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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Beautiful double gatefold, hand numbered package with original artwork by Beverley Waller with liner notes by Clive Bell
Includes unlimited streaming of quite pleased to be playing under a birdcage, that doesn't have a bird in it
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
"The title is a jokey remark made by guitarist Daniel Thompson just before beginning a 20 minute improvised duet with vocalist Kay Grant, recorded at Catford Constitutional Club in South East London. For improv connoisseurs, it very recognisably conjures the informal, intimate atmosphere of the kind of sessions, sparsely attended by a passionate few, taking place in rooms above pubs on any given night of the week.
Its a scene that was vigorously championed by the late John Russell, and his much loved presence looms over the proceedings like a genial spirit. Thompson studied under Russell and his playing exhibits much of the unconventional technique that Russell himself inherited from Derek Bailey - pinging harmonics, brittle clusters and daring intervallic abound. Grant was a frequent collaborator with Russell and the album's other two improvisations were recorded at Mopomoso, the longrunning concert series Russell co-founded in 1990.
Grants performance, too, employs many of the tics and gambits that were once called idiomatic but which are now thoroughly encoded in free improvisation as an idiom of its own, as delineated by pioneers like Maggie Nicols. Much with aplomb, she flings out strangulated murmurs, absent-minded ditties and startling meows like a case study in multiple personality disorder. The duo's performance strategies, too, operate in familiar territory, often based on a tried and tested mirroring technique in which each reacts to the other with such quick-witted rapidity that their gestures seem almost simultaneous.
None of which is to say that the music isn't frequently gripping, especially when they unexpectedly arrive in moments genuine simultaneity, suddenly twinned in strident jabbing and stabbing or stumbling together into a creeping dirge. Moreover, originality isn't really the point. By now, this kind of free improvisation has become folk music, refusing to die and enthusiastically transmitted across generations. Long may it continue." - Daniel Spicer - The Wire
"What can I say about this duet album, the two improvisers being very happy that there's no bird in the empty cage. It reminds me of the Walloon regional hymn "la petite gayole", which says "elle me avait toudi promis, une belle p'tite gayole" and "quand mon canari saura t'chanter, il ira vîr les filles" etc... Guitarist Daniel Thompson's gayole is empty (Empty Birdcage, the name of the label), because he and singer Kay Grant have too much imagination and sense of improvisation to let themselves be locked into a grid or any format, however improvised. Kay Grant's chatter and vocal inventions, spurred on by Daniel Thompson's jerky, barbed-wire playing, pour out a whole life of emotions. The album was recorded at the Catford Constitutional Club at the invitation of Adam Bohman, the maniacal objetist who is also the biggest fan of his colleagues, whatever their vision of improvisation, and at the legendary Mopomoso of the late John Russell. Two sets lasting more than twenty minutes, as people also come to listen to the other friends invited to the evening.
Some might say that Daniel Thompson drew his inspiration from John Russell or acoustic Derek Bailey. But for someone like me who has spent most of his life listening to both, and if the basic sound material and a certain amount of guitar playing are largely shared by the three guitarists, it's clear that Daniel Thompson plays Daniel Thompson with real mastery and an instantaneous sound invention that wanders as much as it synthesises. Abrupt intervals, expressive clusters, Escher staircases, harmonic trompe l'oeil, metallic, squeaking claws, zigzagging cavalcades or ballads interrupted by listening, quivering strings rubbed or scratched. He is instantly recognisable by his obsessions, his bite, his rage. With singer Kay Grant, he established a direct relationship, an immediate telepathy, an intense community of interests to the point where their duo became a real magnet. Kay Grant is not a diva or an overflowing, emphatic passionary - she never shouts - but the faithful possessor of a secret art of inventive sharing and introspective communion, with a sense of method and dosage that sticks to the time of improvisation like the most beautiful conversation between friends. A sense of purity without emphasis. She has a knack for slipping an imaginary ritornello over her partner's repeated motif in broken chords. The suggestion, the stubborn effort of the slightest moment when her throat bursts, her glottis screams, her cheeks sigh, or croak against the microphone. Mouth sounds, elusive jargons, high notes, crushed vowels, guttural miasmas, melodies from the unknown, everything has the mark of intimacy. Her listening skills are phenomenal. Her voice doesn't soar into space with heard tirades, but fights point to point, each nano-second after each nano-second to make her very precise interventions coincide with the esoteric signs of her guitarist sidekick with as much independence as fidelity. The latter transforms his guitar with tingling, scraping, crazy frictions, improbable mutes, liberating harmonics, with an ultra-playful and extreme spasmodic vigour or a disenchanted sway. Their music is already remarkably accomplished. But what can we say about their last London concert on Sunday 5 February, when I myself invited them to perform at the iconic Hundred Years Gallery after our quartet (Casserley, Marzan, Wachsmann and Van Schouwburg)? Their magnificent duet had then moved into a higher dimension, more intense, more constructed, more concentrated and moving. Also present was Armorel Weston, the singer who had fixed the first gigs of John Stevens, Trevor Watts and co. at the Little Theatre Club around 1965 and followed the beginnings of this 'legendary' scene among the first, including Maggie Nicols three years later. Armorel's listening skills and irreplaceable presence added that magic touch of perfect harmony. Coming to London to discover this and our trio with Dan and Roland Ramanan at the Boat Ting, which was then rocking with the knowing smile of Kay Grant, listener. Unforgettable!
And what a beautiful album! - Orynx-Improv and Sounds
credits
released February 5, 2023
Kay Grant - voice
Daniel Thompson - acoustic guitar
CD and Download
EBR008
Track one recorded at Catford Constitutional Club, London on 22nd May 2019 by Kay Grant
Tracks two and three recorded at Mopomoso at The Vortex, London on 25th July 2021 by Pascal Marzan
Mixed and mastered by Alex Ward
All music by Grant/Thompson
Artwork ‘Rhapsody’ by Beverley Waller
Design and production by Daniel Thompson for Empty Birdcage Records
supported by 5 fans who also own “quite pleased to be playing under a birdcage, that doesn't have a bird in it”
It is difficult to find improvisation albums which don't stand in either a "go together" or a "go separately" way of dialoguing. This albums stand in that middle point, not only in a more direct musical speech, but also timbrical. It is that point in which both instruments try to go to the extreme in order to become one (but finding out they can't) where this music happens. matador-uy
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