Spring Heel Jack
Masses
'Masses' is an utterly unexpected, and utterly gripping, collaboration between the East London duo, Spring Heel Jack, and a group of top-flight improvisers, drawn largely from New York's ascendant free jazz network but also including Evan Parker and microtonal violinist Matt Maneri. The album creates its own space and time in the realm of synergetic electroacoustics due to the studio-processed audio environments, which are played back in real time as the triggers for, and fixed components in, a series of group improvisations. 'Masses' opens a tunnel on a space where matter and anti-matter can co-exist without the vernacular power of either state being compromised or diminished. It is a total triumph. Recorded in 1999 in NYC, with Matt Shipp, Roy Campbell, Matt Manieri, William Parker, and co.