Reviews:

(Music You Need To Hear) Ernesto Díaz-Infante is a favorite on this blog, so any release of his is welcome, but Bryan Day is a new name for me. He is an instrument maker and improvisational musician who also runs Public Eyesore Records. This collaboration is quite dark, bordering on a cacophonous take reminding me of works by Derek Bailey or Loren (Mazzacane) Connors at their peak. This was rough listening, but thoroughly engaging. scatterArchive continue to release astoundingly interesting albums, so kudos to them for maintaining such high quality in a genre that can be difficult to do so. - Rudy Carrera

(Felthat) Bryan Day and Ernesto Diaz-Infante are two titans of improvised and experimental music that have shaped my musical sensitivity and fuelled my imagination since early 2000's. Both of them active in their own fields for at least - last 30 years. Bryan is not only a sound artist and a musician but also a music instruments builder and creative soul beyond Public Eyesore label which has funnily enough released not only his solo and collaborative albums but also has released four albums by Ernesto - namely: Rags and Stones, The Che Guevara Memorial Marching (And Stationary) Accordion Band, A Barren Place of Overwelming Simplicity, and My Benign Swords. Ernesto on the other hand is an improvising guitarist and together with his wife Marjorie Sturm has been running Pax Recordings. He has an astounding body of work and has worked with artists and musicians from his native USA and overseas. A blend of electric and acoustic passages of improvised guitar with just impossible to identify instruments that Bryan created gives a very special outlet for juxtaposing those two set ups in an abstract way - not necessarily sonorous but more straightforward way just as they plod along to some sort of equilibrium in this whole happenstance. Noisy, rattling staccatos on Ernesto's guitar strings and fallout of glitchy squelches that must be Bryan's work can sound either a bit serene at times and frantic at other times. Impressionistic palette that those two musicians possess is only measured and equalled by the ingenuity of not only tools they are using but also their techniques and means towards closing up on the compositions as a whole. The erudites which they both definitely are, make it sound out of bounds of many different musical genres - just for the simple fact that their techniques are not just random tactics but something they have worked in and out throughout their whole respective careers. It definitely makes me feel that in today's improvisation - there is still a lot to discover and records. - Hubert Napiosrski

Ooh, just catching up with this one - a fine example of what for want of a better term can be referred to as "the good stuff" - you know what I mean. One of those albums where the improvising creates something worth repeated listening rather than just being a document of what happened one day when some people played together., Non of that fannying around that improvisers tend to indulge in before they eventually find something to play - I'm an improviser and I know all too well when it is or isn't happening. Sometimes the struggle can be part of the attraction, but on the other hand it can also be a frustrating and unsatisfactory listen.... And sometimes the magic that you felt in the room at the moment of creation doesn't translate to the recording. But in this case it's there in every rich detail. Magic. Music. Sound and A Sense Of Purpose as if every sound knew exactly where it should go. Bryan Day I know from that incredible Isopleths album on Public Eyesore a few years ago with Tom Djll and Cheryl Leonard: where you can't tell who's doing what and how or why - my favourite place to be. Fremde Schonheit as Karlheinz told us. Mr Díaz-Infante I only know by name and haven't really listened to before, a regrettable oversight given the brilliance of his playing on this album. There's a lovely forward momentum to this music and a clear open tone which indicates players who know exactly what they're doing while never standing in the way of the freedom of the moment taking new pathways in a way that makes you rethink what you thought you knew. A compelling listen that retains it's exquisite flavour to the very last drop. This and the recent Sandy Ewen album make life worth living. - Dave Jackson