First it’s 2004. Anthony doesn’t even have a piano for that trio gig… Oh no! Nonetheless, something happens in that old damp cellar of Cave12 and some connections are made for ever.
In 2006 “The Same Girl” comes over to Australia with Gilles Aubry and myself; we spend a few nights at your place on Hardware Lane.
It’s now 2007, it’s around my birthday and we’re emailing about a Buttercup Metal Polish tour. You offer to help out for some contacts and gigs in Melbourne and also super kindly offer us a place to stay for a few nights if we need it. We talk some more, you just played at Stralau68 in Berlin with Valerio Tricoli, we make plans.
July comes and we start the Buttercup Metal Polish tour in Japan. It’s hot and it’s really humid! Then, after a few days we fly into Melbourne where it’s raining and pretty freezing (in comparison); I remember having to buy a hat and a pair of gloves... It’s confusing.
We move around a bit and play a few shows in Sydney, Addelaide, Brisbane and then we make it back to Melbourne for a few more days. We play a bunch of gigs, one of which is at the Toff in town. We’re on the bill together with Casey Rice and ... I’m not quite sure who else anymore. We do a little bit of teaching at the VCA with Peter Neville’s percussion students and you’re there in the hall for the final presentation gig with the students.
The evenings are spent and actually very well spent. Eating, drinking and a lot of talking. The conversations cover a large variety of subjects. I remember you invited us to eat fantastic Italian food in a rather fancy restaurant (where the fine red wine rapidly became the main attraction). I remember talking about Grisey, and the minute after we’re on youtube discovering R. Kelly’s evocations of a closet and the wonderful world of smooth music on the yacht rock webserie. back at your place, we fall asleep, and when we wake up the next morning, a playlist of Christopher Cross’s best hits is still on, in repeat mode. That very morning, our phones ring. A flood of text messages from Geneva inform us that our beloved Cave12, the club that welcomed you in Geneva for the first time and where we met in 2004, is being evicted, together with the legendary squat Rhino that it’s part of. I remember the feeling of sharing our sadness of losing one of our favourite experimental music venues, while being thousands of miles away from it.
Flying out of Australia, we head back to Japan where we have some more shows to play. We take the opportunity to go to Gok Sound Studios in Kichijoji, Tokyo, and record in one afternoon the material - that took it’s time - but is now presented on this release. I like to believe that you are part of the energy contained in these recordings.
Fast forward some years and we see each other occasionally on gigs and festivals.
In 2010 we even did a bunch of recordings in Geneva... I still have to go through those. 2011 you’re MC’ing at Jolt festival in Basel. There are many more occasions like that. In 2017 we just missed each other at LUFF because I had the flue.
In 2019 I saw you with Pateras and Brown at the Wilisau festival. And then, one day in March 2020 Ant calls me and you’ve flown away.
It’s like waking up again to something you know has existed and was for sure good.
Killer sink piss and noise my friend!
credits
released December 20, 2021
Nicolas Field, Drums/Percussion
Alexandre Babel, Drums/Percussion
Recorded by Yoshiaki Kondo (01.09.07) and mixed by Ry-odi Yanagida (10.10.07) at Gok Sound, Tokyo. Mastered by Blaise Favre (05.12.08) at Empreinte Digitale, Yverdon-les-Bains.
Thanks:
Yoshiaki Kondo, Ry-odi Yanagida, Luc Meier, Mike Kubeck, Morihide Sawada, Annalee Koernig, Sean Baxter, Cal Lyall, Cave12, Marion, Sixto, Tony Cerovaz, Ibn al Rabin
Nicolas Field and Alexandre Babel (drums and percussions/CH). The duo was born in late 2002, from the desire to give drums
music a new dimension.
The duo decided to explore the possibilities of drums, through extended and new playing techniques, sometimes of his own invention. The duo has collaborated with Keiji Haino, Jacques Demierre, Otomo Yoshihide, Anthony Pateras and others....more
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