Experiments with a Leaf, by Andy Moor & John Butcher

Experiments with a Leaf

by Andy Moor & John Butcher

supported by

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£5 GBP or more
Full Digital Discography

65

releases

Get all 65 John Butcher releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Hear and How, Fluid Fixations, Angles of Enquiry, The Very Fabric, But everything now left before it arrived, Plume, Experiments with a Leaf, Drunk on Dreams, and 57 more. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

£208 GBP (50% OFF)

	1.	Five Eyes 03:40
	2.	Fantasy Downsize 07:22
	3.	Joy is the Headlight 03:03
	4.	The tongue is a flame 11:35
	5.	The Toughest Four Ounces of Life 04:26

about

Originally released on CD from Unsounds

JOHN BUTCHER: saxophones
ANDY MOOR: guitars

"In the world of free improvisation—that is, improvising with no particular genre in mind—players can sometimes fall back on a “bag of tricks” with various techniques or instant strategies to keep things moving along. So, it’s refreshing to hear a musician who can always surprise and impress, even with a familiarity of that performer’s musical personality.
One such musician is British saxophonist John Butcher, who not only has a virtuosic command of his instrument but also has a seemingly infinite palette with which to work.

On the new album Experiments with a Leaf, recorded live in a cathedral in Switzerland in October 2013, Butcher and electric guitarist Andy Moor both provoke each other yet mostly work toward synthesis, building new sounds that complement each other in complex, stimulating and satisfying ways.
Moor is best known as a member of the Dutch post-punk band The Ex, and that band’s fruitful collaborations with Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya are one example of how versatile Moor can be.
On “Fantasy Downsize,” Moor accompanies Butcher’s fluttering bird noises with woozy low notes and scratches before he stabs with harmonics and atonal mini-blasts; the mood is one of playful and curious confusion, with kissing noises and the tense wringing of notes.

“Joy is the Headlight” begins with bright flashes of sax melodies before scurrying away from recognizable, hummable tunes using frantic runs; the track ends with a half-minute of chilling near- silence to cleanse the palate, with barely audible sounds of what sounds like dangling strings rustling.

On the 11-minute “The Tongue Is a Flame,” Moor uses a slide and alternates between low buzzes and inebriated high notes, and later, he generates ambient tones while Butcher’s desperate squawks reverberate gloriously in the cathedral space; notably, Butcher also manages to make his saxophone sound exactly like amplifier feedback."

credits

released June 29, 2021

"zoom in" festival, Munster, Berne, Switzerland - 26 October 2013
Recorded by Fabio Oehrli
Cover photo by Andy Moor taken at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
Thanks to Christian Kobi
Unsounds 48

license

about

John Butcher London, UK

Improviser, Composer, Saxophonist.
Born in Brighton.
Lives in London.

johnbutcher.org.uk

contact / help

Contact John Butcher

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Experiments with a Leaf, you may also like:

Time Hunt
by Sputnik Trio

The Spanish avant-garde jazz trio takes listeners on a journey through time on their thoughtful new album. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 4, 2022
go to album
I was too young to hear silence
by Patrick Shiroishi

Free jazz saxophonist explores negative space on a vast, improvised work recorded in a L.A. parking structure. Bandcamp Album of the Day Nov 9, 2023
go to album
The Reluctant Astronaut
by Max Devereaux & Hiroo Chubachi

featured on Bandcamp Radio Mar 7, 2022
go to album
Portico
by Unknown To Known

featured on Bandcamp Radio Nov 9, 2021
go to album
Gestalt
by RAIC

An ambitious cross-genre journey from the Richmond Avant Improv Collective, who bring in 17 (!) guest musicians to fill out their vision. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 12, 2021
go to album
No Base Trio
by No Base Trio

featured on Bandcamp Radio Jul 14, 2020
go to album
Leviathan
by Stephen Roddy

Written in response to the climate crisis, “Leviathan” is a brooding and beautifully unsettling batch of dark ambient songs. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 16, 2023
go to album