John BUTCHER
“The Very Fabric”

The Brønshøj Vandtårn is a concrete water tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It’s 20m wide and 34m high – smaller than some similar shapes I’ve played in, but with a large, lingering reverberation. Some sounds seem to float away as if through liquid, others acquire a shifting haze, and some just prefer to sit around. Thomas Buhl-Wiggers, of the Cejero festival and label, kindly invited me to play there in the summer of 2022 and arranged for Jesper Hviid to spend the day inside, recording these pieces.

The very resonant spaces I’ve worked in before include a giant gazometer, a hollowed-out Japanese mountain, an underground reservoir, a Victorian mausoleum and a massive World War II oil tank. I’m still fascinated by how different these massive environments all sounded and felt. They each inspired different approaches in trying to find the music for the actual space, and this recent experience within the extraordinary Brønshøj water tower was no exception. (John Butcher)

British saxophone player John Butcher, a leading figure on the contemporary improvised music scene, has released several CDs on Ftarri labels in which he performs with other musicians, including Rhodri Davies, Akio Suzuki, Eddie Prevost and John Russell. But The Very Fabric is Butcher’s first solo album release on a Ftarri label (Hitorri).