Matt Davis, Matt Milton & Bechir Saade – ‘Dun’


‘Dun’
Matt Davis (trumpet & field recordings)
Matt Milton (violin)
Bechir Saade (bass clarinet & flute)
Another Timbre, at12


This is a beautiful disc of improvised music. Two of the trio had played on one of my favourite improv discs from last year (‘Hum’ on the same label), and my expectations were so high that initially I was a little disappointed with ‘Dun’. ‘Hum’ offered a view through a microscope of an extraordinary insect-like world teeming with small sounds and movements, a busy music of tiny gestures that were constantly being readjusted as each new breath or tone changed the microcosmic balance of forces. It was riveting, inspiring music that you couldn’t leave for one second.

I suppose I was hoping for a repeat dose with ‘Dun’, as Matt Davis and Bechir Saade appear here again, though this time with the violinist Matt Milton (of whom I’d not heard). In fact from the start this is a very different soundworld. If ‘Hum’ presented a world viewed through a microscope, ‘Dun’ is a landscape seen through the wrong end of a telescope. It is a music that meanders in a gentle, lazy way through a wide open valley. And once you’ve adapted to the dramatic change in pace and perspective, it offers a sumptuously enjoyable journey.

There are three pieces, entitled simply ‘1’, ‘2’ & ‘3’, the first and longest of which is perhaps the least immediately appealing. But it is this piece that really clears the way and sets the tone for the unique music of this trio. Save for the occasional unpredictable blast from the trumpet or bass clarinet, everything ranges from piano to ppp. The violin especially is sometimes barely audible, and yet Matt Milton’s ultra-quiet scrapings and scratchings are the cornerstone that underpins all that goes on here. Frequently the others will fall silent and it is the violin that keeps the music pushing gently forward, like water in a shallow stream edging past banks of mud or stone. Saade’s gurgling breathy clarinet and Davis’ sustained distorted trumpet tones weave mesmeric patterns in and out and around the violin.

There are moments of relatively conventional beauty – the long bass clarinet tones at the start of ‘2’, and the lovely interplay between trumpet and clarinet near the end of ‘3’ – but there are also passages whose beauty creeps up on you in quite unexpected ways, as in the extraordinary extended ending to ‘2’ which creates a quiet, leisurely climax out of small clicks and twitters.

Having listened to the disc over 20 times now, I have not only adapted to the change in pace from ‘Hum’, but I am repeatedly astonished by how perfectly structured this music appears to be. Given that it was improvised without prior discussion and is presented without any edits in post-production, the balance of each moment, and of the total structure created by the sequence of all the moments, is breathtaking. Everything feels just ‘right’ and in the right place. It is a remarkably mature work by three musicians so young.

Matt Davis – the most established and well-known of the trio - has featured on a string of cd’s of consistently high quality, my favourites being ‘Hum’ (with Rhodri Davies, Bechir Saade & Samantha Rebello), ‘Done’ (with Rhodri Davies & Mark Wastell), and his duo with Graham Halliwell (‘Old School House’). ‘Dun’ slides seamlessly into this series. Again he here uses field recordings to complement the acoustic instruments in his characteristically quiet and subtle way. Bechir Saade is a relative newcomer whose year-long stay in London resulted in three excellent discs (‘Dun’, ‘Hum’ and ‘An Account of My Hut’ – an album of improvised duos with Clive Bell for shakuhachi and ney). His playing has a lovely breathy tone and it’s a loss to the London scene that he has now returned to the Lebanon (though doubtless a huge boost to the emerging scene there). As I said above, I hadn’t heard of Matt Milton, but he is just one of a group of young improvisers who have developed out of the workshops run since 1999 by AMM drummer Eddie Prevost (workshops which Saade also attended while in London). ‘Dun’ suggests that this group of young players may play a crucial role in maintaining, revitalising and extending the art of improvised music within Britain.

Overall this is improvisation of the highest quality, a music that has learned from ‘eai’ (electro-acoustic improvisation) and the ‘New London Silence’, but which is not content to rest on its laurels. It is a music that is moving quietly forward in a unshowy but compelling way, taking us to into new and as yet unheard soundworlds. Wonderful.