(Avant-Garde Jazz, Al Maslakh) Nicolas Christian - Matt Milton - Eddie Prevost - Bechir Saade / A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers - 2009, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 2 from 29. April 2011
EAC extraction logfile from 7. January 2013, 10:25
Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade / A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers
Used drive  : Optiarc DVD RW AD-5280S   Adapter: 1  ID: 1
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction                      : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 128 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : No
Command line compressor         : C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Genre=%genre%" -T "Artist=%artist%" -T "Title=%title%" -T "Album=%albumtitle%" -T "Date=%year%" -T "Tracknumber=%tracknr%" -T "Comment=%comment%" %source%
TOC of the extracted CD
     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:00.00 |  6:19.00 |         0    |    28424
        2  |  6:19.00 |  6:19.00 |     28425    |    56849
        3  | 12:38.00 | 10:32.00 |     56850    |   104249
        4  | 23:10.00 | 15:25.00 |    104250    |   173624
        5  | 38:35.00 | 14:44.00 |    173625    |   239924
Track  1
     Filename C:\Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade - 2009 - A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers\01 - Song One.wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 99.9 %
     Extraction speed 4.8 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC F7A54F4E
     Copy CRC F7A54F4E
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  2
     Filename C:\Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade - 2009 - A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers\02 - Song Two.wav
     Peak level 77.8 %
     Extraction speed 5.6 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC FB035984
     Copy CRC FB035984
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  3
     Filename C:\Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade - 2009 - A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers\03 - Song Three.wav
     Peak level 79.2 %
     Extraction speed 6.6 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 8555E183
     Copy CRC 8555E183
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  4
     Filename C:\Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade - 2009 - A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers\04 - Song Four.wav
     Peak level 99.9 %
     Extraction speed 7.9 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC A2DFAAB5
     Copy CRC A2DFAAB5
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  5
     Filename C:\Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade - 2009 - A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers\05 - Song Five.wav
     Peak level 97.4 %
     Extraction speed 9.0 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 1B5FAC38
     Copy CRC 1B5FAC38
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
==== Log checksum BD98DB056DA93E657DC6E4D3621261A0B4AE26E5B22B2D5EC99823B13AD39C0F ====

REM GENRE Jazz
REM DATE 2009
REM DISCID 370C7F05
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.0b2"
PERFORMER "Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade"
TITLE "A Church Is Only Sacred To Believers"
FILE "01 - Song One.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Song One"
    PERFORMER "Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "02 - Song Two.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Song Two"
    PERFORMER "Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "03 - Song Three.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Song Three"
    PERFORMER "Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "04 - Song Four.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Song Four"
    PERFORMER "Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "05 - Song Five.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    TITLE "Song Five"
    PERFORMER "Christian, Milton, Prevost, Saade"
    FLAGS DCP
    INDEX 01 00:00:00

Recorded on Sunday 17th of June 2007 at Atomic Studio London by Tim Adams

Extraordinary free improvisation (and let's face it, the word "extraordinary" is used far too often these days) tends to be sound that reinvents the significance or implications of music. These days, whenever percussionist Eddie Prévost is involved in the process, the extraordinary becomes the custom. The session in London grew out of Prévost's regular workshop for improvisers, and features fellow Brit violinist Matt Milton, plus Lebanese bass clarinetist Bachir Saade and the French bassist Nicholas Christian. While Milton and Prévost have worked together and Saade and Christian have recorded a duo, this is the first outing for this particular quartet. At lower volumes the music can be barely perceptible as a live recording, because the four interact and work as one sound unit. No flights of soloing or noise runs are heard. Saade's breathy bass clarinet recalls Axel Dorner's trumpet vocalizations, organizing his sound around breath and the meditative implications of sound, or the absence of sound. Likewise, Prévost, Milton, and Christian are complicit in this prayer. The quartets' inconspicuous playing might be mistaken for an ambient recording. That is at low volume. Turn up the amplification and the listening experience changes. What was once ambient is now a flurry of activity. Like peering inside a beehive, the musicians are in constant motion. Their activity, barely noticeable on the calm surface, creates this bubble of sound. In other words, these musicians are hard at work, their seemingly ordinary sound is, in fact, extraordinary. ~ mark corroto, allaboutjazz.com
A little hard to type tonight because I burnt my hand twenty minutes ago on a microwaveable tagliatelle. It didn’t taste very nice either. (the tagliatelle, not my hand) If all of the laws of science and probability were suddenly turned on their head and it turned out that there really is a god after all then he is probably trying to tell me to stop eating microwaveable ready meals. Fortunately there isn’t a god or I’d have to throw the chicken jalfrezi I have for tomorrow night away. While I am in vaguely blasphemous mood its fitting that tonight I listened to an album called A church is only sacred to believers. (Don’t you just love these opening links of mine?) The recording in question is a new release on the Lebanese Al Maslakh label, and features the quartet of Nicholas Christian, (electric bass) Matt Milton, (violin) Eddie Prevost, (percussion) and Bechir Saade (bass clarinet). It was recorded in London during the summer of 2007 when the four musicians came together after playing as a group at Prevost’s weekly improvised music workshop. Prevost’s liner notes link the performance (which was made in a studio) back to the esence of the workshop. Following in the vein of the Close-Up album I wrote about a few days ago this release is a really solid album of improvised music that avoids easy categorisation into one popular pigeonhole or another, but just exudes the same degree of focused intensity and spontaneous creativity of that album. It is quite fitting that this disc should arrive when I am two thirds of the way through re-reading Prevost’s Minute Particulars book, in which he underlines many of his thoughts on music, outlining his need for a communitarian, completely spontaneous form of dialogue. Listening here many of the thoughts I have been wrestling with as I’ve read the book spring to mind. The liner notes though underline how spontaneity can include advanced organisation or considered structure, only that is should have none of these things imposed upon it. Certainly as I listen here Eddie Prevost’s percussion is completely recognisable. His sound is very much his own, there is no reinvention taking place here. Likewise the other three musicians probably play in similar ways to how they are used to, but it is the combination of these four elements in the moment, the amassed skill and experience of the four acoustic players that informs this improvisation and leads them to fold their contributions around each other to form what is presented here on the CD. So what actually is presented? Well the AMM influence is hard to ignore, though more the post-Rowe form of the group as extended sounds are rarely heard and tension is built from the interplay between the four musicians, bowed and struck metal twisting around burbling clarinet and crackling, vibrating strings. The pace of the music seems to be directed by Prevost, and that slow, steady AMM rate presides, only gathering pace when the music builds in density and tension. The structure is simple yet there is always several things going on. There are lulls and dips in the undulating music, but never any silences. Many sounds cannot easily be traced back to their instrument. Whist the wind sounds tends to be recognisable its hard to tell what is violin and what is bass, and sometimes when Prevost’s bowed sounds veer towards the drier end of the spectrum they can also be hard to tell from the bowed strings. My father, who is here tonight, stopping off with my mother en route to Venice put his head around the door and told me it all sounds like a bumble bee stuck in a jam jar placed next to a disturbed cat. I swear he should write reviews rather than me. I’m sure you are sick of me saying things like this, but this album is yet another example of the vibrant London improv community, albeit a snapshot of where things were two years ago. Even if Prevost’s sound was not immediately recognisable here I think I would probably have been able to locate this music to London quite easily. There is nothing groudbreaking here except for what takes place between the four musicians, nothing remarkable except for the degree to which the four musicians listen to each other and feed right back into the music. You can almost hear the concentration, follow the flow, add extra sounds in your head. Great improvisation pulls you along on its journey, involving the listener, making them want to join in. Prevost alludes to different kinds of music being like churches, followed by those that believe in them. He wonders whether this music is too becoming like a church, but states that if this is the case it is extremely open and tolerant of all approaches. I’m not so sure that Prevost’s writings have always suggested this to me, but his music invariably does. There is no one dominant voice on this recording, it truly is a healthy four way dialogue. There’s not much more to say really. If good, hearty improvised music is your thing you need to hear A church is only sacred to believers. Amen. ~ richard pinnell, thewatchfulear.com
Eddie Prévost seems to enjoy writing about what he does almost as much as he enjoys doing it, and several recent releases, not only those on his own Matchless imprint, have come with copious and informative liner notes, this quartet outing on the splendid Lebanese Al Maslakh label with bassist Nicholas Christian, violinist Matt Milton and bass clarinettist Bechir Saade (the Lebanese connection) being no exception. Prévost's text gives reviewers like me (and others who enjoy quoting liner notes and press releases – call it laziness if you like, but I've learnt more about music from reading the backs of albums than I ever did in 14 years of music school) plenty to get their teeth into: in this case it tells the story of the genesis of his Friday night workshop, that hotbed of activity and breeding ground for new talent – including these musicians – in the already fertile field of improvised music in London, of whose importance much has been made lately. "If it is becoming 'a church' (and co-incidentally the weekly London workshop takes place in the school room of a Welsh chapel)", the percussionist writes, "then it is extremely open and tolerant of all approaches. All it seems to abhor is unthinking responses and intolerance itself." Fair comment, though I do detect in this release – and in the series of CDR snapshots of the new London scene (I'll refrain from capitalising the "new".. we already had New London Silence and that didn't last too long) that Simon Reynell's Another Timbre released earlier this year – an emerging consensus, a search for a lingua franca. The emphasis is placed firmly on overall group sound, on fitting in, on being part of one of those communities whose virtues Eddie extols in No Sound Is Innocent and Minute Particulars, rather than in asserting an individual point of view. I've recently been listening again, for the first time in years, to Stockhausen's Aus den Sieben Tagen cycle (prompted to do so by Richard Barrett's description of it in these pages as "one of the pinnacles of achievement in improvised music"), that rather notorious collection of hippy-trippy verbal scores dating from 1968 (when else?), and was pleasantly surprised by Kommunion the other day during a quiet lunch break at work. One of the instructions for that particular piece is "play or sing a vibration in the rhythm of the molecules of one your fellow players", but the contrast between the Stockhausen ensemble's 1969 recording and the communal activity of A Church, which, as alphabetical order would have it, was cued up to play right after it on the trusty mp3 player, was striking. While I have no reason to suspect that the members of Karlheinz's band weren't trying to follow his instructions as faithfully as possible (!), there's still a clear sense of individuals resolving (or not) their differences, a real musical argument, which is harder to find in Eddie's congregation. Not that Church is risk-free, pale and unadventurous – far from it: much of its texture is uncompromisingly rough – but one longs for more in the way of friction than Milton's scratches and Prévost's scraped cymbals. I know it's dreadfully passé and old hat these days to wax nostalgic over real notes, but the most aurally satisfying moments on this disc occur when pitch – either high-end, from the bowed metal, or low-end, from Christian's Scelsi-like bass – asserts itself, imposing a harmonic identity on proceedings and reining in Milton and Saade's coarser sonorities. At such moments one really feels the presence of a fifth member of the group: the group itself. You might call it playing in the rhythm of each other's molecules. ~ dan warburton, paristransatlantic.com

Nicholas Christian - electric bass
Matt Milton - violin
Eddie Prévost - percussion
Bechir Saade - bass clarinet