A Google search for "man and nature merge" brings up gross things such as "Man and Nature Merge to Create Ozone Holes" and "The Clouds of Man and Nature Merge into One," and it's a JPEG of nuclear steam growing with a cumulus-filled sky. What should populate in top results is the image of John Butcher and Rhodri Davies playing outside in a Bronze Age carved stone patch in north England with a byline about Routing Lynn, an end result work at AV Festival in 2014 that incorporates a quadraphonic playback of the former performance.
It is difficult to follow where the tape begins and players end, which is the aesthetically pleasing, mysterious draw of Routing Lynn. While Davies' harps (here on pedal harp, electric harp, wind harp) resonate and Butcher works between a field of feedback and sax, dogs bark, birds chirp, rain showers — but this is no mere field recording plus music. Colors peel away and fuse in the most organic fashion; that's a cliché term for art, but, as mentioned, the combination of disparate materials into an amalgam is not the easiest thing to pull off. Captured by pro engineer Chris Watson (also a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio), one word to describe the work here is "seamless".
After a windy forest (and waterfall?) and distant farm animal introduction, what began as some type of woodland avian turns into Butcher in his highest register. Davies answers with deep, rattling knocks and gentle string caresses. From here the ensemble magically augments with characters sometimes identifiable, sometimes veiled. The faint hum of controlled feedback pokes in and out frequently; squeaky reeds pierce along with fluttering tongue and what might be Davies striking the soundboard, or maybe it's a tree being felled (while listening to this on a walk, I thought the latter to be fireworks outside my headphones); the aforementioned pack of wild canines barely comes into focus under Davies' muted plucks and pink noise. Near the half-way mark, Butcher and Davies rise up to create their own whirlwind of squeals and string buzzes and throttles, and then hush into what feels like the first arrival point summit. A trio of clanging, bowed harp, Butcher's guttural, multi-phonic blowing and reverberating ghosts creates a strident burst that sets the piece into suite of consonant, and then dissonant drones interrupted by a boisterous crow. The piece closes in an ambiguous cloud of muffled static hiss, a shimmering metallic who-knows-what and complete silence.
Butcher, Davies and Watson have created an environment where one imagines unicorns and Beowulf's Grendel reside, a place filled with wonder, magic and spookiness.
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