John Butcher
John Butcher is an English saxophonist, improviser and composer. John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians.
John Butcher is an English saxophonist, improviser and composer. John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, he left academia in '82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians.
Winter gardens
180g LP in fine paper silkscreen printed cover. Recorded in London, December 2011 and in Milwaukee, October 2011. A solo album by saxophone virtuoso John Butcher featuring some of his most exceptional extended techniques which he has been developi…
Bell Trove Spools
Northern Spy is proud to present two of John Butcher’s most recent experiments in moving sound waves through space. On Bell Trove Spools we hear Butcher in two distinct situations: Richmond Hall, a Houston art gallery housing a permanent Dan Flavin c…
Meetings With Remarkable Saxophonists - Volume 2
The second volume of Eddie Prevost's 2011 series of concerts at Network Theatre, Waterloo, London meeting with remarkable saxophonists, here with John Butcher on tenor & soprano, with Guillaume Viltard on double bass. The concerts are also notable as…
Scrutables
John Butcher and Derek Bailey first played in duo around 1989, at London's Red Rose Club. Butcher then took part in the 1990 & 1992 (London) and 1996 (Vancouver) Company weeks. Various other playing situations materialised in the 90s, ranging from…
Trace
Cassette-only release. Edition of 250 copies. John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multi-tracked saxophone pieces and explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, he left academia in 198…
Invisible ear
Two decades ago, saxophonist John Butcher abandoned his doctoral pursuits in theoretical physics to pursue a life in improvised music and has since become one of the genre’s leading instrumental and structural innovators. Butcher’s pursuit of exte…
Treader Duos
Recorded February 2008, this album captures a specially organised Treader concert at St Giles-in-the-Fields church in London's West End. A series of duos played at the event, each improvising over the course of a twenty-five minute set. First up, the…
the geometry of sentiment
John Butcher is up there with the Parkers, the Rothenbergs, the Zorns and the Harths, yet his style is inimitable; he has arrived at the top at last, and dominates in a world of bent overtones and multiple subdivisions of a single note. THE GEOMETRY …
Optic
Two of the most adventurous musicians around today, John Butcher and John Edwards have been working as a very compatible duo for some years now. This CD contains concert performances from Brussels and Barcelona. 59 minutes -- previously unissued.
The contest of pleasures - Tempestuous
Having used extensive editing and some remixing for the second of their two excellent Potlatch CDs, Albi Days, Contest of Pleasures – the trio of John Butcher (tenor and soprano saxophones), Xavier Charles (clarinet) and Axel Dorner (trumpet) – retur…
Requests and antisongs
Saxophonist John Butcher and violinist Phil Durrant had been playing together on the English improv scene in various formations for 14 years when they decided to start a live electroacoustic project in 1997, a project not unlike Evan Parker's own uni…
13 friendly numbers
John Butcher appeared on six records, beginning with the 1984 LP 'Fonetiks, before he first released 'Thirteen Friendly Numbers' on his own Acta label in 1992. But the disc is still something of a debut; it is the first document of his peculiar langu…
Fixations (14)
Though saxophonist John Butcher is not short on instrumental prowess, his primary assets lie in the realm of ideas. On Fixations, Butcher has rejected conventional jazz thinking (swing, melodicism, harmonic cycles) in favor of creating his own perso…
The First Two Gigs
An improvising quartet featuring four of the finest and most innovative musicians, who have extended the ranges of their respective instruments - piano, saxophones, harp and double bass - into new, uncharted territories. As well as having exceptional…