Recorded at the Huddersfield Music Festival in
2015 by the classic trio - John Tilbury, Eddie
Prevost and Keith Rowe; an event notable for
the return after a ten-year absence of Kieth
Rowe to the ensemble. For Eddie it was fraught
from the start (as he explains in his extensive
booklet note) and because of repeated
coughing during their quiet and suspended
performance, he strongly opposed the release
of the recording at the time. You do hear the
occasional cough and, in the light of Eddie's
ire, it does raise the Cagean question - if one
cares to think about it - but all the same I don't
think it materially undermines the recording as
a listening experience (and certainly not in the
way that it must have compromised the concert
itself. Which for me raises more interesting
issues than the Cagean question does. But,
like Eddie, I digress). Taken as found, this is an
enigmatic, floating performance that teeters on
the edge of perception, like a cloud of virtual
particles flickering in and out of existence;
there's no discernable logic to it but things
happen and somehow you can sink into them.
It's an experience and, in fact, I think the
occasional extraneous cough unconsciously
helps invoke the tension between performers
and audience in the room on the night, which
makes even more effective the precarious
fragility of the music - if music it be; in a way it's
more like time passed under a spell; at least it
can be. So, if you know and like AMM, or are
ready to invest in something existentially liminal
and aesthetically enigmatic, then this is for you.