EMANEM 4132: MILO FINE & VIV CORRINGHAM

Davu Seru's growing interest and involvement in improvised music prompted him to contact me in 2000. The ensuing dance of conversation and private sessions not only yielded collaborative concerts in short order, but several recordings (Shih Shih Wu Ai 10, Elfin 1/2, Elfin 3), and, perhaps most importantly, a vital interpersonal dynamic.

Though I first met Charles Gillett in the late nineties, it wasn't until a few years later that we really started getting to know one another, and a bond of genuine friendship started to form. Simultaneously, I learned that, in addition to being an avid listener to improvised music, he was developing a distinct approach to the guitar for use in the field. Thus, it was nearly inevitable that we would work together; and have indeed done so since 2002.

I'd come across Viv Corringham's name from time-to-time over the years, but my first exposure to her work was the exquisite duet she played with violinist Angharad Davies at the 2003 Freedom of the City festival (documented on Emanem 4212). When she made her way over to the table at the back of Conway Hall, where I was seated overseeing my CDs and LPs (hers being in close proximity), I took the opportunity to introduce myself and express my deep appreciation for her set.

I received an e-mail from Viv the next year. She and her husband were moving to Rochester, Minnesota, which is a little better than an hour south of Minneapolis/St. Paul, and is anything but a hotbed of improvised music, or creative endeavour for that matter. Rightly thinking that the Twin Cities might provide some much needed opportunities and stimulus, Londoners Tony Wren and Marj McDaid suggested that she contact me.

Within a relatively short time of her move, she came up for a concert at Homewood Studios, where I curate and appear in a bimonthly series (alternating months with a series I oversee at the West Bank School of Music featuring the Milo Fine Free Jazz Ensemble). We then got together to play at my home as a duo, and, from there, a quartet with Davu and Charles, and trios with keyboard player Jason S. Shapiro and bassist Elizabeth Draper. And, while I would have liked to debut the considerable fruits of our collaborative work and blossoming friendship at Homewood, the events there for 2005 had already been booked. So, we opted for the Acadia Cafe, which, for several years, has been the site for a weekly series of improvised and so-called experimental music. Subsequently, the quartet featured on this CD planned to reconvene twice in March of 2006. The first concert, at Homewood Studios, was reduced to a trio (without Viv) due to a snowstorm, though the weather cooperated for the following week's set at Acadia. And while nothing beyond private sessions is 'on the books' at the time of this writing, it is almost certain (life's vagaries notwithstanding) that Viv's and my duo, this quartet, and other groupings, will be ongoing.

Moving from London to Rochester, Minnesota in 2004 was a shock on many levels, not least for its Siberian winters and apparent lack of any musical activity outside the churches. Luckily I had been advised by friends to contact Milo Fine, a key figure in the Minneapolis improvised music world as a musician, fluent on many instruments, and as a curator of a long-standing music series. I knew the name but not the person. I checked his website and found it as concerned, perceptive and mischievous as the man himself turned out to be. We clicked musically and conversationally, both having an abundance of opinions on almost every subject.

I anticipate that this will be an ongoing friendship and collaboration, and I am grateful to Milo for introducing me to other talented musicians in the Twin Cities, notably Charles Gillett and Davu Seru who also appear on this recording. This was the first public performance for the duo of Milo and myself, and for the quartet with Davu and Charles.

Excerpts from reviews:

"It's taken me a week to absorb the full impact of this album. I spent the first couple of days playing the duets over and over; couldn't get beyond them. I guess I've heard enough free/improvised music by now to expects passages where the players are feeling each other out, passages where 'conversations' take place, and - of course - times when the players play independently in unison, almost as though everyone has to say something NOW, before they forget what it was. I also frequently hear passages where the musicians play 'together' in unison, really listening to what the other has to say. But here, there are several incredible moments when Fine and Corringham suspend the duet and appear to merge into one, unison voice, and THAT is something I definitely don't hear very often. This is especially noticeable during the Bb clarinet with electronics - voice passages, and was the main reason I couldn't get past these tracks for a couple of days.

When I finally decided to play the rest of the album, I got an even bigger surprise, especially when I came to Black America and The Unswerving Punctuality of Chance. Seru and Gillett seem to know exactly how to blend with you and Corringham to create more of those 'one-voice' peaks that, for me, are the centerpieces of this document. In fact, I wound up viewing - and listening to - the four quartets as a suite, with The Outermost Plank providing an introduction of sorts, and The Salamander Departs functioning as an epilogue. This is an absolutely STUNNING work."

LOU SANTACROCE - private email 2006

"With the year-end holidays approaching as I write, the time and energy necessary to digest a densely concentrated disc like this one become scarce. The music must possess that indefinable but tangible spark, those moments that speak to something beyond cleverness or craft. This disc is full of such occurrences, and one of the first comes fairly early, with several disparate postscripts, when Viv Corringham manages an honest-to-goodness no-holds-barred trill! I've heard approximations, sliding uncertainties that hovel around the borders of trilldom, but a vocalist actually pulling this off with such precision is rare indeed. There it is, nevertheless, at 3:25 into the first piece, following a beautiful upward gliss and widening for several seconds!

I was hooked, and the rest of the album proved to be superb, not to mention one of the most fun listens I've had this year. Fine and Corringham form as sympathetic a partnership as one could desire; each is in command of a huge sonic pallet, from the most ritualistic and fullblooded screams to those deeply humorous moments where they just mutter conspiratorially together. The first two pieces bode well, but nothing prepares for the riotous mayhem that ensues as guitar, percussion, electronics, clarinet and voices all vie for prominence, attempting some mutual and full-scale identity theft in the process, and while stereo placement usually gives the game away, some confusion is certain.

Apart from the aforementioned trill, the disc's biggest surprise was Charles Gillett's guitar work, some of the most human I've ever heard. It moans, slithers, cries, suggests and insinuates, all with the most speech-like timbres imaginable from that instrument. He turns a fine date into an exceptional one, and while the liners do hint at more collaborations between Fine and Corringham, I hope they will also include Gillett. In whatever configuration, anything these musicians choose to release will find an honored place on my shelf."

MARC MEDWIN - CADENCE 2007

"SENILITÀ is quite a difficult listen, first and foremost for the extreme concentration of microscopic activities, tiny details and events that the artists try to control throughout the 72 minutes of the disc. Fine is a perfect example of dichotomised neural network, in that his playing - on both instruments - is so densely complex, segmented as it is in a series of uncontrollable patterns, that it must be necessarily judged as a whole system without caring about nuances or - heaven forbid - 'style'. Talking about which, Corringham is slightly more collocable in a zone of female voices situated about halfway through Shelley Hirsch and Julie Tippett; nevertheless, she remains anchored to certain basics of her own school - narrow glottology, multiphonic sensitiveness and total openness to the dialogue with other instruments - that define her singing as a thoroughly personal physiology. The tracks with Gillett and Seru are probably even less palatable for the uninitiated - not less interesting for me, though - as the jarring timbral behaviour of electronically treated sources and Gillett's harsh electric guitar sounds, mixed with the unfriendly kind of percussive work by Seru, create a peeling interaction that is certainly not for everyone's ears."

MASSIMO RICCI - TOUCHING EXTREMES 2007

"Milo Fine and Viv Corringham team in an extrapolated program of intense questioning, rhetoric, and quip conversations. Other elements include noise, percussive dialogue, and advanced harmonic content that live on a high cloud of a rtistry. The six extended compositions are far beyond basic musicality, entering into a keen listening sphere with little regard for individual glory, beauty, or accessibility. Fine, on this path since his emergence on the improvised music scene, plays B flat and alto clarinet, exploring the extreme high and low ranges. Corringham is a wordless vocalist capable of any tone, timbre, sound, or scat the human voice can conjure. Take the risky and gargantuan 23 1/2 minute The Outermost Plank, with stinging guitar courtesy of Charles Gillett, the clattery percussion of Davu Seru, Fine's fractured short phrases, and Corringham's tangential animalistic sounds strung along for real. Black America is a haunting statement about African-American oppression and racism. The hushed tones of the quartet speak volumes on the seemingly taboo sentiment - clearly a non-conversational ethos - though later in the piece louder protests and assimilated field hollers are evident, and some galloping vocals from Corringham drive the point home. Fine also plays marimba, in duet with the vocalist during The Virulent Certainty of Ignorance, as Corringham shifts through many phases of emotion and dumbfoundedness, accented in afterthought by a far ranging, overblown, and undertoned clarinet. A title of contradictions, The Unswerving Punctuality of Chance has Fine's clarinet as part carnival barker, part auctioneer, as Corringham is near guttural in her pronunciations with Gillett on a lap bowed guitar similar to Fred Frith. Pajaros De Cuenta and The Salamander Departs bookend the session, the former a standoffish, skittish, and squawky argumentative discourse from the co-leaders, suggesting hot then cooled passive tempers, while the latter has the most unified sound from the full quartet, more electronic and demanding a close listen.

Beyond the emotional pale of commercial claptrap, though not for the faint of ear or unchallenged patron, this will require special listening tools to fully embrace the depth and originality Fine and Corringham display from their brimming, searing, and sometimes abdicated souls. "

MICHAEL NASTOS - ALL MUSIC 2008

MILO FINE & VIV CORRINGHAM

SENILITÀ

EMANEM 4132

Excerpts from sleeve notes:

Excerpts from reviews:

MILO FINE &
VIV CORRINGHAM