Phil Durrant
British violinist, improviser and composer, born in 1957.
British violinist, improviser and composer, born in 1957.
Where the Stars
*100 copies limited edition*
Phil Durrant // amplified objects, electronicsJason Kahn // voiceMark Wastell // percussionCaius Williams // double bass
Recorded on September 12, 2025 by Dave Hunt in London.Mix, mastering and cover design by Jason Kahn.
Live / Studio
Recorded partly at London’s Cafe Oto and Cable Street Studios, 'Live / Studio' represents the debut by established British improvisers Phil Durrant and Daniel Thompson. Moving within and between close textural territories, the duo explores shifting sonic patterns and a dynamic interplay resulting in an intimate listening experience
Conceits (1987/1992)
A reissue of the first LP by the exceptionally fine improvising trio of John Russell (guitar), Phil Durrant (violin and trombone) and John Butcher (saxophones). This group came into being in 1984 after Russell and Durrant had spent the previous two years performing in private with another saxophonist. For this debut LP, made in 1987, they performed eleven short pieces. This CD has been expanded by the inclusion of a previously unissued extended concert performance made a few years later. The str…
Untitled
Re-issue of one of the earliest Confront releases, originally available in an edition of 50 in 2001. Matt Davis : trumpet. Phil Durrant : violin. Mark Wastell : violoncello. 'The All Angels concert series ran between 1999 and 2001. Co-curated by Rhodri Davies and myself, we wanted to find an environment that was acoustically articulate enough to present our own quickly developing style of music. Rhodri found the perfectly beautiful Norman Shaw designed church, close to his then home, in Chiswick…
Open
Mark Wastell and Matt Davis met and first played together in a workshop led by Eddie Prévost in London during the spring of 1996. Soon after, Wastell was invited to join Chris Burn's Ensemble, in which he played with Phil Durrant for the first time. Subsequently, Phil and Mark worked together in the quartets Assumed Possibilities and Quatuor Accorde, documented on Rossbin and Emanem CDs, respectively.
The debut trio concert by Davis/Durrant/Wastell took longer to organise than any of the partici…
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 unit at the same time. The Butcher/Durrant duo released a first CD, Secret Measures, on Wobbly Rail, recorded live at the beginning of the experiment. Requests and Antisongs is a studio performance taped in January and February 2000, over two years late…
Dach
"Living," wrote John Cage in 1952, "takes place each instant and that instant is always changing. The wisest thing to do is to open one's ears immediately and hear a sound suddenly before one's thinking has a chance to turn it into something logical, abstract or symbolical." Many improvising musicians today pay lip-service to Cage, but very few perform music which really lets sounds be themselves. Since 1993, trombonist and composer Radu Malfatti has been exploring "the lull in the storm", craft…
Still Point
Assumed Possibilities comprises of four musicians who understand the meaning and use of understatement and close listening. This quartets non-idiomatic music attains a minutely focused intensity, where the subtlest shifts in pitch, timbre and texture speak volumes. Though sounds sometimes sting and startle,the music carefully colours the aural environment,often hardly modifying the silence... growing out of and merging back into it. The results are detailed, meticulous, precise and responsive. S…