Duo improvisations recorded at Goldsmiths College, London, July 2007. Angharad Davies (violin) and Tisha Mukarji (inside piano) - two of the most distinctive young improvisers on the UK scene - unite for their first recording as a duo. An entirely acoustic affair impossible to ignore the heritage that goes before such a recording of piano and violin: the slow pace of Feldman and the New York School, the grey austerity of the Wandelweiser collective echo through these five improvisations.
Davies - classically trained as an orchestral violinist with assured technique - produces sounds on her instrument, no matter how hushed and delicate, confidently made and beautifully controlled. Her playing is mainly textural in nature, using various bowing techniques and materials wedged under the strings to bring out different sonorities. She works with blocks of short, seemingly repetitious phrases that are in fact constantly, subtly changing. Mukarji works exclusively within the piano, addressing the simply prepared strings and the body of the instrument with beaters and what sounds like a bow. She summons up a range of sounds, from distinctly piano-like chimes to rasping wooden vibrations.
As Richard Pinnell wrote in Bagatellen: "The two musicians work superbly together, their patience with the music and impeccable timing combine together with the obvious compatibility of each other's sounds to create music that is deserving of the listener's careful attention. Endspace is quite stunningly gorgeous." Brian Marley in The Wire noted how "When they engage in mutual textural play, the music seems to pause momentarily, shimmering in space."
These two artists have such a lyrical and tangible respect for both the space and interplay between them that the performance is as precise in its musical success as it seems destined to become a milestone recording for this area of music. The music is difficult to pigeonhole - although improvised, it goes beyond the normal borders of improv. Mukarji plays few notes and none is wasted, yet there is an irresistible logic to her playing. A thoroughly engrossing meditation on what can still be achieved with these two most traditional of instruments. Chamber-improv of the highest order.
