Graham Reid | | 2 min read
With Fish Thought Extinct
Some decades ago when I hosted my own free-format radio show or was a guest I'd play some early From Scratch for my own amusement (and because I liked it).
I'd wait for the switchboard to light up like a Christmas tree.
The consensus from those who rang in was along the lines of “what the hell is that boring shit?”
Percussion music without the visuals wasn't made for radio, obviously.
I was in thrall of From Scratch whose live performances were art events in themselves and their music – a kind of white people's gamelan, if you will – was extraordinary.
From Scratch had a revolving door career with some performers departing as others came in to engage in the mathematical, demanding discipline of the rhythmic structures.
None of which you could really appreciate on radio.
The ensemble celebrated 50 years of invention this month and this album of extracts from 15 pieces with guest collaborators is a welcome artifact of that.
From Scratch are currently founder Phil Dadson, Adrian Croucher, Shane Currey, Darryn Harkness and Chris O’Connor.
Among the collaborators are Karl Sölve Steven (formerly of Supergroove, Drab Doo Riffs and these days better known for his award-winning soundtrack work), Rāhana Tito-Taylor and Parks (producer Brent Park Tamati, Ladi6's partner), Anita Clark (aka Motte, most recently working with Shayne Carter and Don McGlashan) and Peter Scholes, one of the original Scratch members.
First let's be clear, this album wouldn't play well on radio (although there are pieces which I'd play) but as a sensory experience of sound it is mind bending and evocative.
Te Wā with Tito-Taylor and Parks sounds like a soundscape conceived in dark bush where past and present rub shoulders with echoes of taonga puoro; Timepiece for Janus sounds like it involves brushes, water droplets and a cheap cymbal right at the end; 5^4 Moons is a mesmerising, gamelan-like piece for bells and chimes with a long sustain . . .
Elsewhere Jeff Henderson joins a door-knock piece with grumpy saxophone on Scratch My Arts (the angry rent-man comes a-callin' as panicked occupants hastily clear up the party detritus?), Clark on violin and Richard Francis' electronics create an unnerving soundscape in Black Moon as the camera scans a deserted post-apocalyptic wasteland and . . .
This is an album which evokes and invokes, pushes pure sound as an end in itself (despite these personal responses, each will be to their own) and From Scratch prove themselves as innovative collaborators beyond what we know of their own inventiveness.
As we often say, this is not for everyone – not for radio programmers – but it exists because it happened and here is the important evidence that creativity for its own sake is alive and absorbing, even in the absence of the event and visible action.
So, perfect for radio, doncha think?
.
There is more about From Scratch at Elsewhere starting here.
You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here (it is on vinyl also).
This album is one in the Audio Foundation Records' series. See here for others.
post a comment