Hugh Davies

[Stephen]

Thought maybe now was a good time to give him a thread considering the discussion in the now listening thread and the new archival release on another timbre.


I saw his Shozygs exhibited in south London once, not that they tell you much in visual terms, little springs stretched above homemade pickups


As far as his solo music is concerned I only own:


and have heard:


but not this one: Warming Up with the Iceman



So who/what/when and how are Gentle Fire? and any other Davies-related stuff...

[Stephen]

As well as Gentle Fire, I think the Music Improvisation Company discs are a good place to start with Hugh Davies. The Incus CD is especially strong, I think, and Hugh's playing on that one is relatively mellow (if that helps).
In general Hugh's stuff can be uncompromisingly spiky, but once you're into it that's part of the appeal. Max Eastley tells a good story about when he was playing a duet with Hugh, and Max tried to introduce a melody of sorts. Hugh responded by obliterating Max's playing under a carpet of harsh cacophanous noise. Other times he could be as gentle as a kitten, but he was always ready to disrupt your expectations.

[J.F.]

[...]Max tried to introduce a melody of sorts. Hugh responded by obliterating Max's playing under a carpet of harsh cacophanous noise.

That caught my attention, in a negative way, and I actually tried to comment on that, but didn't find the right words.

Davies' contributions in the Music Improvisation Company leave a pale impression for me.
Apart from that I heard "Shozyg", "Trios by Company" and that Phil Minton-LP on SAJ which also includes some music with Davies (I believe Minton/Brötzmann/Davies? Is that accurate?). It's been a long time since I last listened to those records, so before commenting, I probably should check them out again... but I don't really remember Davies' contributions there - which in itself probably says something about how I liked them.

[simon reynell]

Stephen wrote: So who/what/when and how are Gentle Fire?


David Toop would be the man to give you a proper history. I know Gentle Fire more by reputation than from any direct contact. But they were an ensemble formed by Hugh Davies & Richard Bernas (I think), containing also Richard Orton (initially), Graham Hearn, Stuart Jones and Michael Robinson. Most of them were from a classical background, but they were very much of the avant-garde of their day and were determinedly rejecting not only tonality, regular rhythms etc, but also serialism and any learned assumptions about music or musicianship (apparently if they felt that their playing was becoming loose, they would swap instruments so that they would play only what was musically essential). They didn't just improvise, but pioneered early forms of live electronics & interpreted indeterminate scores by Cage, Wolff, Brown, Stockhausen etc [This was all around the time of early AMM - late 60's to mid-70's, but as far as I know there was no formal contact between the two] Like AMM, very early on they somehow focused in on areas of contemporary music which seemed totally marginal at the time, but which have become far more significant as the music has developed.

I have their only LP, which contains very strong realisations of Cage's 'Music for Amplified Toy Pianos' & 'Music for Carillon', Earle Brown's '4 Systems' & Christian Wolff's 'Edges'. It's not overstating things to say that the performances on that record still sound utterly fresh & contemporary. An extract from one of their improvisations is on David Toop's collection 'Not Necessarily English Music' (though not a particularly strong one in my opinion), and I vaguely remember a BBC radio broadcast from the early 70's - I think involving a piece by Tim Souster - which made a real impact on me at the time. I know that Hugh Davies was preparing a cd of archive material when he became ill, but unfortunately he never completed the project. There are recordings of the group in the Hugh Davies collection at the National Sound Archive, but unfortunately it costs a fortune to access this material (as I know from obtaining Hugh's solos for the 'another timbre' cd-r), so they are unlikely to be published unless one of the surviving members has copies.

[Stephen]

Just found a pdf of an article by Davies in LMJ.

Gentle Fire: An early approach to live electronic music
uploaded it here if anyone's interested.

[hatta]

Gentle Fire are great, we talked about them a bit last year. At that point I linked to this mp3 blog which has the aforementioned album for download along with cover images, images of some of the scores and a decent amount of description.

[simon reynell]

Just found a pdf of an article by Davies in LMJ.

Gentle Fire: An early approach to live electronic music
uploaded it here if anyone's interested.

Thanks for the link, Stephen. That's a really interesting article.

[yonhosago]

I saw his Shozygs exhibited in south London once, not that they tell you much in visual terms, little springs stretched above homemade pickups

[Stephen]

Those photos make the objects I saw seem positively dull, they obviously got the barrel-scrapings of the Davies archive.

hatta: thanks for the mp3 link

[hatta]

Another now defunct mp3 blog posted what I think was a boot of a live Gentle Fire performance. As they no longer have it up for download I have set up a YSI for ya'll.

Gentle Fire, Group Improvisation IV, 1972

[Richard Pinnell]

Max Eastley tells a good story about when he was playing a duet with Hugh, and Max tried to introduce a melody of sorts. Hugh responded by obliterating Max's playing under a carpet of harsh cacophanous noise. Other times he could be as gentle as a kitten, but he was always ready to disrupt your expectations.

Heh, this made me smile

I have an old recording of Davies with Max Eastley and Barry Leigh somehwere on one of the old Resonance freebie CDs. I can upload it if anyone is interested, but I don't remember it being that remarkable.

I saw Davies play a few times in the mid to late nineties and while perhaps I feel I missed something back then when I listen to older recordings of his work now, they were still all good shows. I do remember looking at the shozygs back then though and being amazed at them and how they were used to make sound. These days every time I look at one of Lee Patterson's set-ups I am reminded of those early Hugh Davies constructions. Although the two musicians make quite different music I think its fitting that Lee is one of the musicians on the Another Timbre release.

[Dohol]

Those photos make the objects I saw seem positively dull, they obviously got the barrel-scrapings of the Davies archive.

hatta: thanks for the mp3 link

I don't know..Those inventions seem capable of an enormous variety of sound..

[simon reynell]

I remember the first time I saw Hugh play back in the mid-70's. I'd heard a couple of recordings, and when it said 'springs' I'd imagined him working with major industrial-size springs; they certainly sounded deep and voluminous. When I saw that he was actually making those sounds with little springs no longer than your hand, I was astonished.

[yonhosago]

Another now defunct mp3 blog posted what I think was a boot of a live Gentle Fire performance. As they no longer have it up for download I have set up a YSI for ya'll.

Gentle Fire, Group Improvisation IV, 1972

That's Group Composition IV (Glastonbury Fair). Its main feature is the gHong or gong tree. In the article posted before is a complete description and a photo.

[Dan Warburton]

Another now defunct mp3 blog posted what I think was a boot of a live Gentle Fire performance. As they no longer have it up for download I have set up a YSI for ya'll.

Thanks Hatta - much appreciated.

[simon reynell]

Yes, thanks Hatta; it's really good to have heard that.
It's a great sound. At 65 minutes they were probably overdoing it, but any 20 minutes out of the track is lovely.

[clifford]

I'd really like to get that Electrola LP but it's super-rare. Saw Hugh Davies give a solo concert of Shozygs in Chicago years ago - absolutely fantastic, and a swell guy. He is missed.

The SAJ LP is fantastic, certainly something that should be reissued. Look forward to listening to that posted link.

[7/4]

I remember the first time I saw Hugh play back in the mid-70's. I'd heard a couple of recordings, and when it said 'springs' I'd imagined him working with major industrial-size springs; they certainly sounded deep and voluminous. When I saw that he was actually making those sounds with little springs no longer than your hand, I was astonished.

Same here. I thought they would be from the suspension of a school bus or a car.

Of course, could you imagine hauling that kind of stuff around to perform?

[kp*]

He spent a week or so out at Dartmouth when i was there. Christian Wolff invited him and we went on a listening binge before his arrival. When he got there and showed us his rig we were all astounded at how small and refined it was. I'll admit, i took a lot of inspiration away from his visit. I was mostly doing notated ensemble music, computer music, and some things with guitar and sometimes really long tape loops (analog tapes & mic stands and also long prerecorded PCM tapes on Betamax) and outboard processors like the Yamaha SPX-90. Hearing his set up along with a visit by Gordon Mumma at about the same time were both very eye/ear opening for me. Emersed in computer music synthesis algorithms and vritual instrument design, i had become a software guy. These guys made me take a second look at the analog input side of things. Davies was a really nice guy (Mumma was maybe one of the 10 nicest people i have ever met. He gave me a DAT master of his Studio Retrospective CD which i still have). Thanks to this thread, i am going to revisit some Hugh Davies.

-kp--

[sellanraa]

Been hearing a lot about Hugh Davies/Gentle Fire and stumbled on this thread from long ago. Any chance anyone could re-upload the Davies essay on Gentle Fire?