Annette Krebs / Robin Hayward – sgraffito

Annette Krebs / Robin Hayward – sgraffito

(self released)

robin hayward : tuba

annette krebs : guitar, objects, mixingdesk, tapes

On the final day of VNM’s Guitars! Guitars! Festival, Annette Krebs was the first to perform. As I had to drive back that night, I left after the following act only to find Annette out front by the merch table. I had been a bit disappointed that she had brought no merch, but it turned out she had a few things that she left on the table after her set. I quickly bought all of them. This disc which she is self-releasing (I can’t seem to find the website, but I’ll update this if its printed on the cd-r) was burned mere days before the festival. This disc, along with some of her other out of print releases, comes handsomely packaged in sleeves with new hand painted artwork.

There has been a rash of electronics and sputtery wind duos this year, but I find that this one has grabbed me the most. Robin Hayward plays tuba and while that in and of itself allows for a slightly different range of sounds than trumpet, sax, etc I think it also demands greater restraint and control – a lot of wind can be moved by a tuba and it can quickly overpower any other sounds. Here Robin brilliantly brings out super low frequency rumbles, squeaks and sputters, all in concert with his partner, never falling into soloing or mere background. Annette plays her prepared guitar an electronics in her usual manner which has this kind of arbitrariness to it – the sounds are precisely crafted but how they turn out and or where they go seem to be as much a surprise to her as it is to us. This I think works out really well in concert with other players (see her duo’s with Taku Sugimoto for prime examples) but especially if they give her space. It ends up giving this kind of the sound of a Cage time bracket piece, in that there are unexpected confluences and varying gaps. While both of these musicians are capable of droning they never fall into that here which I think adds to the strength of this recording. There are longer sustained sounds, which allow for a greater increase in satisfying collision of sounds, but it never becomes constant. Again I think that in the wind/electronics vein this has often been a failure, where the electronicist falls into nearly static percolations or the wind player relies on circular breathing for too long a duration. The sounds here are always placed in time, for themselves, not to force overlap or to break any of the occasional silences.

I’m not exactly sure how to get a copy of this, I’d expect ErstDist or Mimaroglu to have the best chances of getting copies. But it is well worth the effort to track down.

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