*2023 stock* "For Derek Bailey, improvisation was an end unto itself. He considered the artistic practice to be so sacrosanct that he almost viewed recording as a perversion. Why preserve for posterity a musical act that is meant to be experienced in the moment? Fortunately for us, the most unique improviser to ever strike against six strings has left behind plenty of recordings for us to puzzle over, thanks in large part to percussionist Andrea Centazzo’s label Ictus. One particular record, Drops, was a duet recording with Centazzo and Bailey released in 1977. But really, when you’re this deep into the avant-garde, it could have come from any era.

“Playing is about playing with other people,” Bailey plainly states. “Improvisation is a process that gets relationships sorted out.” And while Drops certainly is an environment where two improvisers are free to play off one another’s ideas for close to 40 minutes, a newcomer to such freedom in music would be hard-pressed to tell if there is true telepathy taking place or if each musician is just living in his own head. Heck, even people who have heard Bailey before and know how to adjust their ears accordingly may have questions about what’s going on here. Straight from the top, the overall view starts to blur as the conclusion of first track, “Drop One,” has so much in common with the start of the second track, “Recapitulation, Reiteration and Rabbits.”

For those new to Bailey’s style, this is not a guy who can just sit down and strum an E chord. Nor does he play any kind of recognizable scales. When he plays the guitar, it sounds like something has gone wrong with either the performer or the instrument. Not only is it difficult to tell pure notes from harmonics, but his approach can fool the ear into thinking that his guitar has been prepared in some Cagian manner. But without it, we would never have had Henry Kaiser or Marc Ribot taking leisurely strolls through paths that Bailey forged in thoroughly bizarre fashion. Likewise, Centazzo is not the kind of percussionist to sit down at a drum kit and pound out a beat. He’ll bang on drums and symbols over the course of these nine tracks, but he’ll also smack and scrape things that could pass for household items. Together they make quite a strange racket.

It’s impossible to tell if “How Long Has This Been Going On?” has anything to do with the Gershwin brothers composition, but it does offer the listener some reprieve with Centazzo’s subtle use of a gong and Bailey’s comparatively softer touch. If Bailey’s guitar style bordered on percussive on the two previous tracks, Centazzo’s gong tones complete the table-turning nature of atmosphere. The idea of tonal percussion carries over into “Drop Two?” as Centazzo fiddles with what sounds like a kalimba. It’s interesting that “Drop Two?” and “Drop Four?” have question marks in their titles whereas their odd-numbered brethren do not, as if questioning their validity (strangely enough, “Drop Two?” is the longest track at nearly eight minutes).

Upon hearing Chopin’s music for the first time, more than a few critics complained that the dense harmonies made it difficult to tell if the pianist was hitting the correct notes. Anyone who is not attuned to music that is as outwardly free as it is on Drops will understandably have a similar reaction. How can you tell if they’re doing it right? Is there a “right” way to speak of? If Bailey and Centazzo went about this all wrong, would you be able to tell? These are fair questions to have, until you stop and realize that Bailey literally wrote a book about the nature of improvisation. When someone has the confidence to educate the masses on a certain subject, it’s in your best interest to trust their process as they see fit. Thus, Drops is a 100%-in-the-moment recording. Noise begets noise down to the very last groove, exploring just one niche of music’s outer limits." - John Garratt