A good head-cutter knows it’s not what you play, but how you play it.”

Chris Brown, composer, pianist, and electronic musician, creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. Collaboration and improvisation are consistent themes in his work, which is also founded on a practice of inventing and building electronic instruments. He teaches electronic music at Mills College, in Oakland, California, where he is Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM).
Fred Frith, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and fellow-explorer, creates music for and with acoustic and electric instruments, using the recording process as his primary compositional medium and working with film and video-makers, choreographers, painters, and sculptors, as well as musicians. Collaboration and improvisation are insistent themes in his work, which is also founded on a practice of re-invention and de-construction. He teaches composition and improvisation at Mills College, in Oakland, California, where he is continually inspired by his activities as football coach and avid bird-watcher.

Cutter Heads _ survival of the fittest _ double-strung duets, double-dutch divas, double-tongued dictionaries _high tension sound-boxes magnified by machines in byte-sized chunks _ transformations tossed into the sound-stream _ ripple, repeat, explode _ groove-cutters controlled by home-made programs _ doubling fingers, feet, teeth, nails _ cut and paced _ going to punch me _one head has to go…

(dt)

Fred Frith führt auf dieser zweiten CD auf Intakt Records – nach der wunderschönen Aufnahme mit Carla Kihlstedt und Stevie Wishart – seine Exkursionen in die Welt der Improvisation und in die Sphäre der Sounds und Klangexperimente weiter.
Wiederum ein Fest der Saiteninstrumente, diesmal mit Gitarre und Piano. Chris Brown lehrt wie Fred Frith am Mills College in Kalifornien, wo er als Co-Direktor das “Center for Contemporary Music (CCM)” leitet.
Cutter Head ist ein blues-getränkter freier Dialog zweier Klangforscher und passionierter Spieler oder, wie es im Booklet heisst:

Cutter Heads _ survival of the fittest _ double-strung duets, double-dutch divas, double-tongued dictionaries _ high tension sound-boxes magnified by machines in byte-sized chunks _ transformations tossed into the sound-stream _ ripple, repeat, explode _ groove-cutters controlled by home-made programs _ doubling fingers, feet, teeth, nails _ cut and paced _ going to punch me _ one head has to go ...