In the late 1970s bassist Barry Guy and pianist Howard Riley worked frequently in a trio with the violinist Phil Wachsmann. Unfortunately, unlike the well-documented Riley/Guy/Oxley trio, this formation only made one LP, the 1977 studio date now reissued on this CD. A minor caveat is in order: as the original tapes have been lost, these tracks have been mastered (with noise-reduction) from an LP. (I must also note that the final two minutes of “Trio Seven” are blemished by high-pitched ringing. Was this a flaw in the original recording, perhaps?) Nonetheless the results are sonically quite acceptable.

Whether because of the provenance of the recording, the original studio sound, the string players’ use of “pedal-controlled amplification and other electronics”, or just the trio’s aesthetic predilections – or, most likely, a combination of all these factors – the music is strikingly dark, grainy, almost crude-sounding; it is strongly weighted towards the lower and middle range. The busiest improvisations are as abrupt and alarming as a mudslide. Quieter tracks are equally challenging: “Trio Two” and “Three,” for instance, are as strange and fugitive as intercepted radio broadcasts. If the sound quality makes it harder to hear the performances as musical dialogues (it often sounds as if Wachsmann and Guy have merged into some flailing multitentacled creature from outer space), it usefully emphasizes the music’s abrasiveness and sheer strangeness.

Martin Davidson’s archival work has turned up an invaluable addendum to the original LP. This reissue supplements it with a further 25 minutes of previously unreleased material recorded thirteen months later. Caught at a further stage in its development, the trio sounds rather differently balanced (even if this is partially an artifact of the clearer sound quality): Guy is less dominant and Riley’s emphatic chording fits more easily into the string textures. The 1977 session was a series of five-minute miniatures, but on this occasion there’s a chance to hear the group stretch out with a compelling 15-minute improvisation. While this session isn’t as intriguingly unsettling as the 1977 date it’s perhaps more immediately appealing. Both, however, are well worth checking out for fans of classic British improv.

Nate Dorward

Coda, May/June 2003