Butcher / Muller / Van Der Schyff

Purveyor of expertly controlled chaotic saxophone experimentation John Butcher is joined by German contrabassist Torsten Muller and drummer Dylan van der Schyff for this recording from the Vancouver Jazz Festival. The former British theoretical physicist leads the trio through their first performance together with almost inhuman attention to musical detail. Every breath, rasp, key rattle, bell and body clank is part of an incidental symphony of noise being wrangled into subconscious forms with extreme diligence by this tremendous creative force. Muller and van der Schyff are suitably adventurous companions for Butcher, comfortable building buzzing dissonance and sparse clatter into manic tics and screeches or full-on freak-out meltdowns. If you dig free jazz that can sound like a hyperventilating helium balloon, a warbling teakettle having a seizure or Coltrane sticking his tongue in an electrical outlet, Way Out Northwest will touch the idiosyncratic musical compulsions inside of you.