CONTRE-COURBES
Bertrand Gauguet . alto saxophone
John Tilbury . piano
CD 1
Live at Église Saint Maximin, Metz (Fr)
42:04
CD 2
Live at Festival Paysages d’écoute at L’Espal scène nationale du Mans (Fr)
43:54
Akousis Records 002, 2021
Selected reviews
These two discs showcase two players at their absolute best. A rich and rewarding listening experience. I’ll keep returning to. (Richard Johnson, Adverse effect magazine)
Music you can fall in love with. (Thomas Millroth, Orkester Journalen)
Delicacy and energy, contemplation and tension, focus on details or big arches – contrasts that don’t seem to go together. And yet there are musicians who manage to reconcile them. (Freistil)
In this music of slow unfolding, alternately serene and anxious, the passage of time seems to have no importance, so that one can return again and again to one or other of the recordings in any order to experience spellbinding moments of meditation. (Claude Colpaert, Revue & Corrigée)
Improvisation becomes a practice of sifting through time and space. Sound is sought in the recesses of a darkness-silence that is the third performer. A process of recomposition of an organic idea of musical architecture. (Dionis Capuano, Blow up)
Weaving a path between improvised and aleatoric timbres, Gauguet and Tilbury promulgate an idiosyncratic setting that doesn’t have to attain specific objectives, but impresses with unhurried evolution. (Ken Waxman, Jazzword.com)
Despite having been recorded three and a half years apart, the performances are well matched in their patient evolution and gorgeous atmosphere. (Bill Meyer, The Wire)
Piano and alto saxophone give life to moments of haunting introspection, descriptions of spaces that do not respond to any physical law, that follow delirious geometric investigations of silences, feverish descriptions of the contemporary complex. Very, very interesting. (Massimo Marchini)
Zarte KlavierCluster, schwebend zerrende SaxRöcheleien in vollendetem Gleichgewicht aus Langsamkeit, Spannung, Stille und (gezügeltem) Ausbruch. Packend ! (https://www.westzeit.de/)
Basically, these musicians are epiphanies’ birth attendants, authentic inspirers who connect us to the universal through ceremonial instruments. (Inactuelles)
Tra intemperanze painistiche, armonici, sovrasti, fiati sottolineati con funzione musicale, i due danno sfogo all’invenzione. (Rumori)
I do hope these two work together down the line again, as they bounce off each other well- each adding their considerable talents to the mix to create a most worthy double CD album. (Roger Batty, Musique Machine)
Ein Werk das Ruhe verbreitet und immer neugierig macht auf die nächsten spärlichen Töne, die da kommen. (Wolfgang Kabsch, Musikansich.de)
A jewel for lovers of improvised music. (Piergiuseppe Lippolis, music map)
What remains here, as in other cases of this kind, is the free circulation of the inexpressible and the indecipherable, the living essence of what lies beyond the music. (Esoteros.net)
Unsurprisingly, it’s wonderful music. (…). Necessary work. (Brian Olewnick)
BERTRAND GAUGUET 