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2
Peggy Lee
Dylan van der Schyff
These Are Our Shoes
Peggy
Lee, cello
Dylan van der Schyff,
drums
From the Pacific edge of Canada comes a recording by two of the brightest lights on the new music/improv/jazz scene. On this CD they are two musicians playing as one. Hand-in-glove (or rather, foot-in-shoe), Lee and van der Schyff serve up 18 to-the-point improvisations. Spirited, sensitive, imaginative.
Selected four times to Coda Magazine's Writers' Choice lists!
What the critics are saying;
Ideas flow freely, themes and dialogue are intimately explored and rhythm elements attract most emphasis in an intriguing mix of pointed commentary and sonic colour.
… there's an openness and an emotional
transparency here that are rare even in improvised music. And, of
course, they're both brilliant players.
Hearing cellist Lee and drummer
van der Schyff tucked tight inside each other's playing is a treat often
reserved for moments in performance. This CD allows for an hour of
concentrated delight.
They work extremely well as a duo
...The opening of the first track contains bizarre sound colours reminiscent
of the religious music performed by Tibetan monks. This turns into
a kind of improvised Webern with plucky percussion, and then into minimalist
jazz …
These Are Our Shoes presents 18
short pieces which show the musicians have a broad and effective conception
of improvisational vocabulary, grounded in respect for the distinctive
characteristics of their instruments.
Peggy Lee and Dylan van der Schyff
are in fine rapport on These Are Our Shoes, eighteen duets for cello and
percussion. ...What I like here is the lack of pretense, what I'll call
"the emerging unconscious innocence of those approaching mastery."
As poets find their voices by what they strip away (and leave to the arms
of silence), so too do improvisers catch a thrifty spirit when not dependent
on dousing everything with technical fuel... I have a sense that Lee and
van der schyff smiled after the last note of this record.
Produced by Peggy Lee and Dylan van
der Schyff for SPOOL.
Recorded and mixed March 1997 by Shawn
Pierce for Maximum Music Ltd.