cd Bea
(Annette Works - AW02) CD $10.00
Live solo improvisation evolving from three interfacing elements, abstractly filtered through Matthews's psyche: a conventional violin, a heavy rig of special “live sampling” electronics, and the social and psychological space of the concert. Her unusual sense of expanded mental “space” is stocked with gripping science-fiction landscapes and somber delirium. Matthews is a fine violinist who can soar in a deranged sawing sort of way, but she deserves recognition for the live electronics; she keeps multiple streams of samples going at once -- truly polyphonic and polyrhythmic improvising. Dense droning layers are built up, cut out unexpectedly into choppy rhythms, and then suddenly turn the bend to become something else entirely, with very little obvious looping or hackneyed manipulation, more akin to composed orchestral music or tape-spliced musique concrete.