Crackle

Six improvisations for Cello and Double Bass

Purchase digitally:

https://loosetorque.bandcamp.com/album/crackle-six-improvisations-for-cello-and-double-bass

Fred Lonberg-Holm – Cello
Nick Stephens – Double Bass

1. one 6:23
2. two 10:59
3. three 6:38
4. four 15:09
5. five 5:47
6. six 8:45

Artwork Fay Stephens

Loose Torque LT026 Category

“The protagonists weave a multi-layered work that negotiates all dynamics. There is a restlessness to the pieces that never allows you to settle whilst they penetrate the shifting strands that cross their handiwork. They take pleasure in any method to extract a sound. Nothing is squandered, nothing is misdirected. Every expressive aspect of the cello and double bass are considered. Furious runs nudge against agitated gestures. Expressive bowing skims, strokes and touches. The subtle gradations within each tone colour are examined, manipulated, and in some cases battered, in order to fully explore the distinct character and quality of each musical sound…It is not often that you come across artists who take such joy in reducing the lexicon of their instruments to its constituent parts in order to reinterpret it. This encourages an active listening as the music/notes are smashed into their most fundamental elements. They interrogate the qualities of sound, and it is as if we are asked to be present at the post-mortem… Genesis and annihilation live together side by side in each moment” – Jack Tatty, The Sound Projector read full review:
https://www.thesoundprojector.com/2014/11/13/not-pretty-music/

“the collection features a whole array of intuitive coups comprising agile chatter, investigative feverishness and inspection of hardly stable tones. As evidenced by repeated microtonal misbehaviors, there’s no love lost between the musicians and Madame Consonance. Still, the duo manages to attribute musicalness to the smallest particle; even the fingers’ grime left on the strings appears to have a say” – Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes.

“The duo immediately establish a common language that encompasses organic elements of fiery free jazz, through exploration of extended bowing techniques or often simple, straight- forward and lyrical, chamber playing. The two juggle between these shifting elements, to form searching, restless dynamics and and multi-layered textures” Eyal Hareuveni, All About Jazz

Released January 1, 2014

Recorded in Northwood 21 April 2011
Recorded and produced by Nick Stephens
Artwork Fay Stephens