"HiGH   ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"

a r t i s t : konk pack
t i t l e : off leash
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : GROB CD Grob 654
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s.  d a t e : Dec/2004
t r a c k s : 01
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 78,7 MB

http://www.churchofgrob.com

Off Leash is the third release of the delicate high-energy trio
Konk Pack founded in 1998 and made up of Thomas Lehn on
EMS-synthesizer, Roger Turner on drums and Tim Hodgkinson on
la-top steel guitar and clarinet. Big Deep (1999, GROB 102) was
a selection of their first concerts: Warp Out(2001, GROB 323)
was the first studio recording. Off Leash is a live recording
again, from a concert in Utrecht in 2001 that was made under
most favorable conditions conceivable. The sound is superb, the
details of the live performance can be heard in the CDÆs tonal
image, the instruments are present and clear. If you close your
eyes, you can easily imagine sitting directly in a stirring
concert. But what are the best recording conditions worth with
the music cannot keep with them?
Off Leash bears up to the musiciansÆ critical ears. For the
first time they are so convinced of their own concert that they
found it valuable to release it in its entirety on a CD. (This,
by the way, is why the CD is only being released now: they
listened to the music again and again, checked it, compared it
to other recordings, and then it was mastered by Thomas Lehn in
the end.) For the first time, Off Leash offers the opportunity
of following an entire Konk Pack improvisation in real time,
without any post production dramaturgy and cosmetics. The
extremely powerful passages, their legendary free punk, is in a
perfectly balanced proportion to the peaceful, sometimes
fragile, passages that nearly crumble apart.
The music is both: it is consistent, like of a cast, like from
a group that had played far more than 100 concerts (which is
seldom in the world of improvised music); the music, however,
is also eruptive, often surprising, fragmentary and rogeneous.
The music from Konk Pack is the contradiction made productive:
finely engraved tonal work and hard free punk are not placed
non-reconcilably next to each other; in fact, they determine
each other An essential reason for this is the radically
horizontalimprovisational method of the musicians. All three
constantly play with each other. There is no fore or
background, no soloists and no accompaniment; in general no
solo and no feature of one individual. The system ôKonk Packö
means that each has to constantly keep the other two in his
ear. Their music is and remains consequently collective. Off
Leash, the Utrecht concert, is currently the best live
recording of their holy palaver.
The cover art work is from Tim Hodgkinson and Roger Turner.

01-off leash                                              [43:20]

43:20 min