Mutablemusic
Robert Dick & Thomas Buckner : Flutes & voices (US,rec.2009,pub.2010)***'
Free music improvisation with a voice as well somehow I always find more rewarding. The only thing I still miss often is a scientific or conceptual foundation or context, no matter how spontanuous or intuitively achieved, a grounding area. Never the less especially with a voice performances become like a visual spectacle and therefore are a bit more easy to describe.
Robert Dick has explored the flute playing techniques inside out. He's able to make his instrument a neutral adapting to the moments voice of expression. He's capable of being inventive, totally in the moment. Thomas Buckner is used to use his voice as an improvisational instrument. This record is their cooperation, not sure how much it was prepared. Both artists have their backgrounds.
A lot of times the improvised expressions are a direction towards a commonly known expression of melody and rhythm, but holds some restrained power, so that the expression itself focusses a bit more on the production and invention of sound itself. Therefore, Robert Dick explores the inner tube-sounds of the flutes (a flute in F, in C and a flute with a glissando headjoint) and the tapping, with the full range of these possibilities, with the breathing and throat expressions before actually playing the flute melodically starts from the same level as the singer Thomas Buckner who uses the same sorts of restrained, breathing in while using his voice instead of breathing out, using his throat, his lips and mouth and tongue, or occasional snorting, before even language, even as a newly formed language, becomes any form of directing expression. Only a bit of mumbling and near-singing forms itself spontaneously, breathing being an equal part of singing, sound exploration the norm. Both artists adapt to each other very well. It is the flute which comes to contemporary and melodic improvisation first (with accents and pitches on piccolo), followed by the exploration of syllables and creative existence melody on voice. There's a rhythm like in jazz, not yet spoken word, singing comes nearer. Within this process the flute improvisations double its tonal expressions. The album leaves a bit an open ending. Like a collection of an interesting meeting point.
