Solo reed recordings from the fourteenth ONGAKU: enjoy-sound event.  "Solo wind playing relies entirely on the musician putting the forces of production into motion, by the interaction of breath with reed and mouthpiece, and of hands or other objects of the body of the instrument. Sounds can't be reduced in this context, they can only be processed at a lesser rate of occurence, or not at all. Come. Listen." - ONGAKU: enjoy-sound ---   Nathaniel Catchpole / tenor saxophone John Butcher / tenor saxophone Seymour Wright / alto saxophone Kai Fagaschinski / clarinet Lou Gare / tenor saxophone Evan Parker / soprano saxophone --- Tracklisting:  1. Maurice Brinton (NC) - 18:51 2. All Wright! (SW) - 12:17 3. Saxophony (LG) - 16:53 4. Manchmal glaube ich schon, daß es überhaupt keine Liebe mehr gibt (KF) - 8:53 5. Ich kann im Fortschrift keinen Fortschift sehen (KF) - 13:50 6. 291/5 (JB) - 18:44 7. Solo for Hugh Davies (EP) 19:00 --- Recorded at 291 Gallery, in Hackney, London, UK on the 9th of January 2005 at an ongaku: enjoy_sound production. Recording engineer Ross Lambert. Front cover photograph by Alan and Meg Kemp - "Naturalists and Nomads." 

Dense, epochal cloud of unknowing. Essential.  "The only possibility is to surrender to the ebb and flow of the pervasive group sound, until, finally you are lost inside it, mesmerised by it. You notice that the detail in the music is fascinating, no less the overall shape of the performance, which remains just out of grasp, like a landscape too powerful to assimilate in its entirety." - Melody Maker  --- Christopher Hobbs & Eddie Prévost / percussion Cornelius Cardew / piano, cello  Lou Gare / saxophone, violin  --- Tracklisting:  1. Like A Cloud Hanging In The Sky? - 45:21 2. Coffin Nor Shelf - 45:36 3. Neither Bill Nor Axe Would Shorten Its Existence - 18:08 --- Recorded at the Crypt, Lancaster Road, London W11, 12th June 1968 by Bob Woolford. 

First solo recordings from Lou Gare, founding member of AMM.  "Toward the end of his fine short essay for Laminal, AMM's 30th Anniversary set, Jim O'Rourke asks in relation to the experience of simultaneously hearing the record and viewing the accompanying photograph of AMM's The Crypt, "where was the saxophone?" Here, almost 40 years later, it is. Solo exposed, unfettered, no strings attached. A long way from where it was, or might have been, then, and has been carried, blown, viewed qua saxophone, and not (for a time with AMM played bugle-like with bottom end pads and keys removed) since. Fecund, heavy with ideas and the weight of everywhere and everything it's been in between...Without cease, traces, quotes, paraphrases and retellings run through this music, shaping and propelling its form and ideas. The appearance and development of melodies, motifs and often standards which are then worked, stretched, worried at, broken down, put back together and played with before being let drift away, is, Lou suggests more influenced by Indian music than the jazz tradition. Two examples here are "Loose Blues" and "Good Morning Mr. Rollins" which appears to acknowledge an unplanned musical meeting with a sound and through it the idea of an old musical acquaintance, as if unexpectedly bumping into someone on the way to do something else." - Seymour Wright.  --- Lou Gare / tenor saxophone --- Recorded at Firefly Studios, Thowleigh, Devon, England on 13th and 20th April 2005. Recording engineer Richard Knapp. Front cover photograph by Penny Gare. 

Rare Gare! There's nothing really else around to which The Nameless Uncarved Block can usefully be compared. It's another great AMM record, that's all, and that's enough." - The Wire --- John Tilbury / piano Eddie Prévost / percussion Lou Gare / tenor saxophone Keith Rowe / guitar, short-wave radio --- Recorded at concerts given in Zurich and Basel organised by the Taklos Festival, Switzerland, April 1990.