azd07-LP: Alan Courtis / Bruce Russell / Eddie Prevost / Mattin: The Sakada Sessions (2009)

Now that we've wrapped up our inaugural six-volume CD series, Azul Discografica continues in earnest with our first vinyl release, The Sakada Sessions. Sakada is the duo of Eddie Prevost (AMM) and experimental noise agitator Mattin (Billy Bao, Josetxo Grieta, and countless other projects). Since Sakada's 2001 inception, the pair has performed with a host of radical improvisers of the highest order. This record documents two such sessions: the first, a spare, inverted dronework featuring Alan Courtis on guitar and electronics, Prevost on bowed cymbals, snare, and miscellaneous percussion, and Mattin beaming grainy laptop feedback through the mist; the second, an intense, uneasy scrape session with The Dead C's Bruce Russell, whose synth drones provide an insistent counterpoint to Mattin's roaring computer noise and Prevost's mechanized tam-tam drills and cymballic violence. At times, the musicians sound uncannily like one another, Mattin teasing Russellesque squalor out of his circuitry, Eddie's perverse timekeeping recalling Alan's degree-zero pulsations on that early Billy Bao CD... It's an extraordinary set: two sidelong improvisations by three generations of uncompromising improvisers. As usual, the performances are of a very high calibre. By necessity, this is an extremely limited edition. Silkscreened covers, exquisite sound, an impeccable piece of work in every respect.

1st press released July '09




Reviews:


The Wire #309 (UK, November 2009)


"There are people who make far more beautiful music than I do", admits Basque laptopper Mattin in a recent interview. "I want something that fucks with my mind, that really questions to the core what judgment itself is, a social thing, an ideological thing. Not something that reaffirms my own 'very good taste'." Even so, when it comes to choosing partners, his taste has been consistently excellent; a list of Mattin collaborators read like a Who's who of latterday Improv and Noise, featuring artist as extreme and diverse in orientation as Junko and Radu Malfatti.
Sakada is a long running project with AMM percussionist Eddie Prévost, in whose Friday night workshops Mattin cut his teeth a decade ago. Only one of their releases so far has been a duo, though - instead, chameleon-like, the Sakada sound morphs to suit the input of the invited guest, raw and terse with Rosy Parlane (on the self-titled 2001 debut on w.m.o/r), restrained and tense with Rhodri Davies, Mark Wastell and Margarida Garcia (Never Give Up On The Margins Of Logic, Antiopic 2004).
So it is on the The Sakada Sessions, two side-long traccks recorded respectively in 2006 and 2004. On the more recent of these they're joined by ex-Reynols frontman Alan Courtis, whos thick poncho of guitar sludge wraps Prévost's bowed cymbals and Mattin's squeals and sampled snare drum thuds in a dark psychodelic smog that barely clears in the final seconds with a groan of distant traffic from the world beyond. On the B side, the third man is The Wire contributor Bruce Russell, another Mattin hero, whose brutal guitar playing in The Dead C he cites as a major influence. In apparent contrast to their well argued and erudite written commentaries elsewhere on the aesthetics of New Music, the music these three men make lurches forward with ugly abandon, relentlessly thwarting expectations, proof that the best way for music  to fuck with the mind is to start by fucking the ears. Dan Warburton.

KFJC (USA)

Two side-longs with slightly different players. Side A was a performance/exhibition exploring sound as a weapon. Courtis on guitar/electronics, Prevost on percussion, and Mattin on computer feedback, recorded in 2006. Starts out very minimal, banging on a can style. Whining guitar and whimpering strings, and what sounds like a moist hand sliding on metal (cringe). Sounds take turns, and eventually come all together in a tardis-like drone. Side B replaces Courtis for Russell on synth. This side is more of a power saw infested drone. Some high pitched frequencies, and warbling electronics. Has a science fiction feel almost, in an experimental sound way. Reviewed by cinder on May 20, 2010 at 12:02 am