Evan Parker
The Snake Decides (LP)
LabelOtorokuGenreJazz & Improvisation
Out of stock
Tracked express shipping from Italy, no customs or import VAT in the EU. Shipping costs
condition (record/cover): M / M
With original innersleeve.
Michael Gerzon, the Oxford mathematician who co-invented Ambisonics, engineered this session in St Paul's Church, Oxford, in 1986. Evan Parker plays soprano saxophone alone, and the church is part of the instrument: the circular breathing and the interlocking lines he draws from a single horn take on the long decay of the nave.
The title piece fills side one at just under twenty minutes. Side two holds three shorter pieces with bookish titles: Buriden's Ass points to the paradox of the donkey that starves between two identical bales of hay, and Haine's Last Tape bends Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. The record came out on Incus, the label Parker had co-founded with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley, as his fourth solo LP for the label.
Release notes
Recorded 30 January 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford. Housed in a reverse board sleeve with new liner notes this is the ultimate document of one of the most important recordings in all of Parker’s extensive and exploratory catalogue. Edition of 500 copies
| A1 | The Snake Decides | 19:56 | |
| B1 | Leipzig Folly | 11:42 | |
| B2 | Burlden's Ass | 6:29 | |
| B3 | Haine's Last Tape | 6:01 |
- George Murphy
- Artwork [Woodcut]
- Michael Gerzon
- Engineer
- Brian Morton
- Liner Notes
- Giuseppe Ielasi
- Mastered By
- Caroline Forbes
- Photography By
- Mark Harwood
- Reissue Producer
- Evan Parker
- Soprano Saxophone
- Adam Skeaping
- Transferred By
