I think I have written here before, a year or two back about how sometimes our memories of live concerts can differ wildly from what we hear on CDs of the same performance released later. In the case of SLW’s second CD release named Fifteen point nine grams I can extend this a little further. SLW (the acronym stands for Sound Like Water, the name reportedly originating from the group’s first gig in a disused swimming pool) are Burkhard Beins, (percussion) Lucio Capece, (soprano sax and bass clarinet) Rhodri Davies (electric harp and devices) and Toshimaru Nakamura, (no input mixing board) something of a modern improvised music supergroup. Fifteen point nine grams was recorded live at the NPAI festival in Parthenay, France during the summer of 2007. I was lucky enough to have been able to attend the festival and wrote (poorly) about it here. On the day I sat in what was a large, corrugated iron shed, previously used (I think) for holding farm animals to listen to the music. The building had a very high ceiling and its flimsy construction didn’t make for a the most resonant of spaces, which, when filled with probably 200 or more people perhaps wasn’t the best of places to listen to improvised music. The group then played through a large P.A. quite loudly. The sound in the room seemed to blow about all over the place, and from where I was sat it was a real struggle to make out individual contributions to the music, much of the detail was not clear. Chatting with the musicians afterwards Toshi Nakamura told me that he had hit a technical problem, and that some of the crackling sounds he had made were not intentional. I remember thinking at the time that nothing sounded out of place and being slightly amused that Toshi knew which crackles were intentional and which were not!

On the night I made a rough recording of the gig on my little Edirol recorder, purely for my own reference purposes should I have chosen to write a more detailed review. When I later heard the recording back, when at home in England the music sounded nothing like I remembered. Everything seemed much louder and heavier, but I could also hear the sounds of people on creaking seats etc around me, drawing my attention to them in a way I just hadn’t noticed on the night. Still the details in the music were unclear though, despite the increase in volume. Then, maybe six months later one of the group sent me a recording of the concert taken from the mixing desk on the night, and mastered roughly by Toshi. Here the music sounded completely and utterly different. With background sound removed, the four musicians balanced correctly, and crucially, all of the detail in the music crystal clear, it was really like listening to a different performance altogether. Now, the final released version of the music, on the excellent Organised music from Thessaloniki label has arrived, I believe remastered again, and about a year after last hearing the music I have spent a couple of days with it now. Listening closer, with more care, perhaps with a more critical ear I am still hearing new things in there I don’t recall, or have remembered incorrectly. I have listened to maybe 400 other CDs since then though, so how accurate could my memory be anyway? I had a great time in Parthenay, and on that night in particular, so I will always remember that SLW’s set fondly, but listening to the music now have I gained anything from attending the concert? Certainly no more insight into the music, which sounds here completely different to what I remember, so I might as well have never heard this before…

So how does it sound? Well more detailed, involved and louder than the last SLW CD. That one, which came out last year on the Formed label received a mixed reaction upon its release. People that didn’t like it really chose to completely dismiss it, perhaps because it sounded so unlike what many hoped the disc would sound like. The music was really quite spare, a combination of simple extended sounds put together in a very uncomplicated manner, rarely getting loud and avoiding much in the way of dramatic dynamics. To me that release sounded (and still sounds as I played it yesterday) almost composed in the way the music is arranged, an almost Wandelweiseresque feel to it. It certainly wasn’t the detailed layering of expressive dialogue the four musicians are capable of and many people hoped for, but then I don’t think it was ever really meant to be, at least not in such an obvious fashion. I like the disc anyway, though I can also see why others felt disappointed. Fifteen point nine grams (no idea what this title refer to by the way) is in many ways similar to the first CD, but also quite different as well. The basic structures in the music are similar, the sounds used are mostly (but not entirely) extended ones lasting for a minute or so at a time, and there is still a strong sense of structure to the music. The difference is in the detail though, as there is a lot more grit and grain in the music this time around. the sounds are much more forceful, right from the start when Capece’s sax pops firmly into life and following on throughout there is more volume, more urgency and energy in the playing. Although on several occasions things shut down completely into silence there is less space in the music than on the first disc, less of the airy feel and much more of a tense, nervous edge to proceedings.

The choices made by the musicians in the music are very subtle, but these are four of the very best improvisers we have today and it shouldn’t come as a surprise for me to say that the balance of the music, the restraint as much as the need to play and the blend of higher and lower register sounds is all done very well indeed. Perhaps this CD is more of an improv record than the first one, the interaction between the quartet is more marked, the tension between different musicians’ inputs more noticeable. The fact they were playing amplified (I am guessing they weren’t for the first release) and at reasonably high volume in a large room seems to have brought out “bigger” sounds, and bolder statements. There are often heaving swells in the music where all four musicians seem to be playing, slow motion wave-like crescendoes that have a rousing effect on this listener, but also small, intimate moments where maybe a Beins percussion figure is set against a low tone from one of the others. So yes, I liked the SLW concert in Parthenay. I liked my bootleg I made of it as well, though it sounded nothing like the first mixing desk recording I heard. A year or more after all of these though I like the final CD release which again sounds nothing like I remember. The same music can sound so different depending on how it is heard and under what circumstances. Other people doubtlessly will dislike Fifteen point nine grams, maybe as vehemently as some disliked the first SLW disc, but we all hear things differently depending what state of mind we are in when we listen, or what is going on in our surroundings. Tonight, sat quietly with headphones on it sounded really good to me, exciting, involving and still not what I might expect from this group. Perhaps in a year’s time I will come back to the recording and listen again and write about how I feel. Someone remind me.

Oh and the sleeve design on this new release is lovely.