Jim Denley / Chris Abrahams / Robbie Avenaim

Romy Caen, Nick Ashwood and Jim Denley

Between Back and Foreground

Caterpillar #007

Confirming, if only by inference, that Australia is an enormous island with an extensive outback and rural spaces near its cities are these discs featuring flutist/saxophonist Jim Denley. Although one was recorded in a studio and the other in a former sports club, the sheen of bush land and natural surroundings affects the program. Not that there’s anything Arcadian about the discs, since all the Aussie players are involved with 21st Century free music.

Denley, who has partnered with multiple international improvisers, is joined on Weft by Chris Abrahams of the Necks playing synthesizer and drummer Robbie Avenaim, who often experiments with motorized and robotic percussion. Meanwhile the other disc links Denley with the Splinter Orchestra’s Romy Caen playing harmonium, synthesizer and percussion and Nick Ashwood, who pulls unexpected textures from an acoustic guitar.

While only the second session refers to back and foreground, each evokes that nebulous area where solo and accompaniment are blurred and blended. A single track from 2017, Weft evolves as a self-contained unit, with varied synthesizer pitches floating over machine-like clanks, rubs and rumbles from the percussionist, and intermittent breaths from either saxophone or flute. Despite Avenaim’s rugged ruffs and cymbal scratches, Abrahams’s programmed pulsations and Denley’s stretched puffs and split tones that become more pronounced one-third of the way along, it’s frequently impossible to link any single tone to a particular instrument. This characteristic is shared with Between Back and Forward which was created three years later. Gradually the group textural pressure is intensified with wooden smacks and bass flute rasps until a few seconds of silence marks a switch. Emphasizing singular expression such as programmed low pitches, bell clips, aerophone whooshes and sucking and clacks resembling mah jong tile shuffles, the final section is shaped into a, low-pitched drone that climaxes with a cuckoo-clock like peep.

Perhaps due to more audible interaction with weather changes, animal movements and traffic noises, Caen, Ashwood and Denley’s responsive music is more aggressive during that trio’s four selections. Harmonium continuum, long-lined horn squeaks and hard string rubs and smacks from the guitarist begin pushing insect hums, aviary cries and unspecific mechanized buzzes further into the mix. By “Between Back and Foreground Part 3” assertive instrumental timbres in the form of downward guitar twangs, high-pitched flute vibrations and consolidated machine-like textures complete the previous noise alteration and set up the extended “Moto Shadow”. Simultaneously more related to the outside environment as well as the instruments’ expected timbres, the track evolves with mechanized and outdoor murmurs leeching into the exposition. As discontinuous harmonium clusters also vibrate, bottom-directed flute puffs and scratching resonations from wood and strings accelerate and amplify the improvisations. The climax is reached in the track’s final few minutes as a solid synthesizer ostinato and outdoor spatial tones are pierced by transverse trills and frails that result from metallic objects rubbed against nylon strings. As strokes and trills fade what sounds like a car driving away from the session marks the finale.

These are non-linear improvisations by total of five innovators who bypass harmonies and melodies for a more expansive and unique sound pictures. Denley and company have much to offer sonically for those unafraid of unique listening experiences.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Weft: 1. Weft

Personnel: Weft: Jim Denley (bass flute); Chris Abrahams (synthesizer) and Robbie Avenaim (prepared typewriter and percussion)

Track Listing: Between: 1. Between Back and Foreground Part 1 2. Between Back and Foreground Part 2 3. Between Back and Foreground Part 3 4. Moto Shadow

Personnel: Between: Jim Denley (flute and alto saxophone with preparations); Romy Caen (harmonium, synthesizer and percussion) and Nick Ashwood (acoustic guitar)