I have recently been reading a lot of Eddie Prevost’s writing, both going back over his two  earlier books of improvisational practice and also reading his contribution to the new Noise and Capitalism book made available by Mattin and friends. I don’t agree with everything he has written, in particular parts of Minute Particulars, his second book, where his criticism of technology in improvised music seems at first sight to be somewhat unfair and inaccurate. In the new text in Noise and Capitalism however Prevost seeks to clarify his comments in the earlier book, stating that his problem is not necessarily with technology or its potential, but how it is often used, pointing to the use of instant oppressive volume and the laziness of sampling (does anyone still use straight samples anyway?) as his main concerns. I can get behind these statements much more easily. Prevost’s comments on improvised music as a part of a self-supportive community ring very true with me however, and having watched  from various distances the improvised music community in London shift and evolve through varying stages it has always been clear to me that the  co-operation and support that the various elements of that community have always provided each other has kept things going, revitalising things when required, picking up the pieces if necessary.

I have written before about the recent sense of very close community that seems to have formed around Prevost’s weekly improv workshops in London gradually over the last decade, but quite evidently over the past couple of years. Last night’s concert by 9! held at the ICA was probably the clearest representation of this that I have experienced yet. The nine members of the group are all regulars at the workshop. Watching them before the concert their understanding of each other when not playing together, their unspoken intimacy and relaxed confidence before playing what was a pretty big gig in front of a decent sized audience said a lot. The biggest criticism of a close community like this, when viewed from a distance, is that individual characters and tendencies, both musical and otherwise will be flattened out into one norm, perhaps following the example of the person seen to be at the helm, in this case Eddie Prevost. This is just not the case within this small yet vibrant musical community though. There are so many individuals, they disagree with each other a lot of the time, and on key issues. There are completely different musical approaches to be heard just as there are opposing views and characters to listen to. The music we heard last night worked as a whole, yet contained violent contrasts in sound and style, instrumentation and dynamic. What makes this community so strong however, what really marks it as something special to me right now is one shared sense of discovery. If one thing comes out of the teaching of Prevost it is a relentless search for new approaches to musical situations, new sounds needing to be found at just the right time and the lessons that are learnt on every occasion that it all doesn’t work out. The instrumentation itself does not matter, whether it be air blown through a tube or a screeching hotwired oscillator. Understanding the materials to hand though, how they might be used, or where they might go next is crucial. Last night we heard the delicacy of a stroked cello string and the trauma of a brass cymbal thrust into a speaker cone. We heard the almost relentless playing of a double bass and the occasional caress of percussion every now and again. What is played and how often matters not if it was the right thing at the right time. The occasional percussion, separated by long periods of inactivity came from Eddie Prevost himself last night, who, most unusually for him probably played the least of all of the group across the hour long improvisation. He was sat some way back behind me, but often when I turned to look at him he was just sat quietly listening, with a smile on his face, as if proud of what was unfolding around him.

9! on this occasion were a different line-up to previous incarnations. Alongside Prevost’s percussion were Ute Kangiesser, (cello) Seymour Wright, (saxophone) Paul Abbott, (electronics) Sebastian Lexer, (piano+) Ross Lambert, (electric guitar and objects) Guillaume Viltard, (double bass) Jamie Coleman, (trumpet and some percussion) and Grundik Kasyansky (electronics). I have greatly enjoyed each of these musicians’ music in smaller groups this year, but was intrigued, having (shamefully) never seen 9! play live before as to how they would work in this large unit. Although there wasn’t really any situations where smaller groups broke out of the larger set-up and played little sections consciously on their own, there were probably no occasions in this performance where everyone played at once. In general there was enough space left in the music for the musicians to add a contribution freely and easily at any one time. Although the sudden percussive blasts of sound that would eminate from Abbott or Kasyansky’s electronics might momentarily stand out above the rest of the group these interventions were very much part of the music, reactive and proactive additions to the collaborative work rather than any obliterative aggression. Occasionally I struggled to hear Kangiesser’s playing when things got louder, but this may have been because she was sat furthest away from me and played characteristically gently in places. Overall the music was a constantly evolving stream of interaction coming from all angles and in many forms.

The group began playing, or at least some of them did while the audience were still filing into the smaller theatre space that the performance thankfully took place in rather than the acoustically awful main room at the ICA. In fact it appeared that some of the musicians had begun by just warming up and checking their equipment, and somehow this evolved into a collaboration that grew and spread until the group were all involved. Whether this amusingly different beginning had been intended or not I am not sure. The faces of one or two of the group suggested maybe not, but it was actually a great way to begin a performance that felt constantly fluid and full of surprises. The most active players were Viltard on bass and Coleman’s trumpet, the former keeping up a steady flow at relatively low volume throughout much of the performance, only pausing a couple of times. There was a lot of use of radios, with Lambert and Wright making good use of similar wind-up models, and Kasyansky repeatedly introducing tiny fragments from somewhere, though I couldn’t see a radio in sight. For much of the time he seemed to use a small metal spanner attached (I think) to a contact mic to produce an extraordinary array of sounds in a very simple, physically direct manner, really attacking his wooden table with it on more than one occasion. Wright and Lambert’s radios also seemed to have some kind of siren built in, (maybe a personal attack alarm?) and these were used brilliantly together at one point, with Wright’s buried in the bell of his sax as Lambert messed about with his by winding up the dead machine slowly. Sounds came from all over, but only when they needed to be made. Abbott’s cymbals crashed to the floor, Lambert broke out into little jazzy melodies, Prevost and Lexer picked their spots for little flourishes, the latter even letting a spree of free jazz-like vignettes fly at one point.

Trying to describe the way the music sounded though, exactly what happened, is both impossible and fruitless. What matters was the trusting sense of collaboration. Not comfort, or tried and tested routine, but a respectful urge to push and shove at each other, unsettle things that seemed to hit a groove, start things anew when it all seemed to come to a halt. Listening to this hour of music was a real adventure, (maybe not for the guy sat next to me it seems, who fell asleep slumped against me before the music began and didn’t wake up until two minutes from the end, but anyway…) following it through its twists and turns, dead ends and open spaces was mentally exhausting but thoroughly engaging and enjoyable. Nine musicians working together could probably be said to form a small community, and sat dead in the middle of the half circle they formed around me last night I felt a part of that, enclosed not only by sounds coming from all angles but by ideas, friendships and creative energies. I had to leave early after the concert so as to catch an early train home as I was up and out at four o’clock this morning, but leaving the ICA last night and walking out into cold, rainy London alone felt even worse than usual, because of how I had felt inside.

On Saturday some of these musicians and others will perform as part of three great sounding trios at the latest installment of Sebastian Lexer’s Interlace series of concerts at Goldsmiths College. If you are able to get along I thoroughly encourage you to do so. I can’t wait myself.

Apologies for the rubbish photo above. I rarely take pictures at concerts these days. if anyone has any from last night they would let me use here it would be much appreciated.