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Later

Later

a review by Peter Marsh of
release format Later by Mark Dresser (CD Album)

text

Over the last 26 years or so, Fred Frith has been quietly (and occasionally very noisily) deconstructing and reconstructing the electric guitar, sometimes literally. It's a sobering thought that he released his first album of freely improvised guitar solos in 1974, and even more sobering to remember that it was released on Virgin Records. Ah, them were the days. Fast forward (through Henry Cow, Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Naked City etc) to 1994 and here's Fred taking a break from his compositional career, solo projects and sundry other collaborations to team up with drum machinist Ikue Mori and double bassist Mark Dresser for a set of improvisations.

Mori is probably well known to motion readers as a one woman drum orchestra, conjuring up dense rhythmic collisions and clouds of almost industrial atmospherics that can reference anything from Toru Takemitsu's percussion writing, gamelan orchestras or musique concrete to John French's drumming with the Magic Band. Like Frith (with whom she works quite often), she is able to respond with fantastic speed and dexterity to anything that's thrown at her. This is all the more amazing considering the unresponsiveness of her chosen instrument, which in her hands throws off all its history and associations and becomes something else entirely.

Dresser (who's worked most notably with Anthony Braxton, Tim Berne, John Zorn and Bob Ostertag ) is an interesting choice and much more of a jazzer than Frith's usual collaborators, and it's his presence that distinguishes this record from the later Death Ambient trios of Mori, Frith and bassist Kato Hideki. Dresser's unabashed virtuosity on his instrument and his dark, resonant yet springy tone meshes beautifully with Mori's rhythmic matrices, prodding funkily one second, dropping to a buzzsaw arco drone the next. He also provokes Frith into more expansive gestures than on the Death Ambient material.

The guitarist is as mercurial as ever, spitting out perverse cut-up rock 'n'roll clichés on the opening 'pocket', loosing koto-like plucks and bends from his tabletop guitar on 'describe it either' or creating sky-scraping ambience at the close of 'We Build'. Even at its most abstract there's an accessibility and attractiveness to Frith's playing which is undeniable; his is a joyful noise. The most arresting track on the whole collection is probably 'the soul hovers', recorded at a gig after the recording session. It's like a summing up of the preceding pieces and ends with a beautiful Frith violin passage over Dresser's fuzzed drone and Mori's splintered, glassy chimes. Why this album's sat around for six years is a mystery (maybe they were working on the marketing strategy), but I for one am very glad it's seen the light of day. Posted by Peter Marsh at 00:00, 25 Aug 2000