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Walt Shaw & Jim Tetlow — Inner Skull Trail
(Discus Music 9004DL, 2023, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-01-30

Inner Skull Trail Cover art

Brace yourself for some strange and interesting sounds coming forth on this purely improvised work. Walt Shaw is a visual artist and experimental percussionist who is a member of several groups, including the Martin Archer Trio, The Deep Tide Quartet, The Skin and Bone Percussion Trio, and Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere, as well as the duo at hand. Jim Tetlow is also a visual artist, composer, and musician, a multi-instrumentalist who primarily works in the field of ambient and electronic sound sculptures, though he has been a member of several rock, folk, experimental, and ambient groups in the Leicester area and is probably best known as a member of the trio Endgame along with Alan and Steve Freeman, who have released over a hundred releases since their formation around 1999. This is the second collaborative release between Shaw and Tetlow, the first (from 2022) being The Cartography of Dreams, an album of twelve studio improvisations featuring Shaw on percussion, drums, and electronics, and Tetlow on electronics, voice, guitar, and field recordings. On Inner Skull Trail there are eight tracks using pretty much the same instrumentation (although I don’t hear any guitar), except it was recorded entirely in one live setting on October 8th, 2023; Tetlow is producing his sounds via laptop and virtual instruments and samples; apart from his electronics, Shaw is playing all sorts of gongs, bowls, bells, frame drums, cymbals, chains, springs, and just about anything else that can be hit with hands, wood, metal, or played with a bow or shaken. The major difference this time out is more due to the live setting, the variations and subtleties are more organic and gentle, without too many things going on concurrently, resulting in curious bursts of mystifying creativity.

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases

Related artist(s): Walt Shaw, Jim Tetlow

More info
http://discusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/inner-skull-trail-9004dl-2023

 

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