Hayward, Charles - One Big Atom CD
SKU
ReR Continuity002
Charles Hayward is, of course, best known for his drumming and vocalizing feats with This Heat, Camberwell Now and Quiet Sun, but in addition to doing some improvising work, he has released a number of solo albums contsructed out of his excellent drumming, distinctive voice and single drones made from keyboards, melodica, etc. I saw him perform at RIO in 2009 and it was a real treat to finally see the great man behind the kit and in full voice. This is his first in quite some time and is a good one.
"One Big Atom stands outside of genre and any easily identified signifiers, jump-cutting between song, collage, sound field, noise, signal, melody. Made over the space of a year as the world went through a series of far-reaching changes, the music is a sort of tangential response.
In order to enable a worthwhile and genuine process, no computers were used until final mastering. ‘Certainly, computers are convenient and clean sounding,’ says Charles ‘but the paths and routes within the creative act are becoming proscribed and increasingly useless as strategies for survival and independence because of the constraints of digital protocol. Just as my work needs to have a sci-fi proposition, so it also needs to commit violence against the representation project, the idolatrous need to push our technologies towards a more and more ‘realistic’ capability that leaves no room for the audience to fill in the spaces and trace their own connections. Instead, I’ve tried to look at the plasticity of sound, to mould and shape it as material towards a consciously ‘recorded’ artefact.’”
“Charles’ first new solo CD for nine years, and he hasn’t been resting on his laurels; here are new ideas and a consolidation of the story to date, all plaited up into a fully articulated musical manifesto, characterised by virtuosity, soul, complexity, drive and attention to fine detail…not only that, but it’s also very nicely recorded. In stretched song form, this sounds for all the world like a well-drilled ensemble, with Charles singing, playing, and augmenting his sometimes pile-driving, sometimes loom-like kit with electronics, melodica, ziz zag and swirl (no I don’t know what the last 2 are either). As drummers go, Charles has to be one of the best we’ve got, carving his own way without giving any quarter. And he can write a neat refrain, even if riding a wave of tonal and rhythmic complexity.”-Chris Cutler
- LabelReR/Continuity
- UPC752725029223