Après l'observation, l'éclat combat entre guitare décadente et soprano rageur. Puis, le silence mortuaire des champs de batailles. Mais le péril rode toujours, enveloppe de sa gangue gluante un silence qui ne peut s'exprimer.

Fred Frith et Hans Koch vont jusqu'au bout des mystères, collectent l'angoisse, en rajoutent, affectionnent les échos sourds. Donc: toujours la menace. Même ce chant frôlé, cette harmonique amie, cet oiseau ricaneur. Par ricochets, ils s'expriment, cognant l'immensité de leurs chocs stellaires. S'offrent par ailleurs le plaisir des croque-en-jambes, sifflent la fin des risées, croisent la route du free, décapent quelques tuyaux rouillés. Bref: militent pour que l'étrangeté prenne possession du royaume.

Le guitariste anglais Fred Frith, installé en Suisse depuis longtemps, est un habitué du label. Il aime les rencontres et les duos. Son partenaire pour ce disque est le saxophoniste suisse Hans Koch, improvisateur réputé. C’est donc dans ce champ de liberté qu’ils dialoguent et se confrontent. Frith, au jeu souvent strident et aux sonorités noise saturées, retrouve aussi le jeu plus spatial, et même planant, de ses débuts. Koch joue parfois “rude” voire “rêche” au ténor, contrasté au soprano, et contribue à un bel équilibre dans une pièce jouée à la clarinette-basse. Des musiques originales et diverses, par des musiciens qui osent.

https://www.culturejazz.fr/spip.php?article3360

Guitarist Fred Frith has always worked in the intersection of rock and jazz, and he's also guested on Koch-Schütz-Studer's "hardcore chamber music". Here he forms a duo with Hans Koch - on bass clarinet, and soprano and tenor saxophones. On this disc, Koch's recent predilection for the quieter side of improvisation is challenged by Frith's broiling feedback and brooding ambient sounds. On the opening "Just A Crack", subterranean drones offer an extreme contrast with avian tweetings from high soprano. In "Strange Is The Night Where Black Stars Rise", feedback potentiates the effects of tenor saxophone overtones.

Fred Frith, British experimental guitarist, has had 40-something years to sculpt the sonic landscape between there and here (wherever either lay). Though discerning ears have engaged 'noise' musicians over decades, Frith, also a composer, thrives on melody as much as restless utterances. It's been a fascinating career from Henry Cow and The Art Bears of the art rock circuit to Skeleton Key, The Golden Palominos, Material, Naked City and Massacre in old dirty Downtown. In his hands the electric guitar carries a malleable expressionist palette all its own. Likewise, Swiss Hans Koch's bass clarinet and various saxophones, performances throughout Europe since the '70s and later work with Butch Morris, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Cyrille, Shelley Hirsch and Barry Guy begat an expansive vision ideal for duos with the likes of Frith. A peculiarly Koch-ian side-arm is "spit" as credited on "You Are Here": he allows a buildup of saliva in the body of his instruments to morph into a new, growling sound source, most effective when paired with percussive slapping of the keys.

Recorded live in Basel, Switzerland, this album seems to be a statement of where Frith, perhaps the music itself, stands today. "That bird has flown and this one has arrived," the guitarist writes in liner notes filled with only slightly mysterious allusions to his past projects. The seven improvised works here are fresh, aloft with gentle and introspective excitement. "Strange is the Night Where Black Stars Rise" evokes darkness with the snap and click on the low end of bass clarinet growing into gradual dynamic shifts. Frith casts a stellar effect over the loneliness of Koch's phrases, with noir and sci-fi imagery tenderly fighting for space. But while there is plenty of sound manipulation to go around ("Road, Mirror, Forest, Sea" is a prime example), "Lots Out Large" calls on the spirit of Eric Dolphy with its guttural almost blue melody. ****, Frith's rhythmic whirlwind can make you believe that the ghost of Rashied Ali came a-haunting too.

Saído em 2017 de um registo efectuado no ano anterior no Jazz Campus, em Basel (imaginamos um espaço de grandes dimensões e pé alto, tal a ressonância), este disco escapou às minhas audições no ano passado, ou teria ido directamente para a minha lista de Melhores. É assim tão impressionante, destacando-se entre os cerca de 400 que Fred Frith, um dos dois participantes, tem editados. Ao lado do ex-Henry Cow está o suíço Hans Koch, com quem já tinha tocado antes desta colaboração como convidado do trio de “música de câmara hardcore” (porque tocando algo que está na intersecção do jazz, da improvisação livre, do rock, do experimentalismo electroacústico e da música contemporânea) que o clarinetista baixo e saxofonista (soprano e tenor) mantém com Martin Schutz e Fredy Studer. Se anteciparmos o mergulho nos sete temas reunidos em “You Are Here” com base naquilo que conhecemos de ambos, a surpresa ainda é maior: os dois veteranos conseguem ir ainda mais longe do que tinham ido cada um para o seu lado ou em conjunto no contexto referido, e isso é uma raridade, mesmo com tão criativas figuras como estas.

O que ouvimos é, regra geral, pausado no andamento e com um volume moderado, por vezes chegando-se mesmo ao limiar do murmúrio, mas a música não podia ser mais ameaçadora e sombria. Frith posiciona-se entre dois âmbitos, o do ruído propriamente dito, com preparações na guitarra e um trabalho tendencialmente percussivo, e o da construção harmónica, com generoso uso da pedaleira de efeitos e um entendimento iminentemente electrónico dos sons. Kock contorna, pelo seu lado, as abordagens melódicas ou frásicas a que os sopros de palheta convidam, mas não as impede de surgirem. Prefere a manutenção de “drones” ou de texturas, tão abstractas quanto emocionais, imagéticas e até cinematográficas. Para tal faz um uso igualmente generoso da saliva, e tanto assim que esta surge na instrumentação indicada como um recurso mais. Se os resultados parecem, por vezes, de origem alienígena, são corpos, seres humanos, que adivinhamos por detrás de tudo. A beleza pode ser negra e inquietante e aqui está um fantástico exemplo disso mesmo.

https://www.jazz.pt/ponto-escuta/2018/01/19/fred-frith-hans-koch-you-are-here-intakt/

Guitarist Fred Frith has always worked in the intersection of rock and jazz, and he's also guested on Koch-Schütz-Studer's "hardcore chamber music". Here he forms a duo with Hans Koch on bass clarinet, and soprano and tenor saxophones. On this disc, Koch's recent predilection for the quieter side of improvisation is challenged by Frith's broiling feedback and brooding ambient sounds. On the opening "Just A Crack", subterranean drones offer an extreme contrast with avian tweetings from high soprano. In "Strange Is The Night Where Black Stars Rise", feedback potentiates the effects of tenor saxophone overtones.

Such is the amount and assortment of projects and biographic highlights provided by Fred Frith and Hans Koch that it is virtually impossible to keep the pace with their ceaseless appearances. Then again, do we really still need to talk about leading figures of the last 50 years or so? The answer is affirmative when we stumble upon an album that does not exactly obey to the expectations linked to the musician’s personality. You Are Here is that type of release.

For the occasion, the duo pursued a balance between the realm of shade and blur and the more in-your-face aspects of offhand manifestation. Their interplay is fluid and articulate, with rare openings to (controlled) discord. The listener is let in without obstacles; the sonority is never distressing, including the sections introducing a measure of agitation (case in point, “Immagine Prima”).

Some episodes are surprisingly quiet, characterized as they are by faraway reverberations and shifting densities. The aptly titled “Strange Is The Night Where Black Stars Rise” is an enticing example, based as it is on tenuous resonance rather than depiction of actual shapes. Other instances of “stimulating quietness” are to be found in “Road, Mirror, Forrest, Sea”, notwithstanding an increased tendency to arrhythmic phenomena and pronounced dynamic reversals.

Perhaps the most riveting aspect of this collection is represented by Frith and Koch’s ability in maintaining their personalities in sight in contexts where the music’s physiognomy is not that definite. The acoustic aura that surrounds the spontaneous interaction remains perceptible from a piece to the next in spite of evident gestural discrepancies.

Nothing else then but a strong recommendation – also to loyal disciples – to listen scrupulously to a record that justifies the worn-out adage “there’s more than meets the ears”. It is not a given that renowned artists produce valuable work every time they meet. But this time they truly did.

https://touchingextremes.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/fred-frith-hans-koch-you-are-here/

Una cantabilità più esplicita, e quell'indulgenza verso il bel suono citato (perché negato) parlando di "You Are Here», si fanno invece largo negli ultimi due cd che incontriamo, entrambi con la chitarra vertice di un canonico trio con basso e batteria, formula di cui è alfiere storico il magiaro Ferenc Snétberger, fresco sessantenne, che con Anders Jormin e Joey Baron confeziona un album di morbida suggestione, con raffinate dinamiche interne e un incedere lieve, arioso, mai sopra le righe, non esente da quel minimo di manierismo che la formula stessa si porta dietro, ma sempre abbinato a totale buon gusto.

Le label suisse se passionne aussi pour la musique improvisée européenne : « You Are Here » rassemble, par exemple, deux légendes de la free musique d’avant-garde : le guitariste bruitiste Fred Frith et le saxophoniste-clarinettiste Hans Koch. Beyond réunit d’autres figures titulaires : le bassiste Barry Guy, qui avait enregistré par le passé « The Blue Schroud » dédié à Guernica, le batteur Paul Lytton et la pianiste Marilyn Crispell.

http://jazzaroundmag.com/?p=16219

Der kosmopolitische Brite Fred Frith und der Schweizer Hans Koch sind zwei erprobte Haudegen der freien Improvisation. In ihrer beider Fall meint Improvisation wirklich Improvisation und nicht einen jener zahlreichen Ersatzreflexe, für die der Begriff Improvisation bestenfalls als Euphemismus herhalten muss. Schwer zu sagen, wie oft der Holzbläser und der Multiinstrumentalist schon miteinander das Vergnügen hatten, auf dieser Einspielung wirken sie jedenfalls so gut eingespielt, als würden sie das schon seit einem halben Jahrhundert regel- mäßig zusammen machen, und gleichzeitig so frisch und unverbraucht, als würden sie sich zum ersten Mal treffen. Sie sind nicht nur einfach auf der Suche, aus der sich wiederum nicht nur ein folgerichtiges Finden ergibt, was schon ungewöhnlich genug wäre. Nein, das Finden generiert immer wieder neues Suchen. Sie bürden dem Hörer nicht die Entscheidung auf, sich entweder im Suchen oder im Finden positionieren zu müssen, sondern laden einfach zum Zuhören ein. Und das ist so kurzweilig und unterhaltsam, dass man gar nicht mehr weghören möchte. Denn ebenso missbräuchlich wie, Improvisation' wird ja in der gegenwärtigen Musik der Begriff, Spielen' verwandt. Frith und Koch spielen im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, indem sie Welten imaginieren und immer wieder neu zusammensetzen. Wir dürfen mit ihnen staunen, indem wir ihnen zuhören. Welch ein Privileg. Obwohl die Musik im Ergebnis komplex erscheinen mag, ist es doch selbst fürs ungeübte Ohr ganz einfach, sich darauf einzulassen. Denn Spielen und Staunen - wer hätte das schon je verlernt?