Customer Reviews

Live at "Les Instants Chavires"

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This looks promising -- Evan Parker with the quirky, imaginative French guitarist Noel Akchote, joined by Lawrence Casserly and Joel Ryan with realtime computer processing. It's a 1997 live recording from the Paris club Les Instants Chavires, released by Leo in 1998.

Unfortunately, it's not nearly as good as it promises to be. The first problem is that EP and Akchote barely play together at all. Instead, there are two tracks with EP (one with Ryan, one with both Casserly and Ryan), three tracks with Akchote (one with Ryan, one with Casserly, and one with both), and only one track, the last, with all four together. The other problem is that a balance is not often struck between the instruments and their processing -- the processing overwhelms the original "inputs" with massive, frequently uninteresting outputs. Akchote manages somewhat better than Parker to create periodically interesting exchanges with his processing partner that actually sound like a creative dialogue.

For much better realizations of this technological potential, see any of the three recordings of Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble -- TOWARD THE MARGINS (1997), DRAWN INWARD (1999), and the live MEMORY/VISION (2004) -- see my reviews of all three.