RADU MALFATTI/HARRY MILLER* - Bracknell Breakdown

 

(OG 320)

 

Track listing: The Audient Stood On Its Foot/Friendly Duck

 

(*Note: On its labels and spine, the album is credited to “Twice.” This was the duo’s working name.)

 

Radu Malfatti (trombone, etc.), Harry Miller (bass). Recorded at South Hill Park, Bracknell, on 29 July 1977. Released: February 1978. Produced by Ron Barron. Sleeve design: Liz Walton. Photography: Tony Foster.

 

I don’t quite grasp the concept of musical “reductionism” but in essence and practice it seems to involve improvising as little as possible, as softly and quietly as possible and as unconventionally as possible while allowing plenty of space for silence. Oh, and microtonality; can’t forget that either. Very Zen, very John Cage; work through the presumed tedium (a.k.a. “ultraminimalism”) and you break through to another, deeper self. You listen to what else isn’t happening and suddenly it’s a hive of surprising microbial activity. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.

 

Radu Malfatti, originally from Innsbruck in Austria, turned up in early seventies London, mainly to escape the draft, and quickly established himself as one of the most exuberant trombonists on the improvising scene. Look at what he does here with the Brotherhood of Breath – he’s red in the face from his hardcore blowing, and Nick Evans can only shake his head in wonder at what he’s doing.

 

But he wasn’t really that happy. He wanted to improvise freely, but the very familiar paradox reasserted itself – there were “rules” to free improvisation, he had to improvise in a certain way, or possibly in one certain improviser’s way (I wonder who that was). Well, yes, and some of my recent Ogun writing examines the possibility that the scene might have painted itself into a rather dusty corner.

 

Disillusioned, Malfatti set about moving in the opposite direction. Quiet tones, not loud blowing. Slowness, not hyperactivity. Minimalist gestures, not maximalist freakouts. Over the last thirty-five years or so he has done an excellent job at erasing himself from music altogether. There exist endless CDs or even box sets of his wherein the point is: not a lot happens, and it happens as quietly and infrequently as possible. I have only so much time left on this planet.

 

I suppose that the improvising on Bracknell Breakdown was Malfatti’s initial step towards enforced quietude. Through its studied cloisters there are lengthy moments where nothing much sounds as though it is occurring. At times one has to strain one’s ears at full volume to detect any activity.

 

This is not to say that the record is neither interesting nor exciting. In the other corner we have Harry Miller, who, though a participant in many memorable edge-of-hardcore free jazz collective conclaves, was I gather never entirely sold on the concept of unfettered free improvisation, and for most of the two extended sidelong improvisations here seems primarily intent on setting up some kind of a structure for the trombonist’s adventures.

 

In true Fluxus style, or more likely true AACM style, the musicians used, according to the brief and uncredited liner note, whatever else was lying around in the great hall of South Hill Park that Friday summer afternoon, including a cup, a balloon and from the photographic evidence a wine glass, a recorder and other assorted paraphernalia. Or at least Malfatti used all these things, since Miller appears to stick to his bass all the way through. I hear no aural evidence of the pictured piano being played.

 

It’s good dead end stuff. “The Audient (that rare singular!) Stood On Its Foot” begins like an Alban Berg string quartet with Miller’s solemn bowing and Malfatti’s high-register drones. The piece veers between Viennese School classicism and pseudo-electronica; at times the sounds that the two men conjure resemble quarrelling walkie-talkies. There are a couple of straight free trombone/bass rave-ups but Miller sounds far more comfortable bowing than plucking in this context. The work concludes, inevitably, with the sound of one hand clapping; metaphor for apathetic society, yeah, right? Actually people were probably busy pogoing away to the Adverts and X-Ray Spex at the time, but whatever…

 

“Friendly Duck” is shorter and more purposeful. Malfatti makes the requisite duck calls and Miller responds with a churning arco bass riff that sounds like a heavy metal guitarist warming up. Then they get very high (MUSICALLY, I mean). The trombonist conjures up some remarkable effects from whatever he is using to enhance his playing. The way Malfatti manipulates his multiple mutes in “Audient” is, well, clever. Ingenious, even. I’m not sure that it thrills or moves me in any way, but it’s a bit like watching one of those acrobats in Covent Garden of a Saturday lunchtime – hmmm, how do they do that, fancy a bite at Joe Allen’s (tip re. the latter; don’t. Went there one Sunday afternoon and that’s 75 quid I’ll never see again, wasted on very dull and taste-free food, and no actors of any degree of fame or obscurity turned up. Well, it was a Sunday…)? His technique is impeccable.

 

Anyway, the “Duck” piece works its way up towards a natural climax; Miller takes a considered plucked bass solo while Malfatti eats his lunch in the background, and then we arrive at that confounding moment when the improvisers have run out of ideas. There follow an arid 4-5 minutes where practically nothing happens at all – there’s your prototype ultraminimalism – before the two summon up renewed strength and have a good old-fashioned blowout as they would do in the context of the Brotherhood or Ninesense on a nice evening. Some bluesy wailing and something approximating a thematic motif conclude the work, and the record. Well, there you are. When the 3-CD Harry Miller box set The Collection was released, many people claimed they skipped this one and proceeded straight to OG 525, and I can’t blame  them. It isn’t austere, this music, but neither is it very involving. The duo released a further album on FMP in 1981 entitled Zwecknagel which perhaps demonstrated how much more compelling and powerful this music was when performed in front of a live audience; they certainly did not hold anything back on that particular recital. Why you would wish to slide away into studied, extended silence is something which only a reductionist could understand. I’m in the fatalist Rechabite camp myself; enjoy yourself and live it up when there’s only so much more life available to be lived. Innit.

 

Current availability: Reissued on CD as part of the abovementioned The Collection box set of Harry Miller’s Ogun (and associated) work in 1999; subsequently reissued in its own right on download in April 2021.