Bertrand Gauguet & John Tilbury - Contre-Courbes [Akousis Records 002]

Released as cat.no. 002 of the Saint-Denis, France-based experimental imprint Akousis Records on March 5th, 2k21 is "Contre Courbes", a double CD album featuring two live recordings of concerts held by Bertrand Gauguet & John Tilbury in April 2016 and November 2019 respectively. Combining their experimental, rather stripped down approach to their instruments of choice - alto saxophone and piano - the two recordings reflect upon the state of Minimal Music within the wide approximated field of what is referred to as Contemporary Classical / Modern Classical these days, oftentimes with a yearning, longing and slightly melancholic twist due to the subdued, stretched and rather nightly sax interventions whilst other sequences die down to near silence or drift off into highly fascinating, space age retrofuturism before the second concert, featured on CD2, is in for a darker, tense and well more ominous musical exploration, in parts somewhat reminiscent of crime scene scores in a film noir setting, partly comprised of haunted air flows and super high pitched sax-processings and superminimalist Ambient realms that might even resonate with connaisseurs of electro-acoustic music for a reason. Undisturbed headphone consumption is advised.

Album artwork on Instagram!