Evan Parker, Bill Nace

Tip on sleeves with matte varnish finish. Branches captures the electrifying first meeting of two uncompromising improvisers: Evan Parker, the legendary UK saxophonist and pioneer of multiphonic, trance-state improvisation, and Bill Nace, the American experimentalist known for his radical guitar and taishōgoto explorations. Recorded live at London’s Café OTO on May 25, 2024, this set documents the instant chemistry between two artists who had never played-or even met-before that night.

Nace, closing his three-night OTO residency, brought only his electric two-string taishōgoto, hoping for a sonic foil in Parker’s soprano saxophone. What followed was a 40-minute, unbroken ascent: notes spiral in tight formation, entwining in high-frequency duets that feel like constant take-off, velocity rising, time distorting. Parker’s signature circular breathing and intuitive interplay meet the meta-mantra drone of Nace’s amplified strings, creating a sound world where boundaries dissolve and space warps under sheer energy.

The performance is a rare document of total music-a moment where art, chance, and mutual respect converge. As Thurston Moore writes, “Time seemingly morphed from its ancient human construct of control, rendered inconsequential to the torrential transcendence of the room wildly activated by the magic resonance of the multi-directional pan-spatial sonance of the music as if it were some beatific blessing. It was entirely mystical and mind blowing. A night of Total Music”.

Presented in a tip-on sleeve with artwork by Bill Nace, Branches is released in an edition of 500 as a split between Otoroku and Open Mouth Records. For anyone drawn to the outer limits of improvisation, this is an essential, unrepeatable document-sheer time-bending shredding from two singular voices in contemporary experimental sound