Live in Colonia

Wade Matthews - bass clarinet
Leonel Kaplan - trumpet
Diego Chamy - percussion

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Recorded live at Blanco y Negro Restaurant, Colonia, Uruguay, March 22, 2003

Wade Matthews, Leonel Kaplan and Diego Chamy trio performance at mínim festival (Centre Cívic Can Felipa, Barcelona. May 28-29, 2004)

The trio of Wade Matthews (bass clarinet and laptop), Diego Chamy (percussion), and Leonel Kaplan (trumpet) opened the festival with its longest performance, at 55 minutes nearly twice the length of any other. Kaplan’s low profile of vaguely pitched, cyclical spitty-noise; Matthews’ subtly lyrical keyclicks, multiphonics, and drones; and Chamy’s ritualistic percussion setup (a single bass drum laid flat atop a swivel that allowed him to spin the drum while applying pine cones, superballs, a jawharp, a handheld microtape recorder, and various brushes and cymbals to its head for minutes at a time) formed distinct voices which moved around each other nimbly, almost polyphonically. This tightness and internal energy provided a drive which belied the static nature of the group’s material, creating explosive changes of perspective from otherwise unspectacular circumstances. A few noteworthy moments included the beginning, when while sandwiched between his quiet, seated companions Chamy dove into his gyrating drum like cold water, Matthews and Kaplan nailing the imaginary downbeat to the millisecond; and a typical but refined silence in the middle of the set which was broken by another crisply attacked drum drone as if to subsume the gesture into drama – but was revisited by Matthews’ gentle repetitive computer chirps entering shortly thereafter.

Christopher Williams (The Improvisor)