Songlines brings together British, Amsterdam-based bass clarinettist, known for performing contemporary works of composers like Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, his involvement in multimedia works by artists such as Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway as well as his collaborations with improvisers like Elliott Sharp, Merzbow, and Frances-Marie Uitti, and British electronics and multi-media musician Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud), known for his collaborations with artists like Michael Nyman, Laurie Anderson, and Pauline Oliveiros, and his countless dance, film, and installation projects. This is their third recorded collaboration. Davis and Scanner are joined by Polish clarinettist Monika Bugajny, who previously collaborated with Davis.

The Songlines in question are memories and distorted images, landscapes of travels across various continents that have become blurred statements, lost words of a figurative language, and echoes of meandering structures. The album features two extended, intimate, intriguing, ethereal, and highly immersive soundscapes: «Structures of Statements» and «Figurative Language». Both pieces are layered and nuanced, elegant collisions of slow, suggestive breaths and atmospheric synths and field recordings, «where circuitry hums, wood vibrates, and the air between notes crackles with possibility». And both pieces blur the distinction between the composed and the improvised, or the boundary between acoustic breath and digital pulse.

These expansive soundscapes suggest a dream-like sonic haven of their own, sketching rich cinematic images that are familiar but often unpredictable. Gareth and Scanner recommend thinking of «late-night conversations in abandoned buildings. Think fog rolling over neon. Think sound that slips through your fingers even as it takes hold of you».

Eyal Hareuveni

Gareth Davis (bass clarinet, effects), Robin Rimbaud (synthesisers, field recordings), Monika Bugajny (clarinet)