cd dd – David Keenan, The Wire

British composer and improvisor Kaffe Matthews finally bids farewell to the violin with this set of live processing work, drawn from a series of European perfornances. Matthews’ obsessively intricate tinkering with violin squeals and long droning notes has been replaced with a new concern for low-level urban ambience – distant looping radio waves, audio interference, eerie nocturnal pulsing – and at points it bears close relation to Robin Rimbaudís city soundings.

Also included here is the final violin performance from Italy in 1999, but it’s the newer stuff that’s the most interesting, with the minimally rippling ‘pool in the basement’ pointing the way to some startling new areas.

David Keenan, The Wire, April 2001