Eyal Hareuveni (Salt Peanuts) on Aspects of Memory by Lawrence Casserley / Emil Karlsen
Aspects of Memory documents the first, free improvised electroacoustic meeting of Lawrence Casserley (b.1941), who plays his own custom-made signal-processing instrument, and Norwegian, Leeds-based drummer-percussionist Emil Karlsen (b.1998). The album was recorded at Huddersfield University in October 2023.
Casserley, known for his role in the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic ensembles, has devoted his professional career to the creation and performance of real-time electroacoustic music, culminating in the development of his own unique device -the signal processing instrument, which allows him to use physical gestures to control the processing and to direct the morphology of the sounds. He says this electronic instrument may be likened to a musical time machine. «Time is at the core of our understanding of the world, and memory is at the core of our understanding of time. Both are fundamental to our perception of music. What happens to this understanding when ‘artificial memory interferes with our perceptions?»
The five pieces – «imagining», «Discerning», «Embodying», «Evoking», and «Experiencing» – address the issues of time and memory and suggest intriguing, resonant but also often quite cinematic textures that trigger unpredictable ways of constructing the listener’s conceptions of time and sonic memory. Casserley’s futurist, fragmented electronic sounds are embraced by Karlsen’s sparse and light percussive sounds that ground – literally – and resonate this atmospheric flow of sounds with an earthly, chaotic dimension. Often, they reverse their roles, and Karlsen’s resonates – literally – Casserley’s alien-like, percussive gestures.
Phil Freeman (The Wire) on Eyre by light.box (Alex Bonney / Pierre Alexandre Tremblay) + Tom Challenger
Trumpeter Alex Bonney and bass guitarist PAT, both of whom double on electronics, are UK unit light.box; tenor saxophonist Tom Challenger (what a name to live up to!) is their guest on this, their fourth album. The bulk of it is made up of the half-hour suite “Chain Chimes”, which is divided into three tracks and an interlude and includes overdubbed horn chorales, noise-dub bass, throbbing power electronics à la Prurient, and less immediately classifiable sounds. It never reaches Borbetomagus-like heights of free squall, opting instead to ooze like early Tangerine Dream had they gone spiritual jazz. At its best, it sounds like Bill Dixon and Evan Parker teaming up with Excepter to perform some kind of dark funeral rite.
Tony Dudley Evans (UK Jazz News) on Eyre by light.box (Alex Bonney / Pierre Alexandre Tremblay) + Tom Challenger
light.box is the duo of Alex Bonney and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, both on electronics, but with Bonney doubling on trumpet and Tremblay doubling on bass guitar. They have made four records, the first just as a duo, the others in partnership with one other musician, Sam Pluta, another electronics performer on one, British-based Norwegian drummer Emil Karlsen on another, and Tom Challenger on this most recent album.
The collaboration with Tom Challenger creates music with many variations and full of unique sounds and textures. The collaboration takes different forms; at times the electronics lays down a rich backing for Challenger to develop his own lines over, at others the approach is much more interactive with Challenger integrating short phrases with similarly short phrases from the electronics. Bonney also moves between electronics and his trumpet, swapping phrases on the trumpet with Challenger’s saxophone in the classic free jazz style, but also blending in with the electronics to create a rich integrated sound.
The opening track, “Lateral Sway”, begins with a booming industrial sound; this serves as a rich background over which Challenger develops abstract lines on the tenor sax.
“Chain Chimes” begins with Bonney on trumpet improvising in short interactive phrases with Challenger. The track is divided into three parts and a short interlude and after the opening duet between Bonney and Challenger it moves into various passages of electronics with snatches of distant sound from the saxophone and the trumpet at different points to create a very special sound.
The final track, “Covalent”, has, after an extensive electronic opening, a beautiful, rather melancholy solo from Challenger over atmospheric electronics; it concludes with a more forceful statement from the saxophone, still over the electronics.
The album is on Bead, a label which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and in which Emil Karlsen is now playing a leading role.
Daniel Spicer (Jazzwise) on Eyre by light.box + Tom Challenger
light.box is the duo of trumpeter Alex Bonney and bassist Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, both of whom also add a rich electronic stew to their atmospheric improvisations. For their last album, 2023’s The Undanced Dance, they were joined by drummer Emil Karlsen. This time, tenor saxophonist Tom Challenger guests.
There’s a decidedly subdued feel to this expedition, with thick banks of electronic cloud and drizzle seeming to dampen any untoward bursts of enthusiasm. Widescreen sonic events spurt like distant coronae and judder like implacable industrial machinery, with Tremblay’s bass guitar thranging and throbbing below. Meanwhile, Challenger, for the most part, is free to wander disconsolately over the top of this chilly ambience.
When Bonney’s trumpet appears with a lonesome call, the sax joins in muted dialogue before both are subjected to real-time sampling, setting up complex echoes very much reminiscent of Terry Riley’s 1963 tape manipulation piece, ‘Music For The Gift,’ which artfully mangled a Chet Baker performance. Hats off to this current endeavour for keeping some of that avant-garde intensity alive and well in 2025.
Andrzej Nowak (Spontaneous Music Tribune) on Eyre by light.box + Tom Challenger
Jazz, or rather post-jazz saxophone bathed in a dense stream of electronics, from which incidental phrases of trumpet and bass guitar emerge. The album opens with an almost epic ending, and in between, the main content, divided into four sub-chapters, serves as a basis for a discussion on the merits of improvisation dominated by synthetic sounds.
As promised, the album opens with a stream of glitchy electronics, also built with bass feedback. In these circumstances, the saxophone comes to life, flowing with a calm, jazzy tone. Meanwhile, the opening of the four-part main phase might be the most interesting segment of the album. We hear clean trumpet phrases, followed shortly by the saxophone. A fascinating dialogue forms, which is spread across the entire spectrum of the narrative, cleverly edited with live processing and supported by phrases from the live bass. The whole thing gradually molds into a dense, rough ambient, with emotions created by the bass, which melts into the growing wave of electronics. After an interlude lasting just under a hundred seconds, reminiscent of Tibetan meditation, the narrative reaches a phase defined by both the taste of deconstructed rock and post-jazz synthetic sounds, inevitably associated with the works of Nils Peter Molvær. The main section of the album is complemented by clean, melodic saxophone phrases intriguingly correlated with bass fuzz. The album's conclusion lasts ten minutes and introduces many new elements. Electroacoustic hum and the dark glow of ambient build the background, on which the main action unfolds – a dialogue between saxophone and bass, systematically soaked in electronics. On the final stretch, there is no shortage of melody, counterpointed by the electronic screeching.