Mouthpiece by Spontaneous Music Ensemble (CD, Jul-2000, Emanem UK)

Album Features
UPC:	5030243403929
Artist:	Spontaneous Music Ensemble
Format:	CD
Release Year:	2000
Record Label:	Emanem (UK)
Genre:	Avant-Garde/Downtown, Jazz Instrument

Track Listing
1. In Relationship to Silence
2. Sustained Piece - (TRUE instrumental)
3. Sustained Piece - (vocal)
4. One-Two
5. Mouthpiece

Details
Distributor:	Northcountry Distributors
Recording Type:	Live
Recording Mode:	Stereo
SPAR Code:	n/a

Album Notes
Spontaneous Musical Orchestra includes: John Stevens (conductor).
Recorded in England in 1973.
Mouthpiece documents John Stevens' experimentations with large improvisational ensembles. Various incarnations of the Spontaneous Music Orchestra (the name Stevens' ever-changing Spontaneous Music Ensemble was taking when the number of participants justified it) are featured on this disc, but all were recorded in 1973 at different locations in London. The list of players have been omitted in the booklet because of the impossibility to confirm who participated almost 30 years after the concerts took place.
The two most interesting pieces open and end the CD. "In Relationship To Silence" showcases a dozen musicians in a piece born out of silence and going back to silence after 20 minutes. On "Mouthpiece" (24 minutes), we hear more players (maybe over 30). The orders were to start with mouth noises, moving to vocal sounds and finally to the instruments, the chain of actions being reversed at the end of the piece. A nice accomplishment: there are interesting textures bonified by an orgiastic middle part - the loudest moment on this CD.
The three other pieces found between these two markers feel more like exercises. Two versions of "Sustained Piece" offer an exercise of sustained notes (one instrumental, the other vocal). "One-Two" is an exercise wherer each player has the possibility to play on the first beat, the second beat, play a sustained note or not play at all. Interesting but that's all.
All in all, Mouthpiece adds a significant document on John Stevens work with the SMO (the other one being the Emanem release For You to Share). But its interest lies more in its archival than musical qualities. ~ François Couture