Langham Research Centre and John Butcher - Six Hands At An Open Door - 1CD

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC

Persistence of Sound presents a new release from Langham Research Centre and John Butcher. Langham Research Centre work as a quartet, a trio or as a duet to make experimental music using resources and ideas that, until recently, were considered obsolete, redundant and outdated. In this recording, Iain Chambers and Robert Worby use cassette machines, oscillators, shortwave radio and amplified small sounds to improvise with John Butcher.

John Butcher is well-known is well known as a saxophonist who attempts to engage with the uniqueness of time and place. His music ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked works and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics.

For many years Langham Research Centre have been performing indeterminate music by John Cage, Christian
Wolff and others. Their own works have developed ideas from this experimental tradition as well as musique
concrète and post-war European electronic music. During rehearsals they often spend time improvising, galvanised and encouraged by groups like AMM and MEV. John has been improvising for decades but has always had an interest in electronic music and the works of post-war Modernist composers.

In the context of this release he thinks of his performance as similar to tape-splicing, so that a direct tactile connection is made between the concrète/electronic soundworld and the unparalleled acoustic qualities of the saxophone produced when he is playing. Boundless, outspread and utterly unique. Persistence of Sound was founded in 2019 by composer Iain Chambers. Its releases span electroacoustic music, field recordings, and the unclassifiable music between these genres.