Episodes at 4 AM
(Paradigm Discs) CD $12.00
Throughout his varied career — including diverse musical activity such as working with the John Barry Seven and playing on Egg’s second LP — this jazz flautist, composer and group leader had his own fluid conceptual group Open Music with principle bass player Barry Guy and drummer Denis Smith. Players that passed through Open Music include Chris Spedding, Kenny Wheeler, Ray Russell, Ian Carr, Henry Lowther, Harry Beckett, Harry Miller, Barre Phillips, John Stevens and many others. After his early ’70s releases on Philips, Vertigo and Music For Pleasure, a series of three privately pressed LPs on his own label Openian explored this more experimental style. Episodes at 4 AM is the second in this series and is by far the strangest of the three. Released in 1974 and commissioned by the Welsh Dance Theatre, its ten short duos are performed by Wendy Benka on zither, dulcimer and small percussion, and Downes on flutes, various percussion and plenty of electronic manipulation. Nearly every sound on this LP was processed using a variety of shimmering delays, controlled feedback, reverb and speed change to create a haunting and delirious mix of musical styles and atmospheres. Taken from the master tapes, this thirty-three-minute LP has been expanded for the CD release with thirty-five minutes of previously unreleased experimental works, mostly from the same period, that cover even more ground than the LP, including one piece made entirely from the sounds of various phone booths on the streets of New York.