CLINE/INTRIERE/JOHNSTON/
LOCKIE/POTTS/WEST
at Amoeba Music, July 25

Derek Bailey once wrote that there are musicians who consider the practice of free improvisation to be "complicated beyond description," and it is true that you'd need to be a mind reader with a road map to unravel the complex tangle of psycho-auditory interactions that takes place within a group of improvisers' heads as they play together; it seems equally true to say that the more closely improvisers listen to each other, the better the resulting music will tend to be. With such top-quality players as those assembled at Amoeba last Thursday night, it was not surprising how uncommonly good, how cohesive these 40 minutes of high-proof atonal improvising were.

Picture this: The opening oddness quickly hushed the whole store. Rick Potts, sitting behind a mass of wires and processors, bowed strange, wobbly spookhouse noises out of his musical saw, as Nels Cline interjected scraping sounds on an acoustic guitar that'd been Cagily prepared with metal objects stuck between the strings -- plunk . . . whsshhtt!! . . . bong . . . Once that subsided, drummer Rich West unleashed a quiet but powerful display of the type of centerless, "all-over" drum rhythms -- fragmented, compressed and compelling -- that Sonny Murray pioneered back in the free-jazz '60s, as Lynn Johnston let loose an intense flurry of warbling notes on the bass clarinet.

There was an interesting, two-layered division within this six-piece ensemble; based on sheer volume, you'd have to say that Cline (playing electric) and Johnston (on saxophone) were clearly the front men (Lynn's alto solos were strong, jerkily rhythmed pieces of Archie Sheppian honk 'n' squawk; he turned purple twice), while the string players -- violist Heather Lockie and cellist Michael Intriere -- supplied weaves of textural work underneath, and gadfly Potts (boy scientist with gadgets) sprinkled the proceedings with little noises like a confetti of old-time-radio fragments. Yes, it was complex, and colorful, and concentrated. (Tony Mostrom)