Scat

(because we all havevoices and stories to tell)

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Radio ›› Scat
30 October 2009
By Bruce Lee Gallanter in Downtown Music Gallery (USA), October 30, 2009

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“This is an extraordinary collaboration between artists from across the world. Brady’s rhythmic jazz-influenced North American chamber music is paired with the dynamic, take-no prisoners virtuosity of Australia’s Topology ensemble, based in Brisbane.”

This is an extraordinary collaboration between artists from across the world. Brady’s rhythmic jazz-influenced North American chamber music is paired with the dynamic, take-no prisoners virtuosity of Australia’s Topology ensemble, based in Brisbane. Brady and Topology began collaborating in 1997, and toured Australia together in 1999, when the idea for this project was born. The CD presents some of Brady’s most exciting and passionate chamber works, in unrivaled performances by one of the finest new music ensemble of our time. SCAT (because we all have voices and stories to tell) takes its title from the strongly jazz-influenced first and third movements, and also from the unusual use of the musicians speaking voices as part of the music in the second and third movements. In the final movement, the musicians have to tell their life-story in 30 seconds, while playing their instrument as an accompaniment, ‘scating’ their personal histories. Lighting Field was composed for the 1999 Brady/Topology Australian tour, and consists of two movements. Darkness pairs the musicians against an electro-acoustic sampler part (playing processed electric guitar samples) to create a quietly foreboding atmosphere. Illumination brings the ensemble together for one of the most exciting rhythmic and dramatic movements that Brady has penned in recent years. Dark Matter (Primal Pulse) was originally composed for the Philadelphia ensemble Relâche, and is a small-scale concerto for viola, accompanied by 8 musicians. The work is quiet and introspective in character, and is given a beautiful and detailed performance by Topology’s violist, Bernard Hoey. Struck Twice By Lightning uses some of the same set of electric guitar samples as Lightning Field, but creates a totally different musical universe with them. Struck Twice By Lighting is about rhythm and articulation, about connecting the dark, visceral sound of the viola to the chiming, clangorous, pulsing sound of sampled electric guitars.

blogue@press-3923 press@3923
1 July 2008
By Vincenzo Giorgio in Wonderous Stories #13:36 (Italy), July 1, 2008

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“Il centro di gravità è l’avanguardia del novecento con evidenti riferimenti sia alla scuola post-schoenberghiana, ma anche più contigui alla ricerca elettronica (Stockhausen, Ligeti e Nono) senza disdegnare sporadici ritorni ad una rarefatta tonalità che sa (anche) di “sano” minimalismo.”

Il lavoro è, senza dubbio impegnativo: sette composizioni del musicista canadese che ha da qualche tempo allestito un ensemble “australiano” (Topology appunto) costituito da Robert Davidson (contrabbasso), Kylie Davidson (piano), Christa Powell (violino), Bernard Hoey (viola) e John Babagge (sax) per cui scrive la sua musica. Il centro di gravità è l’avanguardia del novecento con evidenti riferimenti sia alla scuola post-schoenberghiana, ma anche più contigui alla ricerca elettronica (Stockhausen, Ligeti e Nono) senza disdegnare sporadici ritorni ad una rarefatta tonalità che sa (anche) di “sano” minimalismo.

Il disco si apre con il bellissimo trittico SCAT (because we all have voices and stories to tell), una suite di oltre diciassette minuti che spazia dal frenetico puntillismo del primo movimento tutto giocato sugli effervescenti contrappunti tra fiati ed archi con il piano di Kylie a cristallizzare il sound con massicci “cluster”. Molto più rarefatto il secondo episodio, denso di materia crepuscolare ispessita dai lunghi accordi del violino e da vaghe coloriture percussive (l’ospite David Kemp) che si va a con-fondere in una sorta di fuga minimalista ricco di speziature perfino famigliari a chi ha ascoltato certe cose del Mike Ratledge più rileyano ma, soprattutto, di Philip Glass. Di ambientazione più elettronica la prima parte del dittico Lightning Field — Darkness / Illumination (Brady, oltre alla scrittura e alla direzione fornisce “pesanti” apporti alla chitarra elettrica ed ai sampler) che odora qua e là di Corrieri Cosmici mentre il segmento conclusivo disegna spazi aperti con un suggestivo recupero di accattivanti (ma non scontati) elementi melodici. Conclude questo bel lavoro la dolente atonalità di Dark Matter (Primal Pulse) e Struck Twice by Lightning con la sua digrignante violenza dove, la tormentata viola di Bernard, assicura un robusto puntello cromatico.

blogue@press-3615 press@3615
15 June 2008
By Gabriel Bélanger in SOCAN, Paroles & Musique #15:2 (Canada), June 15, 2008

Press Clipping

blogue@press-3590 press@3590
19 May 2008
By Dolf Mulder in Vital #628 (Netherlands), May 19, 2008

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“If Brady is new for you, start here.”

Scat contains four compositions of the Canadian composer and guitarist Tim Brady dating from the years 1998-2000. All pieces are performed by the Australian leading new music ensemble Topology or members of this ensemble and recorded in January 2006 in Brisbane. From the start it is clear that this was a fruitful collaboration. The cd opens with the three part suite Scat. The first and the third part of this piece are very dynamic and powerful. It is a true pleasure to hear this rhythm-driven piece performed by these excellent musicians. The chambermusic of Tim Brady has the power and directness of rock music. In effect it sounds very fresh for modern composed music. Lighting Field — Darkness/ Illuminations consists of two parts. The first part is a very dark piece of music where the instruments play against a background of electronic sampled sounds. The second part ‘Illumination’ is built upon minimalmusic-like patterns played by the piano and violins. It moves steady forward, alternated by parts where the instruments are whirling around and chasing each other. Dark Matter (Primal Pulse) was originally composed for the Relache Ensemble. It is the most introspective piece on this cd. But also in this composition there is often a strong pulse. The cd closes with Struck Twice by Lightning an exhausting battle between viola and tape. Again Brady delivers a cd with very appealing compositions by his hand, and played very convincingly and eagerly by the Topology crew. If Brady is new for you, start here.

blogue@press-3611 press@3611
7 May 2008
By Paul Serralheiro in The Squid’s Ear (USA), May 7, 2008

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“We get, in the final cut, the more high-voltage abstract expressionism of a viola and tape piece.”

Teaming up with an Australian new-music ensemble, Montréal electric guitarist-composer Tim Brady lays out some tightly written, impressively played music that is superbly rendered by the unusual quintet that is Topology (bass, violin, viola, piano and piano/sampler) with the addition, in one piece (Dark Matter), of percussion, clarinet and bassoon.

In 7 pieces written over the last 10 years that range from controlled, driving, rhythmic lines to airy atmospheric pieces, listeners are treated to shades of Terry Riley, as in the 3rd section of the tri-partite title composition, Scat, and in the opening keening violin, cascading piano arpeggios and double bass bottom that sustains the developing melody of (Dark Matter (Primal Pulse)). But Brady takes the music his own way, varying rhythmic cells and letting the melodies flower as they will rather than restricting them to a minimalist pinwheel development.

The atypical instrumentation makes for a kind of hybrid sound that is hard to categorize. It could be musique actuelle, could be jazz, could be contemporary classical. But is categorization really necessary when one gets caught up in such swirling pieces like the piano, samplers, violin, viola, double bass and soprano sax chiaroscuro impressionism of Lightning Field — Darkness / Illumination? In Dark Matter the composer has weighed his sounds carefully and the piece is a study in nuance and contrasting textures and tempi, like a chamber ensemble reduction of a Bruckner symphony. The language, although eclectic, echoes western art music, especially post-romantic and serialist styles in melodic contours and instrumental colors, as the clarinet and bassoon are added to the mix. Another stylist reference point that comes to mind is the crisply-articulated rhythms of Astor Piazzola.

In contrast to the chamber-music for the 21st century feel of most of the disc, we get, in the final cut, the more high-voltage abstract expressionism of a viola and tape piece titled (Struck Twice by Lightening, in which violist Bernard Hoey plays a possessed Paganini to Brady’s Star-trekking guitar-sampler track, an apt way to wind up this appealingly quirky set of music.

blogue@press-3692 press@3692
1 May 2008
By Rigobert Dittmann in Bad Alchemy #58 (Germany), May 1, 2008

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“Wider Erwarten ist das kein vokales Musica-Nova-Geblödel, sondern zum quirligen Drive durch Klavier und gurrend gestrichenem Bass erklingt nur kurz eine gehauchte Frauenstimme, während das Altosax melodiöse Schnörkel kurvt und die Geige energisch sägt.”

[Tim Brady], Topology: Scat (AM 164) präsentiert vier Arbeiten, die Tim Brady teils direkt für Topology geschrieben hat, teils extra für dieses 5-köpfige Ensemble aus Brisbane umarrangiert hat. Besetzt mit Kontrabass (Robert Davidson), Piano & Sampler (Kylie Davidson), Geige (Christa Powell), Viola (Bernard Hoey) sowie Alto- & Sopranosaxophon (John Babagge) intoniert Topology zuerst SCAT (because we all have voices and stories to tell) (2000). Wider Erwarten ist das kein vokales Musica-Nova-Geblödel, sondern zum quirligen Drive durch Klavier und gurrend gestrichenem Bass erklingt nur kurz eine gehauchte Frauenstimme, während das Altosax melodiöse Schnörkel kurvt und die Geige energisch sägt. Erst im dritten Abschnitt müssen alle Musiker ein Stimmengewirr inszenieren, das in einem Unisonosprechgesangloop mündet. Lightning Field — Darkness / Illumination (1999) setzt für ‘Darkness’ dröhnende Gitarrensamples ein, bei ‘Illumination’ sorgt repetitives Uptempo-Riffing für eine neobarocke Motorik, das Sopranosax für den melodiösen Elan. Für das Violakonzert Dark Matter (Primal Pulse) (1998) wurde Topology mit Percussion, Fagott und Klarinette zum Oktett erweitert, das Tempo ist nicht mehr futuristisch-stakkatohaft, sondern ähnlich wie beim dämmrigen ‘Darkness’ verlangsamt, der Charakter dadurch innig, introspektiv, nur einzelne Pianopings und einige wuchtige Perkussionsschläge funken dazwischen. Struck Twice by Lightning (1999) schließlich ist nur für Viola und ein Tonband geschrieben, das mit zischenden und rumorenden Gitarrenmutationen imprägniert ist, während Hoey ein zweites Mal brilliert.

blogue@press-3553 press@3553

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