By Gregg Miller

Sax/percussion duo, stressed fireplace music. Wilson Shook performs baritone and
soprano saxes, Ted Byrnes on every part percussive and the kitchen sink.
Incessant drumming, burst after burst of baritone sax strains, within the
custom of ecstatic free jazz. Recorded in Los Angeles (Shook not too long ago
relocated to Oakland). Creative hook after creative hook, patches of sonic
groove, a joyful noisy mess. Bang the cans. Shook’s edgy baritone, an
onslaught of notes. stretched timbres, ripping out brief declarative
phrases, plenty of overtone, growl and punctuation. By no means in a single place very
lengthy. A naturalistic texture. They don’t start to decelerate till the 18:20
mark of monitor two (“Pleasure 2″). Observe 3 is barely extra spacious, the soprano
extra reducing, the silences between phrases barely longer. Right here Byrnes
performs the edges greater than the snareless snare, supporting the soprano’s
register. The identical stressed power and energy as on the primary two tracks. A
bit over midway, they change to bari and the ringing snare drum.

We have now a maximalist type of minimalism: Simply two devices, but an
overload of sonic textures.

Observe 4 (“Pleasure 4″) opens with brushes on snare and a touch of soprano sax
calling like a chicken from someplace excessive above cover. By the three minute mark
(on this 22 minute monitor), they’re nicely into their dialogue, the frantic
brushes proceed, an insistent, boomy tom (small kick?) rounds out the tonal
scheme. Within the eighth minute, the power adjustments when the brushes are
changed by thunder rods (possibly) on a drum with variable pitch. Within the
fifteenth minute, the snares are engaged. The depth is the story.

You’ll be able to hear a sampling of Shook’s different work right here.

Far more in regards to the intense and creative drumming of Ted Byrnes right here.

—

Wilson Shook wrote some very considerate responses to a couple questions over
e-mail:

1. Inform our readers in regards to the document.

We recorded “Pleasure” one afternoon in Ted’s storage, and I might say listening
to it seems like spending a loud, claustrophobic, sweaty hour in Ted’s
storage. We have been each fairly remoted musically and socially for the primary
couple Covid years, so getting collectively to play a number of periods on the level
the place we lastly felt safer doing it felt cathartic, however there’s additionally a form
of furtive, obsessive high quality in regards to the music. Perhaps that is the bunker
mentality. The power we introduced was very particular to that point and place,
and every part that had been happening round us. So it felt emotionally and
bodily potent.

I used to be additionally processing the current dying of Paul Hoskin, who was an affect
aesthetically, in addition to a good friend. The baritone I am enjoying on the document
is Paul’s outdated King Zephyr, which I had simply introduced again from a visit to
Seattle. So there’s somewhat little bit of Paul within the music, I hope.

[You can hear 6 minutes of Paul Hoskin’s bari sax on a train here]

Enjoying with Ted, particularly in duo, demanded a degree of depth and
persistence that I needed to consciously work towards. Among the methods I
used to get into that zone have structural implications for the music, such
because the repetition and mutation of motifs. I am undecided I ever performed like
that earlier than, and I do not actually play like that now.

2. Do you have got a philosophy of music-making or sound that manifests right here, or
that you’re making an attempt to manifest?

For a lot of my historical past as an improviser, I’ve targeted on growing a
sensitivity to the altering second, an agility to reply or not reply to
every shift with a shift of my very own. The emphasis is on listening first of
all, however past that on radical mutability and talent to desert secure,
recognized identities and habits. This music is a bit completely different, in that it
calls for that one proceed to inhabit a given second, depth, and
texture—maybe fairly a bit longer than is comfy and even bodily
tenable. There’s nonetheless de-familiarization happening, nevertheless it’s extra the sort
that occurs once you stare within the mirror for too lengthy. Different artists have
taken this type of concept to extra excessive ends, however this was a stretch for me.

3. What position does the physique play right here — do you consider this as embodied
sound — and if that’s the case, in what sense?

I consider improvising as striving for a type of embodiment that reaches
past particular person our bodies, that could be a means of current in time & house
& in relation to others that breaks the principles that govern mundane
actuality. So there is a paradox of getting out of the physique by actually
inhabiting it.

Music must be consoling, too. Music is the place I’m going to be trustworthy about my
personal physique, which suggests difficult myself and exploring the transformative
potential of the medium, but additionally confronting my very own (fuzzy, inconsistent)
limits with compassion. Doing so within the presence of others can really feel therapeutic.

5. I’ve been listening to Jack Wright’s current What’s What (Relative Pitch, 2023). Are you influenced by or in any other case conscious of Wright’s
strategy to music, (outsider) musicianship, and the saxophone?

Jack has been an affect for a very long time, completely. His strategy to the
instrument was eye opening for me, and his entire engagement with the sector
of improvised music past simply what occurs on stage has been significant in
phrases of theorizing, advocating, and realizing this factor that’s inherently
fleeting and amorphous. By that I imply improvisation as a discourse, an
orientation, a group, an infrastructure community. He additionally has an important
humorousness and play, and an actual dedication to being current and
clear within the music. I like Jack.