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Volume V: Cafe OTO, 2009​-​06​-​26

from Archive: Volumes I​–​V: 2005​–​2009 by The Seen

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Thinking about The Seen, and listening to this recording from almost a decade ago, multi-layered concepts of a network kept coming to mind. There is the loose and constantly evolving network of musicians that Mark Wastell convenes; from the community of London-based improvisers he has been working with, some since the late 90s, to visitors who get pulled in like, in this instance, Brooklyn, NY-based Ben Owen. He draws on nodes of his previous collaborations, such as the trio of Matt Davis, Phil Durrant, and Wastell, or his duos with Jonathan McHugh and John Butcher. But equally core to the ensemble, he brings in musicians who have never played together, some of whom may have never even previously met. Each realization offers an opportunity for ongoing expansion and transformation of a social/artistic network.

My thoughts jump from there back to the non-linear processing and rich feedback paths that led to the development of David Tudor’s Neural Network Synthesizer. Under Tudor’s guidance a system was built on the inherent thermal noise of electrons moving through an interconnected multi-dimensional lattice, both driving the output and adding in layers of unpredictability. The Seen operates in an analogous fashion, with each of the members maximizing the dynamic synergies and tensions of timbres, densities, dynamics, and resonances of sound serving as both reciprocated input and output.

The improvisation captured here moves in mercurial striations, with constantly shifting threads and beacons of focus that feed into each other while congruently being fed back into the mix. Throughout, the beguiling semaphore of ideas subsumes any thought of individual voices, creating a web which subtly metamorphoses over time in non-linear intertwined systems. Burred electronics, shimmering reverberations, percussive cracks, skirling whistles, fluttering tones, and dive-bomb oscillations eschew arcs and trajectories, instead, relishing in the instability of the mesh of interlaced collective interaction. The recording at hand of this network-in-play continues to reveal new revelations upon each successive listen. — Michael Rosenstein

credits

from Archive: Volumes I​–​V: 2005​–​2009, released November 27, 2018
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Mark Wastell: tam tam
John Butcher: acoustic and feedback saxophone
Dominic Lash: double bass
Matt Davis: trumpet
Jane Dickson: piano and electronics
Phil Durrant: maschine
Phil Julian: electronics
Jonathan McHugh: analogue synthesizer
Paul Abbott: electronics
Benedict Drew: Roland SH-101
Ben Owen: shortwave radio

Recorded in concert by Simon Reynell at Cafe OTO, London on 2009-06-26.

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