Giovanni Antognozzi’s label ants (a new timeless sound) in Italy continues its fine line of releases, this CD with works by Hugh Davies (1943 – 2005) – together with David Monacchi’s Paesaggi di Libero Ascolto – being one of the finest electroacoustic in a while, arriving late December 2005, as the snow blows hard around my Scandinavian house in the northern mid-winter.
The liner notes for this CD were written by Hugh Davies and David Toop, each providing extensive texts, Toop’s finished after the untimely demise of Davies on day 1 of January 2005.
Hugh Davies has been around a long time in the realm of new music, beginning in the mid-60s. For the most part, as time went by, Hugh Davies concentrated his efforts in the fields of instrument invention and performances with these new instruments. His prime interest to begin with lay with live electronics, so his subsequent instrumental inventions were amplified, for the most part.
Since Davies mostly involved himself in live performances, he didn’t compose much tape music. This ants CD in fact contains most of Davies’ more substantial electroacoustic compositions, all but one of them never recorded commercially before this release.
This is all the more amazing – and rather sad – since the quality and ingenuity of these recordings are so sublime. It is also a bit surprising to me that all of these pieces are fairly recent, composed between 1976 and 2000, most of the them in the 1980s. Davies has, by virtue of his instruments and his participation in various projects – like Gentle Fire and collaborations with Derek Bailey and Evan Parker as well as solo albums on FMP and Grob – had a great influence on contemporary music. After Cornelius Cardew’s jailbreak from the fortified Stockhausen castle, Davies took on the feat of being Karlheinz’s assistant for a couple of years in the 1960s, and he partook in Stockhausen recordings, such as Mikrophonie I and Sternklang. He also performed in Stockhausen’s Mixtur, and he was entrusted with writing new performance material for Momente. All in all, his collaboration with the Old Child from Kuerten lasted two years.

(to read the complete review follow this link http://home.swipnet.se/sonoloco23/ants/hugh.html)

(Ingvar Loco Nordin - Sonoloco)

Hugh Davies è stato uno degli esponenti più importanti del panorama musicale contemporaneo. 'Tapestries' può essere considerato il “testamento elettronico” dell’artista, una raccolta di cinque brani che rappresentano una sintesi bella ed efficace, utile per avvicinarsi alla sua opera. La natura dei brani prende spunto, come sottolineato dallo stesso Davies, dall’esperienza tedesca di Stockhausen (vengono citati dall’autore due brani come Kontacte e StudieII), e si nota infatti nel lavoro un richiamo al primo periodo di sperimentazione dell’artista tedesco. Sono i suoni meravigliosamente sintetici prodotti dalle macchine di Davies a creare la stupenda sensazione di riscoperta di quella caratteristica timbrica e sonora tipica dello studio di Colonia, che rivive nell’esperienza musicale dell’autore inglese. Sarebbe per una volta utile non cadere nel tecnicismo numerico che avvolge la letteratura musicale che affronta temi simili, ma lasciarsi andare ad una definizione più propriamente passionale e disincantata sul valore estremo ed “estremamente simbolico” di questo disco. 'Tapestries' racchiude in se la bellezza di una vasta gamma di suoni artificiali, “di laboratorio”; mostra una sua natura profondamente artigianale fatta di cura certosina per ogni singolo suono e per le coordinate attraverso le quali si muove nel tempo e nello spazio. La “ants” ci ha portato ancora una volta alla riscoperta di cinque perle sonore e di un’ artista eccezionale, al quale andrebbe sicuramente dedicato un approfondimento. Per questo in un futuro non lontano ci rifaremo vivi con un approfondimento sull’arte e la vita di Hugh Davies. State Connessi.

(Riccardo Pallotto - Kathodik)

E' trascorso poco più di un anno dalla morte di Hugh Davies, avvenuta proprio quando aveva appena finito di mettere a punto questo CD che, quindi, assume l’aspetto del suo testamento sonoro. Se il suo nome è noto soprattutto per l’attività nel novero degli improvvisatori radicali inglesi – in particolare nella Music Improvisation Company con Evan Parker, Jaime Muir e Derek Bailey (che la sorte ha voluto far morire a quasi un anno di distanza da Davies: questi il primo dell’anno e quegli il 25 Dicembre), nondimeno la sua attività ha travalicato tale ambito andando ad abbracciare la forma canzone e la musica elettronica, fino a farne uno dei musicisti più eclettici di sempre e, parimenti importante, un artigiano che si costruiva i propri strumenti.
“Tapestries” ne illumina uno dei lati più oscuri, quello del musicista elettronico, attraverso cinque composizioni (in buona parte commissionate da coreografi o musei) racchiuse in un arco temporale che va dal 1976 al 2000. È automatico, di conseguenza, affermare che queste cinque composizioni riescono a raffigurare l’evoluzione del musicista negli anni. Si tratta però di un’evoluzione non lineare, ma che procede a zig-zag mostrando ulteriormente i molteplici interessi coltivati da questo grande sperimentatore. C’è infatti divergenza sia nei sistemi di costruzione, lavorazione e assemblaggio sia nella stessa natura dei suoni, ora di tipo sintetico (Celeritas, Tapestries e Vision) ed ora semplici rumori crudi (Natural Images e From Trees And Rocks).
Questa non osservanza di alcuna scuola ha sicuramente contribuito a confinare Davies in quel limbo riservato agli inclassificabili, ed ha sicuramente danneggiato una sua ipotetica affermazione in un ambito ben delimitato. Eppure l’aspetto più interessante della sua vicenda mi sembra racchiuso proprio in questo girovagare, in una curiosità che travalica il semplice aspetto artistico e ce lo fa apprezzare, anche, come uomo. È questo il motivo che ci fa pesare ancor di più la sua scomparsa.
Il CD è accompagnato da un accurato libretto nel quale lo stesso Davis commenta, con dovizia di particolari, le cinque composizioni: tipo di suoni e di strumenti utilizzati, anno e luogo delle registrazioni, scopo delle mUsiche e altro. Infine David Toop traccia un profilo storico del musicista: dall’apprendistato con Stockhausen alla Music Improvisation Company, dalla partecipazione a “New & Rediscovered Instruments” di Max Eastley e dello stesso Toop a quella all’LP “Spirit Of Eden” dei Talk Talk. Insomma, lo volete capire che si tratta di un disco altamente consigliato?

(Etero Genio - SANDSzine)

As it (too often) happens, death comes creeping through to snatch geniuses from the fingers of our enjoyment. A case in point is the late Hugh Davies, composer, instrument builder and improviser whose extremely fanciful electronic music is finely represented by this welcome release, containing five compositions where evocative force is often inversely proportional to the scarcity of means committed to and manipulated on tape, especially in the extraordinary "Natural images", a tale of plastic breadbins and doll squeakers becoming whale songs and snarling wolves, a piece putting Davies right there with the Henrys and the Ferraris of the world: try to listen to it with a modicum of external noise, just to understand this composer's deep relationship with "environmental awareness", probably his main feature as a sound artist. Don't overlook the efficiency of the remaining documents, though, as they include experimentations with the Fairlight and synthesizer-cum-digital delay soundscapes (the otherwordly "Vision", where at times one believes to hear a belltower in a full-speed washing machine). As David Toop rightly says in the excellent booklet, too bad that Davies is not here anymore to help new generations of sound artists with his experience; for them - and for every serious listener - this outstanding collection comes highly recommended.

(Massimo Ricci - Touching Extremes)

The importance of musicians is not something to be judged by the size of their discographies. The death of Hugh Davies at age 61 on New Year's Day last year deprived the new music world of one of its unsung heroes. A list of some of the musicians Davies studied / performed / worked with would be quite long, and would include major names – Karlheinz Stockhausen (whose assistant he became in 1964, succeeding Cornelius Cardew), Derek Bailey, Evan Parker (with whom he recorded in the Music Improvisation Company with vocalist Christine Jeffrey and percussionist Jamie Muir) and Borbetomagus (he appears on 1981's Work On What Has Been Spoiled) – as well as a whole host of lesser known but influential figures, including electronic music visionary Daphne Oram, composer Jonathan Harvey and, umm, Talk Talk. (The fact that Borbetomagus is listed above as a major name and Talk Talk isn't is further proof of this website's unswerving dedication to difficult music. And you still wonder why we don't carry advertising?)
As a pioneer in the use of live electronics – the world has now come full circle and many of the techniques Davies pioneered in the late 60s are now part and parcel of the standard improviser's arsenal – one of his many inventions was the shozyg, which he self-effacingly described as "a collection of amplified metal knick-knacks inside the covers of an encyclopaedia, SHO-ZYG, an encyclopaedia degutted to substitute direct experience for learning". Such a open, no-frills, no-bullshit attitude to innovation might have led to his being considered as yet another lovable English eccentric, but only by those unfamiliar with his music. This posthumous collection of five tape compositions spanning his career – from 1976's Natural Images to 2000's From Trees and Rocks – is proof, sadly overdue, that Hugh Davies was a composer of enormous talent who deserves to take his place alongside the major electronic music masters of his generation. The album comes with an authoritative accompanying booklet featuring detailed background notes on each work by the composer, and a hugely informative essay on the man and his music by David Toop (a heavily edited version of which was published as an obituary in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1426693,00.html).
It's easy to forget that Hugh Davies had a thorough grounding in academic music theory and composition, studying at Oxford with the talented if conservative symphonist Edmund Rubbra. But by the time he went up there he'd already gulped down a huge lungful of air from another planet in the form of Stockhausen's seminal Gesang Der Jünglinge ("Song Of The Youths)". His traditional composition chops came in handy when scoring Stockhausen's epic Momente in 1964, but the real epiphany for Davies was his experience later that year operating the potentiometers in Mikrophonie I, Stockhausen's six-man live electronic assault on a tam tam. Davies's subsequent exploration of live electronics, and how it led him into the brave new world of nascent free improvisation, is well documented in Toop's essay. But though his work with Gentle Fire with Richard Bernas, Graham Hearn, Stuart Jones and Michael Robinson has assumed almost legendary status (it doesn't make it any easier to get hold of, by the way), his activities as a composer have, until now, been largely and unfortunately overlooked.
In 1966 Davies was a researcher at the GRM in Paris, and, as early as 1968, founded and ran the Electronic Music Studio at Goldsmiths' College, London (he remained there until 1986). So by the time he came to create Natural Images in 1976, to a commission for the EMMA dance company, he was already a highly experienced and resourceful composer. Natural Images is a minor masterpiece of musique concrète whose "natural sounds" are cunning transformations of more mundane objects: a squeaky breadbin lid becomes whale song, a train whistle the howling of wolves. And wait until you hear the mating dance of the bees – you may never eat honey again. (One blast of this vicious buzzsaw attack and you'll understand immediately the logic behind a Davies / Borbetomagus encounter.) 1982's Tapestries was also created for a dance company, this time Bridget Crowley's Dancers Anonymous. Unlike Natural Images, however, it exploits the potential of the then state-of-the-art equipment in Davies's studio at Goldsmiths', but don't let that put you off – in stark contrast to the rather chilly studio works coming out across the Channel at the time, Davies's music is refreshingly, even alarmingly, warm and direct. No question of trying to blind the listener with science here – this was a man for whom explaining the world of electronic music to a group of children was as important as writing a high-level research paper.
Davies's interest in environmental sound – he was an unsung hero of sonic ecology to boot, drawing up plans for numerous urban sound art projects – dates back to the same period, though the piece that best represents this aspect of his work here is From Trees and Rocks, which was commissioned by the Diözesanmuseum in Cologne (ha, irony – the cradle of pure Elektronisches Musik!) for the portable exhibition guide Walkmen in 2000. Sounds of hammering, chiselling and sawing are beautifully sequenced and structured with typically composerly attention to detail. By way of contrast, Vision (1985) and Celeritas (1987) were made using one of the early Fairlight Series digital synthesizers, the latter work using a microtonal tuning first explored by Stockhausen in 1954 in which a 28 semitone span is divided into 25 equal steps. The music, once again, sounds nowhere near as forbidding as the above description might have you think: Davies drew his dynamic and timbral envelopes directly with a light-pen, and the work retains the freshness of the bold brushstroke. Even if some of the timbres now sound a little dated – oddly enough, the more "primitive" Natural Images sounds more modern to 2006 ears – these two pieces, notably the 17 minute Vision, still stand proudly as fine examples of the work of a major and now sorely missed figure of British contemporary music. Essential.

(Dan Warburton - Paris Transtlantic)