Thermal by Andy Moor, John Butcher, Thomas Lehn

Short-run re-issue CD of 2001 recording originally released on Unsounds.

ANDY MOOR - guitar
THOMAS LEHN - synthesizer
JOHN BUTCHER - saxes

"Thomas Lehn has radically reclaimed the synthesizer for spontaneity. Exploiting the tendency of analogue models of the instrument to betray reasonable expectations, he runs tightropes between control and accident. His collaborators are liable to find themselves on untried ground, dependent upon sharp reflexes and tangential intuitions. Saxophonist John Butcher, tempered in the unorthodox, has the technical cunning and listening skills to meet the challenge Lehn poses. The third party is Scottish guitarist Andy Moor, a member since 1990 of anarchistic Dutch rockers The Ex and a founder of Aegeanklezmer hybrid Kletka Red. Moor’s mid-90s duets with fellow Ex guitarist Terrie Ex disclosed their shared taste for free improvising.

With Lehn and Butcher, Moor puts in a remarkable performance, pulling no punches with his personal take on electric guitar and navigating a potentially hazardous improvising situation with such confidence that he often seems to be steering. There’s a spine of rock attitude in his playing but Moor flexes and inflects it to meet an undefined condition. Lehn and Butcher fare well in this encounter too, bending, extending and adapting what they do without compromising essentials. Thermal meshes horizons and welds disparate trajectories. It’s a highly persuasive point of access to the work of all three musicians."

Wire - Julian Cowley

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

johnbutcher.org.uk