SETH COOKE / DOMINIC LASH
Pact
3“CDR, (23'26’’), 60 copies, cardboard sleeve
1000füssler 025, released in November 2014

Seth Cooke – waste disposal sink, electronics, pile of crap
Dominic Lash – double bass

1. PA 11’38’’, mp3 excerpt
2. CT 11’40’’, mp3 excerpt

Dominic Lash & Seth Cooke, March 2014; cover photography by Hy Crutchett.


Seth Cooke & Dominic Lash – performance & recording activity:

Date: date of event
Duration: duration in seconds
Distance: distance travelled in miles between the event venue and a point equidistant between the musicians' home addresses (the junction of York Road and the Bedminster Bridge Roundabout, Bristol)
Position: position in overall lineup
Proportion: proportion of total event duration accorded to Cooke Lash duo
Documentation: location of event documentations




Dominic Lash is a freely improvising double bassist, although his activities also range much more widely and include: playing bass guitar and other instruments, both writing and performing composed music, and writing about music and various other subjects. He is based in Bristol.
more info: dominiclash.co.uk

Seth Cooke is an improviser and sound recordist based in Bristol, UK. His music is frequently location or process oriented and he often works with material happened upon by chance. As a percussionist he plays traps and waste disposal sink.
more info: sethcooke.eu



REVIEWS:


We need no Swords / UK

Seth Cooke and Dominic Lash’s duo recording pits Lash’s double bass wrangling against Cooke’s junkyard scratch band made up of a ‘waste disposal sink, electronics and a pile of crap’.
Two pieces, both about 12 minutes long, are rigorously executed and yet, I suspect, hide a sense of playfulness under a deadpan façade.
The first piece, PA, starts with a piercing, buzzing tone, an opening incantation if you will, for the following hi-jinks. The drone fades just as it is getting nice and mesmerising, succeeded by a series of bad-tempered growls and churns.
At first, this sounds like an iron giant waking up with a hangover all ready to punch my lights out, but then the wheezes and scrapes get more irregular and dispersed. I can’t quite make out which noises are Cooke and which are Lash, save for the occasional bass thump and pluck, which is a feeling I quite like. It lends the rumbling cacophony an intriguing sense of mystery. By about eight minutes, they’re in full flow, with a pained squealing in the higher registers and a whole swirl of grunts and clunks, like some demented mechanoid farmyard.
CT takes things into more meditative territory, metallic whirring drones overlaid with bass scrapings and unearthly buzzes. Again, the duo seems locked together in their sound making, individual sonics caught up in the whirl and drift. Listening to this piece is like soaring over some vast machine city at night, an immense panorama picked out by the sea of electric lights and the clank of innumerable robotics doggedly carrying out their prime directive. Corroded aluminium grooves and cyborg shuffles.

Paul Margree, january 8, 2015, weneednoswords.wordpress.com


Just outside / France

Cooke and Lash (there's a duo name for you) serve up two quite tasty tracks, more (slightly) steady-state than much of what I've heard from Cooke prior to this, the album beginning with an intense electronic buzz/hum with sitar overtones. Dark, deep strokes obtrude from Lash's arco, very strong and exciting. The piece fragments into juicy, globular strands of plucks, scrapes and rattles, all quite resonant and close-mic'd; one's ears are right in the middle of the conflagration. Surging, rough and uncompromising--good stuff. The second cut starts in a semi-similar area as did the first, a drone-y space with a seesaw pattern from the bass, Cooke spreading rich, granular noise over and under. Rather than fracturing, this piece kind of melts into a thick swirl of colors, mostly more muted electronics accented by pure bowed bass lines and portentous plucks, concluding with a feedback squall. Excellent work.

Brian Olewnick, Just outside, February 07, 2015


The Soundprojector / UK

Dominic Lash is in the enviable position of having played with most if not all of the cream of UK improv. Plus, he has been known to turn his hand to good old-fashioned jazz when required. Not on PACT. Here, he and fellow Bristolian cohort Seth Cooke are in full-on extended technique mode which I personally think is the way Lash works best. Cooke, on the other hand, is as far away from jazz as you can get; his work is often engaged in process –based endeavours with percussion sometimes as his source (reflecting his previous life as a kit drummer with the groups Defribrillators and Hunting Lodge) but often alternatively utilising electronics or his own conspicuous sink waste disposal unit. At the time of writing, I’ve also just acquired a copy of Canary, their new full-length duo release on Louie Rice’s Hideous Replica imprint, so it’s good to see that their friendship is bearing more fruit.
‘PA’, the first of the two pieces presented on this little disc, consists of what might be some small motors perhaps, pitted against Lash’s formidable contrabass technique. This develops into a slightly more recognisable sound of Cooke activating the surface of his signature waste disposal unit (if indeed that is what he is using here – there’s no info on sleeve – wait, I’ve just checked the website and the waste disposal is used here by Cooke, along with electronics and “pile of crap”. Not literally, I hope.) Nevertheless it sounds like heavy industry grinding away back there. This relatively benign soundfield then gives way to furious scraping, followed by snatches of radio or prerecorded song rendered unrecognisable by unnatural methods. Next, some Laurie Spiegel-style microtonal tone manipulation, during which things come to an abrupt halt. Not your usual jazz duo, hey?
The second track ‘CT’ is more restrained than ‘PA’ initially, with Lash’s bowed lower register taking precedence, but then as Cooke’s high end information joins in, the piece gets into a fairly solid drone as it goes on. In a way, it reminded me of what Nos Phillipe were doing back in 2007 with bowed cymbals, cracked electronics and table-top guitars, but with a harder edge and a wider frequency palette. ‘CT’ ends with a shortish sequence with both players producing feedback; one pulsing, one shrieking. The overall effect of the whole piece allows the two pals to get a large-scale, detailed, grey canvas. An auditory equivalent of Wayne Gonzales’ monochrome crowd paintings.
Released in an edition of only 60 units. On the 1000füssler website, Seth Cooke has provided some of the most comprehensive production notes I’ve ever come across, in the form of a table depicting data from live performances of the duo around the time PACT was recorded, including mileage between their homes and concert venues and how much time out of the whole event was allotted to the duo expressed as a percentage. Helpfully, there’s also a couple of links to videos of the performances. For those curious to have a chance to analyse this information, go here..

Paul Khimasia Morgan / thesoundprojector.com/2015/09/29/pact-lunch


Le Son du Grisli / France

Leurs collaborations respectives avec Sarah Hugues attestent, chez Dominic Lash (contrebasse) et Seth Cooke (électronique mais aussi effluents et traitement des déchets), un intérêt commun pour les préoccupations du Wandelweiser – le premier ayant d’ailleurs collaboré avec Antoine Beuger quand le second frayait avec Michael Pisaro. Certes, mais ensemble?
Eh bien, différemment, sur ces deux pièces d’une dizaine de minutes consignées sur mini CD 1000 füssler. Un grésillement électronique y monte d’abord jusqu’à ce qu’un moteur grippé se mette en branle : les cordes lâches d’une contrebasse capable aussi de grincements embrassent l’inquiétude de synthèse, et voici inventé un bestiaire d’abstraction rare. 
Sur la seconde plage, des râles se mesurent en rampant et leur course suit l’allure d’un archet balançant entre deux notes. Louvoyant, mais aussi plus «musical», le duo joue d’une autre manière d’autres grincements et d’autres moteurs (étouffés, ceux-là). A chaque fois, leur duo intéresse et pose la question: au son de quels – ni contrebasse, ni matériel électronique, ni déchets d’aucune sorte – instruments nouvellement inventés?

Guillaume Belhomme, 11. december 2014 grisli.canalblog.com


Bad Alchemy / Germany

Wenn ich es inzwischen nicht besser wüsste, würde ich den DOMINIC LASH von Pact (1000füssler 025, 3" cdr) für einen Namensvetter halten jenes 'anderen', der den Kontrabass im Umfeld der Oxford und London Improvisers Orchestras spielt, mit Alexander Hawkins, Pat Thomas oder Tony-Joe Bucklash. Aber der aus Cambridge stammende Bassist war immer schon nur einer, der gerne mehrgleisig fährt. Zeigt er auf FMR und Babel sein Können als NowJazzer, so zugleich auf Another Timbre oder zusammen mit Antoine Beuger oder Michael Pisaro sein Faible für eine Wandelweiser-nahe dröhnminimalistische Ästhetik und mikrotonale Bruitistik. Auf diesem besonderen Feld der Neuen Musik bewegt sich auch der Bristoler Perkussionist und Neurolinguistik-Programmierer SETH COOKE, ein Mann, der nicht mit der Wimper zuckt, wenn die Rede auf Pneuma, Dunkelheit und Licht kommt. Wie auch Lash schätzt er die Gesellschaft von Pisaro und Sarah Hughes. Während sein Partner hier für zuerst 'PA' wieder den Bass brummen und knarren lässt, sirrt und schnarrt Cooke mit Electronics und einem Küchenabfallzerkleinerer. Selbst Schrott taugt ihm zum Scharren und Kratzen, so wie auch Lash mit dem Bogen an Saiten und Holz scharrt, kratzt und klopft, aber auch flirrende Laute einwirft oder handverlesenes Pizzikato. Furzelnde Geräusche mischen sich mit wie gestöhnten oder sogar geflöteten zu gar nicht so unschönen und auch nicht unlustigen Momenten. Bei 'CT' gesellt sich zu dröhnseliger Träumerei des Basses ein motorisches Schnurren mit kurz auch einem kakophonen Entgleisen. Lash zupft dunkle Flocken, Cooke gestaltet den Ausklang ihrer vierten musikalischen Begegnung, der ersten unter vier Augen, mit Feedback und Flatterwellen. Wir hören mit bei 1398 Sekunden (von insgesamt 7339). Aber - auch wenn es seit Fichte und Schelling zur seesternphilosophischen Plattitüde geworden ist - empfangen wir nicht auch in jedem Teil schon das Ganze?

English translation by Dominic Lash: If I didn't know better, I would have taken the Dominic Lash of Pact (1000füssler 025, 3" cdr) for a namesake of the other one that plays the double bass in the vicinity of Oxford and the London Improvisers Orchestra, with Alexander Hawkins, Pat Thomas or Tony-Joe Bucklash. But the bassist from Cambridge has always been someone that likes approaching things in a multi-pronged manner. On FMR and Babel he shows his knowhow as a contemporary jazzer, while simultaneously on Another Timbre or with Antoine Beuger or Michael Pisaro he displays his weakness for a Wandelweiser-like minimal drone aesthetic and microtonal noisthetic. The Bristol percussionist and neurolinguistic programmer Seth Cooke also moves in this same region of new music; he is a man that doesn't bat an eyelash when the conversation turns to spirit, darkness and light. Like Lash he enjoys an association with Pisaro and Sarah Hughes. While, for the first track, 'PA', his partner again lets the bass hum and creak, Cooke whines and snarls with electronics and a waste disposal unit. Even rubbish lends itself to scratching and scraping, just as Lash scrapes, scratches and knocks with the bow on strings and wood, but also throws in shimmering sounds or handpicked pizzicatos. Fartings mix with moanings or even flutings, with moments neither unlovely nor listless. On 'CT' drone-blessed dreams of the bass join themselves to a motorized purr with, briefly, a cacaphonous coming off the rails. Lash plucks dark flakes, Cooke sculpts the conclusion of their fourth musical meeting – the first behind closed doors – with feedback and flutter waves. Of this, we hear 1398 seconds (from a total of 7339). But – even though it has become a starfish-philosophical platitude since Fichte and Schelling – do we not also already get the whole in every part?

Rigo Dittmann / Bad Alchemy 84























www.1000fuessler.com