Auslanders by Richard Scott's Lightning Ensemble + Jon Rose

Richard Scott – modular synthesizer
David Birchall – acoustic guitar
Phillip Marks – drums and percussion
Jon Rose – violin

1. trio 24:09
2. quartet 16.18

Auslanders is a co-released with Sound Anatomy, as a limited edition run of 100 CDs in hand letterpressed cases and as a digital download.

You can buy the physical CD from us here at Vernacular or head over to Sound Anatomy to buy the Download soundanatomy.com

"Supposed you're stationed in a Burroughsian laboratory of advanced linguistic research and development, working on a programme designed to translate alien tongues into human languages. It might just sound abit like this. Richard Scott's modular synthesizer whooshes and pings, tweets and twitters like a miniature robot sparrow or it blurps and burbles like a fart in a mud bath. Philip Marks tumbles out a scattershot percussive mutter of muted patters and clacks. David Birchall, on acoustic guitar, teases taut filaments from the neck and flings out glancing rapid strums. The first piece is 24 minutes of ceaseless scrabbling activity, intoxicating in all its busy detail. For the 16 minute second piece they are joined by violinist Jon Rose who adds tense pizzacato plucks and anxious swooning and sawing to a similar flurry of ideas. Early results form the lab suggest its a hit with the dolphins"
The Wire June 2016

"The Lightning Ensemble teams modular synth hero Richard Scott with guitarist David Birchall and drummer Phillip Marks. They play as a trio for one of the two live sets here and are joined by violinist Jon Rose for the other, laying down a hectic bustle of improvisation on this debut release for Manchester’s Vernacular Recordings.

There’s an itchy, feverish quality to both of the sets, the playing at times almost imbalanced in its restlessness that makes for interesting listening. For every coalescing wave of thump and squelch there’s a corresponding atomisation, the players shying away from locking into a mutually supportive group. This is particularly prevalent on the trio recording, where Scott’s modular burps and farts entwine with Marks’ percussive flurries like the tentacles of some-encrusted cephalopod in a 19th century seafaring tale, with Birchall’s rubs and plucks the yelps of freaked out mariners. Of course, half the time I can’t really distinguish what Birchall and Scott are doing, such are the acousmatic properties of their musicking. Birchall in particular has a knack for making his instrument sound like anything but a guitar, while Scott’s skills allow him to range far from the conventional modular sound palette (although fans of his recent recording on Cusp Editions will recognise the queasy barfs of his manoeuvres). Yet there’s still something of the late-night post-pub argy bargy about the jostling morass of sound that the trio creates, an exuberant to-ing and fro-ing that teeters perpetually on the edge of a strop, each party indignantly holding their corner until convinced to calm themselves and wolf down a plate of chips.

Marks does a good job of not being drowned in all this, alternating high velocity pummelling and crashing to cut through the goo with more restrained hisses and scrapes. He gets more space, strangely, on the quartet set, which has an altogether drier, almost woody feel. That’s due in part to the addition of Rose’s violin, which swoops in melancholic arcs across a landscape strewn with sonic detritus. Scott dials down the Lovecraftian mess, his occasional bursts of corroded grizzling adding to its rather desolate air. In contrast to the individualist roll and tumble of the trio, the group seems happy to let go of their established positions and gel into a edgeless cloud of unknowing, their hive mind forcing the playing into an almost reductionist liturgy, each scrape freighted with silvery meaning and each yowl holding within itself a myriad of possibilities. There’s a particularly affecting passage at about 7 minutes 30 where the descending whines of Rose’s violin join with some top-of-the-fretboard squeals from Birchall, to form a dissonant chorus, eventually falling off to let Marks back in for a thundering roll of the toms. It’s an arid, almost airless piece, and an interesting experiment for an unusual configuration. Worth checking out."
Weneednoswords September 2016
https://weneednoswords.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/richard-scotts-lightning-ensemble-jon-rose-auslanders-live-in-berlin/

I am a musician living in Manchester.

I improvise live and compose recordings in the studio.

I organise performances with Curious Ear.

davidbirchall.neocities.org