SLAMCD238 Shams – Burghan Interference

“Wonderfully paced, atmospheric improv by a first rate duo” (The Wire) by drummer Ken Hyder and multi-instrumentalist/composer Tim Hodgkinson.

Recorded at Aula Magna Tolentini Monastery, Venice, 19 June 1998.

Ken Hyder: drums, voice, ektara, processing
Tim Hodgkinson: flat guitar, clarinet, alto saxophone, processing

“Glasnost and perestroika made it easier for Western musicians to visit remote and previously closed regions of the old Soviet Union like Siberia, where they are now able to study traditional musics in their natural surroundings with local musicians. Ken Hyder (founder of Celtic jazzers Talisker) and Tim Hodgkinson (co-founder of avant rockers Henry Cow) were among the first musicians from the London experimental scene to take advantage of this greater openness when they first visited Siberia in 1990. For many years both musicians have been fascinated by the formerly suppressed tradition of the Soviet shamans. They are keen to explore the interrelation between their own improvised performances and shamanic seance rituals, which also involve improvised music. When playing with Yakus musicians, Hodgkinson observed ‘that their aesthetic approach allowed them to apply the irregularities of nature to their music without any difficulty’. They seemed not to be concerned with any distinction between musical sound and noise, an attitude very much in tune with Hyder and Hodgkinson (aka Shams) on Burghan Interference, which sensitively weaves Siberian influences into the tapestry of Improv. Hyder’s far away vocal cries and sparing use of the Tuvan khoomei overtone style have an evocative, unpolished field recording quality, and he conjures further space with his light-touch cymbal play and skittering drum patterns. Hodgkinson’s alto sax is persuasively querulous on ‘Make Better Shake’, and the steely twang and abrasive strums of his ‘flat guitar’ suggest a stripped down, primordial rock.” – Chris Blackford, The Wire

SLAM CATALOGUE