American, Texan drummer Lisa Cameron and Brooklyn-based guitarist (and architect) Sandy Ewen have been playing as a duo for a few years, and both of them collaborate frequently with double bass master Damon Smith. See Creatures Live in Shreveport is their third duo album, following live albums See Creatures and See Creatures Too (Astral Spirits, 2018 and 2021, dedicated to Cecil Taylor and Alvin Fiedler), and it was recorded live at Shreveport, Louisiana, in November 2021, and dedicated to «the spirit and work of Peter Brötzmann».

The new album offers a 49-minute, free improvised piece where the ever-resourceful and inventive Cameron and Ewen offer a suggestive yet unsettling soundscape. Both of them don’t play in conventional, familiar manners. Ewen’s electric guitar playing is centered around found objects and extended techniques while Cameron’s set is made of the barimbauophone, scattered percussion instruments, devices and electronics. Both Cameron and Ewen refuse to surrender to any genre convention and their music embraces elements of post-rock, ambient, noise and reductionist and abstract sound art.

Do not expect any common beats or grooves, and there are no melodies or structured narratives. There is an uncompromising and determined, patient search for sounds that create their own intriguing sonic environment. «Together, unfathomable bodies of sound, wild calls of dizzy friction sweeping left to right. Codes crack and hiss in dissolution. Patience spurs from experience, knowing how to look, for how long», Cameron and Ewen describe this experience poetically.

Eyal Hareuveni

Lisa Cameron (percussion, electronics), Sandy Ewen (guitar, devices)