Incus Records/Derek Bailey

Incus records is historically one of the very first improvised music labels in England. Originally created by Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Tony Oxley and a fourth person bringing some money upfront it later became Bailey and Karen Brookman’s affair. It would be more than one reason for us to listen and study some of their releases and particularly their vinyl editions in the 70’s which for few of us had reached some sort of perfection in both content
and format. Back to CD and actual activities of the label here are some more records.
The long awaited reissue of »Tristan« (Incus CD 53) should fall in all ears if history of improvised music was to be made sometime. The original 1976 LP, a duet between German cellist Tristan Honsinger and guitarist Derek Bailey was already one of the toughest albums I got to hear and just on his own it would already be a fantastic reissue but they added to it six
tracks from a live tape recorded in some french festival (Massy) the year before (75) that simply are unbelievable. This whole albums and as far as improvisation is concerned is literally a bomb in the scene. The level of playing here, from density to sharpness, from interactivity to speach, from playing for playing is just crazy.
Another Incus line recently started consisting of CDRs, the serie’s called »From the store« and for about 15 Euros (post included) you’ll get directly a signed copy of pretty amazing unreleased tapes. Three guitar solos in our case, # 1 »In church« (1994 and 2001), # 2 »South« (1999) and # 3 »Different guitars« (70’s to 92). The thing is that I honestly don’t know any bad Derek Bailey record. Each improvisation, due to its own nature and process of playing actually, contains the same sort of integrity, acquity, sharp and fast thinking. I could even go further and state that for me this unique, and that no other great free players ever reached something like that. That also means that once you entered the process it’s hard not hear it all.
These three solos are just beautiful, and Derek Bailey solos are a very particular form of improv. The last album, »Different Guitars«, is a particularly interesting compilation of unexepected instruments (19 strings guitar or Derek playing a rare Gibson super 400 from the big band aera). I guess all that enthusiasm has everything to bore many of our readers but I’ll insist here: This is unique and rare. It probably doesn’t happen twice in a century. All albums and infos to be found on www.incusrecords.force9.co.uk