Other Minds to Release Braxton-Fei Recording

One week from today Other Minds will release its latest new album. Duet (Other Minds) 2021 is a recording of a duo performance by saxophonists Anthony Braxton and James Fei. This was the final offering in the Other Minds Festival 25 programs, which took place in October of 2021. As of this writing, it appears that there is only one Web site processing preorders; and that is Soundohm.

This is a European site, meaning that the price is given in Euros. Soundohm itself is a membership organization, meaning that members get the benefit of not only discounted prices but also free shipping worldwide. It is also worth noting that the Web page for this new Other Minds release includes three lists of albums likely to appeal to those visiting the site. One of those lists offers an impressive account of past Other Minds releases, and another gives similar treatment to past recordings by both Braxton and Fei.

My interest in Braxton reaches back far earlier than my commitment to writing about the creation and performance of music. Most of my work with computers was concerned with the manipulation of symbols and symbolic structures, rather than either numbers or databases. It was therefore inevitable that Braxton would seize my attention by using diagrams or symbols of numbers and letters as titles for his compositions. The Duet album presents a performance of Braxton’s “Composition 429;” and the album cover shows that he is still identifying his works with diagrams:

courtesy of Other Minds

Braxton himself refers to his scores as products of different “writing methods.” “Composition 429” was the product of a new such writing method, which Braxton called “Lorraine.” This is a name he has also assigned to some of his combos. The album includes an essay by Fei, who describes the method as using a combination of traditional notation and color-coded symbols (of Braxton’s own design) to indicate “specific sound types or performance techniques.” The performance itself emerges first from the efforts of the performers to interpret the symbols and then by “an extrapolative section where players improvise with the material following an additional layer of more abstract notation.”

During the Festival performance, Braxton and Fei were accompanied by “Diamond Curtain Wall Music,” a system of electronic devices that continuously derived pitch information from the sounds of the two saxophones. The “Wall Music” then applied the result of this ongoing audio analysis to add a multitude of sonic layers to the mix, creating an ever-changing kaleidoscope of sound. The entire performance lasted for about 40 minutes.

This makes for a generous amount of content. Fortunately, the mastering of all the content acquired during the performance itself has been mixed in such a way that the attentive listener will consistently be able to distinguish the two saxophone lines, even if (s)he/they cannot associate which line with which performer! The mixing then balances the “Wall Music” to establish the environment which provides not only a setting for the instrumentalists but also cues for their respective performances. Thus, while there may be no substitute for having been present at the performance itself, recording technology has provided an account that is just as likely to seize and maintain listener attention.