A HANDFUL OF DUST - Panegyric

An onslaught of extended improvised noise workouts: senseless,messy,directionless and ear-wracking....for improvisation to be a risk the performers need to be striving for a vision, need to be striving to take us somewhere. On these recordings however it doesnt sound like any striving is going on at all.This sort of self-indulgent,directionless improvisation irritates me not for its rejection of structural convention,or its grating timbre,but because of the self-satisfied absence of ambition it embodies. I cannot help but feel swindled - I can hear no passion, no giving, no magic, no sharing, no dynamics, no vulnerability. Just the air-tight armour of arrogance. Im sure the band members are marvellous people personally: but musically this is obnoxious and not in a good way - Henry Lauer/ Heathen Harvest. Alastair Galbraith: glass harmonica, violin; Bruce Russell: clavioline, guitar. Recorded live at Lines Of Flight 2006.