Fluid Fixations by John Butcher + 13

JOHN BUTCHER + 13

dieb13 ~ turntables
Liz Allbee ~ trumpet
Sophie Agnel ~ piano
Hannah Marshall ~ cello
Angharad Davies ~ violin
Pat Thomas ~ electronics
Mark Sanders ~ percussion
John Edwards ~ double bass
Ståle Liavik Solberg ~ drums
Matthias Müller ~ trombone
Isabelle Duthois ~ voice, clarinet
Pascal Niggenkemper ~ double bass
Aleksander Kolkowski ~ stroh viola, musical saw
John Butcher ~ saxophones, recordings, composition

Robin Smith (hcmf// 2021 preview)
Where ‘fixed’ and ‘fluid’ might seem to present a conflict of interests, Butcher’s new piece presents them in a kind of harmony. His score positions these two musical qualities on a spectrum, making use of both. “This is a delicate thing”, he says, “If you pin things down too much you can kill them. I want to give instructions that run from the very precise to the almost intangible, in a way that allows the musicians to mould their playing into the piece”.
There’s a lot of subtext to Fluid Fixations – Butcher is writing for thirteen other musicians, all of whom he has collaborated with throughout his career – mutuals who meet in a relentlessly overlapping Venn diagram of the experimental music underground. “Ultimately, I’m the common denominator: the people within the group haven’t all played with each other, and there are some who won’t even have met before”.

John Butcher (2024)
Fluid Fixations places 14 highly individual players into a framework built from instructions that direct ever-shifting groupings, materials and relationships. Overall, the piece was informed by what I think of as psychological orchestration – imagining how specific people might respond to particular ideas, and to the sonic company they find themselves a part of.
In places the sound world incorporates saxophone recordings cut earlier to vinyl by dieb13. His improvising with them – for example; the mouth sounds in pt 2 (with Isabelle Duthois’ voice) and the feedback-saxophone in pt 6 (with Aleks Kolkowski’s musical saw) – tangibly changing the fixed into the flowing.
Some sections use photographic imagery, mostly drawn from nature, to suggest spaces where the musicians can step away from the score to create their own worlds. Specified solos, duos and small groupings were woven into the piece, but my aim for much of the time was to engage the entire ensemble in a multifaceted group music. One whose internal workings both reflect and refract these musicians’ very unique energies.

Improviser, Composer, Saxophonist.
Born in Brighton.
Lives in London.

johnbutcher.org.uk