Fred Frith / Barry Guy
Backscatter Bright Blue
2014 - Intakt Records: Intakt CD 236 
https://www.intaktrec.ch/236_237-a.htm

* Fred Frith: electric guitar
* Barry Guy: double bass
 
https://www.fredfrith.com/ 
https://www.barryguy.com/

Recorded at Studio Klangdach, Guntershausen, August 14, 2007.
Mixed and mastered at Studio Klangdach, March 14, 2014.
Engineer: Willy Strehler.

Titles extracted from the poetry of Robert Lax. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lax 
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lax



Reviews
~~~~~~~

By Jason Bivins 
https://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD50/PoD50MoreMoments2.html

[...]

Frith’s duo with Guy is another dazzlingly good match. It’s always a treat to
hear Guy bring his sonic universe coursing through a wormhole into someone
else’s. His array of rubbery notes, eldritch arco effects, and raw percussive
sound resonates nicely with Frith. They’re in an especially scratchy mood on
the 20-minute opener, “Where the Cities Gleam in Darkness.” It ranges from this
deep engagement with the grain of strings into a fantasy for spring-loaded
effects and rayguns, and from there into a lovely contrast between Guy’s deep
melancholy fugue and Frith’s loop-generated canopies of stars. Even more than
on Edge of the Light, this disc really takes shape amid such moments of
resonant juxtaposition. Between bass double-stops and rubber depth charges,
Frith applies razorblades to blown glass. A noisy gamelan and subway train
erupt in “The Circus is a Song of Praise.” There are lathered-up grooves laced
with spun-glass plectrism. Moody, almost textural miniatures like “Big Flowers”
and “Breaking and Entering” frame long spirals into melancholy song (“A Single
Street Stretched Tight by the Waters,” which even evokes Loren Connors),
bustling string manipulation and radio voices (“Climbing the Ladder”), or
guitar deconstruction channeling Early Music (“Dependence over the
Abyss”). Often, as on the long closer “Moments Full of Many Lives,” you get the
feeling of being shuttled forward and off-balance in some postmodern Gagaku
machine. The whole disc feels like a dizzying rush of momentum, tailspins at
its conclusion into a lovely drone section that spools out at length, with
myriad changing details and swirling textures. Glorious.

--

Intakt Records 
https://www.intaktrec.ch/rev236-a.htm

By Guy Peters (be) 
https://www.enola.be/muziek/albums/25020:2-x-fred-frith-backscatter-bright-blue-met-barry-guy-edge-of-the-light-met-lotte-ander

Da Aldo Del Noce (it) 
https://www.jazzconvention.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2330:fred-frith-a-barry-guy-backscatter-bright-blue&catid=2:recensioni&Itemid=11

Par Franpi Barriaux (fr) 
https://www.citizenjazz.com/Fred-Frith-Barry-Guy.html