#random acoustics

2000

This album was a highly pleasant shock: I am a huge fan of John Corbett's writing, and his work as a reissue record label head has changed my life multiple times; I know that Terri Kapsalis is also a noted writer and (I think) JC's partner - so I know two renowned writers were involved here with two heavyweight improvisors with whom i am very familiar, but I really did not know what to expect, musically, from the former half of this equation. Well, I have to say, both JC and TK are both excellent players and improvisors, and if I'd not known any better (which I think would have been better ultimately), I would also have assumed that they are full-time dedicated musicians (especially TK, whose violin prowess is highly admirable) and not folks whose Google search results mentions nothing of their obvious musicality. Overall, this is a really solid album of European-style free improvising, with Mats Gustafsson sounding typically amazing (a blend of highly technical abstractions of Evan Parker, the emotional fury of Peter Brotzmann, and the turn-on-a-dime dynamic sense of a Han Bennink/Derek Bailey duet) and the oft-understated Fred Lonberg-Holm sliding into the crevices as ably as ever.