This music is essentially a fairly careful interpenetration of electro-acoustic music and the European school of free improvisation. In the lengthy but generally excellent booklet-essay (someone really should publish a collection of this kind of material), producer Steve Lake furiously name-checks any number of other instances where the two schools overlap, almost to the extent of downplaying the significance of the approach used by Parker’s group: the application of real-time sound processing to the improvisations of an instrumental group.
Of course, there’s a paradox inherent in the high levels of control traditionally associated with electro-acoustic music being imposed upon a genre having an aesthetic tradition which tends to emphasize moment-by-moment interaction and instant composition, but the music which results is proud of its mixed parentage. The instrumental elements are more contained, even circumspect, than the occasionally frenetic seizing-of-the-moment which underpins much improvised music. The electronic processing is restrained, resolutely unsensational and is generally indistinguishable from its subject matter, clearly intentionally. This is not surprising, as among the techniques employed are the live sampling of the instrumentalists’ performance. One enjoyable side effect of this is the apparent extension of time, as the interactive process works between improviser and improviser, improviser and engineer, engineer and engineer. This seems to add a benevolent slow-motion effect to certain of the musical ideas generated by the group, enabling the listener to follow their evolution.
All in all, this disc represents an interesting area of progress for the European avant-garde. Recording quality is good, although the cavernous acoustic isn’t to my taste.'