SLAMCD250 Unsolicited Music Ensemble – Bulbs

Free improv trio made up of bassist Tony Wren, percussionist Raymond Strid and saxophonist Martin Küchen, recorded live in Sweden in February 2002.

Martin Küchen: soprano & baritone saxophone, plus other objects
Tony Wren: double bass
Raymond Strid: percussion

“Kuchen, Wren and Strid play an attractive species of improv, coming on like an exceptionally active form of jazz. They don’t suspend time, instead using their skills to unfurl deliciously variegated sounds. Wren’s big bass and Strid’s sonorous drums make everything sound gorgeous, while Kuchen’s Shepp-like blurts add immediacy…this pushy, unguarded trio sounds really fresh.” – Ben Watson, Hi-Fi News

“The sax/bass/drums line-up on “Bulbs” might on paper recall such legendary improv power trios as Brötzmann/Kowald/Johansson or Parker/Guy/Lytton, but the UME’s music is closer in spirit to Stevens’ SME…Küchen, though a forceful free jazz player with his Exploding Customer quartet, is content to embed himself in the group texture rather than front the band, while Wren and Strid remain agile but dynamically discreet throughout…as with much contemporary improvised music, “Bulbs” requires active and concentrated attention on the part of the listener to reveal its secrets.” – Transatlantic Magazine

“Restrained chamber jazz of the highest gauge…the CD’s final track shows how these expansive techniques had been redefined as the trio played together even more. Here, at times, it sounds as if Küchen’s distinctive tones are being produced underwater; Wren’s rhythm-defining low-pitched pizzicato lines arise from only slightly above sea level; with Strid introducing the elevated colours available from bells, triangle and toy xylophone to lighten the mood. By the time the almost-12 minute piece has come to an end though, reverberating snares, staccato reed chirps and hedgehogs scratches has made it come alive. Ignore the band’s name, but not its sounds. Once you hear this disc, you’ll probably decide that its music is anything but unsolicited.” – Ken Waxman, Jazz Weekly

“Strid marks the perfect balance between drummer and percussionist. Incorporating both disciplines into his playing on a standard kit, Strid, like Paul Lytton, is identifiable by the many objects he places upon his skins to obtain a variety of percussive sounds, thus extending the natural range and possibilities in his instrument. Küchen is at once a skilled composer and a brilliant improviser…While the overall attitude of the tracks tends to bleed over, there are plenty of stimulating nuances. The trio shows tremendous range in the comparatively small niche they are striving to develop.” – Alan Jones, The Squid’s Ear

“The music is so consistently low in dynamic level it’s as if these sounds, which might at full volume become genuinely alarming, have been abraded or rendered indistinct, leaving a surface that is oddly hypnotic in its tiny fluctuations. “Small Edison Screw” is particularly striking: a mute clamour that sustains a mood of unease while suggesting (when Wren briefly interjects the sound of sawing, for instance) some tiny atrocity just outside the range of perception…All in all, Bulbs is a first-rate disc, and highly recommended to improv fans.” – Nate Dorward, Cadence

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