K-Space is a unique trio, an experience that is truly one of a kind.
Tim Hodgkinson (alto sax, clarinet, lap steel guitar, electronics) has been one of the pillars of avant-garde England since his membership in the seminal group Henry Cow. Ken Hyder (drums, vocals) has worked in many areas of ethnic music. Both have studied the shamanic music of Siberia, but the heart and soul of
K-Space is singer Gendos Chamzyryn, a shaman himself and one fantastic throat singer. Not another attempt at world fusion, Bear Bones presents experimental music stemming from a genuine Siberian background. Listeners are taken elsewhere, in a world where rock rhythms equal shamanic trance, where the need to break free of established musical forms is as urgent and essential as everywhere else. Chamzyryn's wails, drones, incantations, and dances (the bells around his ankles transmit the impulse of his movements) find their place between the rock drumming and the free-form improvising. Here and there a song structure arises, in "With the Help of the Usual Instruments" for instance.
K-Space pushes the boundaries of free improvisation as much as Konk Pack,
Hodgkinson's other active trio at the time, but it does it quite differently, emphasizing a ritualistic relation to sound-making. No matter how used to
Hodgkinson's playing or to Tuvan folk music you may be, nothing can prepare you for the intensity and otherworldliness of this album. Highly recommended, especially to those interested in the ritualistic side of the music of
Jackie-O Motherfucker,
No-Neck Blues Band, or
Acid Mothers Temple. ~ François Couture