Label: RogueArt Records, 2023
Personnel - Fred Frith: electric guitar; Susana Santos Silva: trumpet.
Captured live in France in 2021, Laying Demons to Rest marks the second collaboration (the first in duo) between British avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith and inventive Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva. On the heels of the memorable double-disc trio album Road (Intakt, 2021), which conquered our ears and senses with incredible guitar-trumpet-saxophone moments, Frith delivers nearly 42 minutes of continuous free improvisation, weaving an off-the-wall musical fabric centered on timbre and atmospherics.
The duo embraces vast amorphousness within a progressive structure that begins with droning trumpet, airy sounds, electronic noises, and dissonant chords. Then the crystalline guitar drops give way to a distortion-soaked provocation that skyrockets intelligible trumpet phrases in the upper registers.
The story develops with cinematic suspense and the roles readjust; now they set piercing guitar screeches against low-pitched brass. An instant later, we hear organ-like sounds with a percussive tract in the bass notes of Frith’s axe. Concurrently, Santos ruminates via popping sounds just to raise notes to an opera house level.
Several suspended passages keep the tension alive but the duo extricates from raucous conversations by focusing on simple ostinatos that create a strobelike repetition.
These two creatives have immense musical potential and already proved their skills. This recording, despite being an unrepeatable product of their distinct sound worlds, felt somewhat dry. At times, I wished their tone-paintings had some more grip, something less sketchy and more palpable in terms of rhythmic expression.
