade intorno, dalle parole dei passanti (anche una barbona
italiana) alle dermate dei treni. Suggestivo e originale è dir poco, veramente."
Blow Up
Bruno
Meillier /Dan Warburton
CHO
SMI NM 212 (2002)
""Cho"
presents the inquisitive and wide-ranging duo of Bruno Meillier (electronics}
and Dan Warburton (violin, viola and piano) in five improvisations that,
while drawing from each players' experiences in jazz, fall far more squarely
into the realm of non-idiomatic free improv. The integration of the electronic
components with acoustic richness works marvelously and forms a satisfying
and surprising conclusion to this altogether enjoyable disc. "Cho" provides
a fine introduction to the work of these two musicians and is highly recommended
for all aficionados of contemporary improvised music."
Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide
"Crickets
give way to spaceships, which, in turn, devolve into concert violinists
who have apparently suffered some sort of head injury. There are snippets
resembling excerpts of classical repertoire here, but they seem like they've
been damaged by some sort of dry cleaning process. Meillier is sometimes
delicate and sometimes terrifyingly powerful. He never gets stuck in any
formulaic ruts, and he varies both his timbres and his attacks/envelopes
brilliantly. Warburton is simply amazing, particularly on violin. The
brilliance of their conversation would daunt Wilde, and there isn't a
wasted moment anywhere. This is electro-acoustic improv at its very best."
Walter Horn, Signal
To Noise
|
Warburton
/ Sonderberg / Shea
FOLKTALES Vol.3
Crouton Music Crouton No.15
(2002)
"A rapturing
construction of microscopic gestures on violin and treated sound files,
it sucks you in and doesn't let go, thanks to a beautiful sense of tension
and balance, even at this level of reductionism."
François Couture,
All Music Guide
"Be prepared
to make huge intellectual leaps with Dan Warburton's piece, "20012002".
Built of processed violin and sound files, it presents the instrument
as a virtual rodent scurrying around a crawl-space, surrounded by breathing
noises and infra structural groans. It's a spacious piece, offering few
memorable details other than a sudden (and probably frightening) burst
of insectile/clockwork activity twelve minutes in. Active listening is
required."
George Zahora
"Dan Warburton
[is] the only musician who has revealed the very essence of the instrument
so far (nervous, agile and utterly dangerous piece of wood it is)."
Denis Kostromitin
Nikos
Veliotis / Dan Warburton
VW
Absurd CDR#22 (2002)
"Thanks to its
enlightened artistic choices and original three-panel cardboard circle
case, the Greek label Absurd deserves a superior reputation in the world
of avant-garde music limited editions. "VW" is another strong addition
to its catalog. Warburton's "W", maximalist in gesture, closer to academic
electroacoustics, retains some of the elements of string playing - we
still hear pizzicato notes and bowing textures laced through the heavily
treated sounds. Highly dynamic, the piece reaches a gripping climax before
reverting to a drone of its own, closing the circle intentionally or not.
Both artists have buried their improvising selves to let the composer
arise."
François Couture, All Music Guide
"Dan Warburton
ne se contente pas d'être un violoniste côtoyant aussi bien les improvisateurs
(comme Jean-Luc Guionnet, Bruno Meillier) que les manipulateurs de sons
(tel Eric La Casa), il se révèle ici un compositeur talentueux allant
explorer la veine électroacoustique et n'ignorant pas les expériences
de la scène noise. Ce disque illustre à bon escient l'un des courants
en vogue chez les improvisateurs qui ne se satisfont plus du seul langage
instrumental acoustique (devenu pour certains un idiome rabâché) et se
tournent vers "l'électronique" soit pour enrichir leur palette sonore,
soit, comme ici, pour y recomposer leur propres sons. La démarche n'est
sans doute pas neuve mais l'intention est louable et le résultat plus
qu'estimable. Notre plaisir n'est pas gâché et notre intérêt acquis."
Jacques Oger, Peace Warriors
Doyle
/ Perraud / Warburton
THE BASEMENT TAPES
Durtro 063 (2003)
"Arthur Doyle
est de toute façon irréductible à un idiome, figure obstiné de l'idiot
shakespearien bousculant le langage des maîtres. Sur ces basement tapes
Doyle joue pas mal de flûte, mirliton d'une guerre ancestrale refoulée,
Perraud cognant derrière, depuis une autre histoire plus jeune, peut-être
plus confortable, d'autres temps, asymétrie dynamique, chacun se nourrissant
de ce que l'autre met en partage. Warburton tient la musique de DOYLE
dans un inconfort salutaire, violon bastringue, rêche, sale, même si on
entend qu'il connaît l'Histoire lui aussi, qu'il peut en jouer avec désinvolture,
non par irrespect mais par respect aux fantômes qui l'ont fait. Un disque
moins furieux que les précédents, mais pas moins brute pour autant dans
le son, anachronique à une époque pressée par les modes, brûlant à l'écoute."
Michel Henritzi, Revue et Corrigée
"Despite his academic
background, Warburton has an intuitive grasp of free improvisation, and
here he's all over the violin, moving from reedy shamisen-like warbling
and simple plucking patterns through arcing melodies that are drawn out
so teasingly that you can almost hear the fibres of his bow curling. Together,
he and Doyle carve shapes on the opening "Noah Black Ark" that quietly
reassemble the bones of Doyle's original, while turning them into a series
of hieroglyphic patterns worked out in long, slow breaths. Perraud's playing
is as off-kilter as the Ethiopian heartbeat at the centre of Sun Ra's
Arkestra, his gong on "Noah Black Ark" reverberating like the first rays
of the sun over the pyramids. The disc's comparatively pristine recording
quality underscores Doyle's concern for detail, where the poor sound of
earlier releases obscured it. But his most affecting vocal is on "A Prayer
For Peace", where Doyle flutters above Warburton's sonorous drones with
his chirruping little melodies before taking the flute from his mouth
to make a frail plea: "Oh dear Lord, hear my prayer for peace and keep
me warm". With The Basement Tapes the Doyle trio have birthed a new universe
that's crying out to be mapped."
David Keenan, Wire 230, April 2003
"Using what
sounds like a very hard reed, Doyle's stuck-pig squeals and split reed
chirping make even Ayler's explorations sound like Stan Getz emulation.
Plus his example spurs the violinist to legato double stopping and the
drummer to vary martial tempi, chain rattling and extended cymbal soundings.
Additionally, Doyle's vigorous flute work is as gritty and intentionally
non-pretty as anything heard since Rahsaan Roland Kirk left this vale
of tears. If you haven't yet made Doyle's musical acquaintance, be forewarned
that among the powerful music there are some unsettling, perhaps disturbing
vocal asides."
Ken Waxman www.jazzweekly.com
Return
Of The New Thing
TRAQUE
Ayler aylCD 010 (2003)
There are times,
particularly on the long opening track when the ghost of Albert Ayler
and the shadow of Cecil Taylor raise their heads. That these comparisons
can even be made is a tribute to some incredible finger work from Warburton
who is the "real" thing on his primary instrument, the piano. Listeners
accustomed to the (mostly) European post-Coltrane embrace of free improvisation
should be taken by the harsh divergences that run throughout: the altered
tempos on "Traque," the hard-hitting exclamations on "Scent," and the
occasional changes in volume that sometimes seem contrived. Warburton's
powerful presence is particularly strong on "Traque," where he is permitted
to stretch at length. There appears to be a conscious effort to build
slowly (and sometimes not so slowly), with an evolutionary consistency
throughout. Much time is allotted to solos, and they are uniformly superb,
with a special nod to Warburton's CT-like clusters that at their best
come across like meteor showers, and to Guionnet's weird but enticing
disjointedness. Somehow it all works remarkably well though as is so often
the case those not accustomed to "free" improvisation will find this music
very abstract and difficult to follow. For the rest of us, well, how about
a glass of champagne?
Steven Loewy, All Music Guide
|