Birchall/Comyn/Fairhall/Perrett: Watergrove Part Two

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Adam Fairhall
David Birchall (banjo, thumb, p, elec)
Michael Perrett
Francis Comyn

Label:

Confront Recordings

May/2021

Media Format:

DL

RecordDate:

Rec. 16 September 2020

The single, half-hour performance on this digital album is entitled ‘We Might Be On The Edge Of A Moor Facing A Wind Like Chilly Daggers But Stick With Me One Day We'll Be Back In A Tiny Room Playing To No One,’ brilliantly satirising the sobering reality of playing improvised music to often virtually non-existent audiences, while simultaneously valorising this quixotic attempt to replicate that experience during the pandemic by playing outdoors, to literally no audience at all.

Recorded in the locale of Watergrove Reservoir near Manchester, the piece is wrapped in the blustery ambience of an insistent wind rustling leaves and long grasses while four improvisers from the North West of England attempt to leave their sonic stamp on the environment. Francis Comyn pings small gongs and telegraphs desultory tattoos on a loose-skinned frame drum; Adam Fairhall's accordion drones like an Indian harmonium; Michael Perrett's sax bobs and weaves like a bird in the branches above; and David Birchall teases out a fine filament of electric feedback. It's probably the most enjoyable post-apocalyptic neo-neolithic jam-band I've heard all month.

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