Christian Marclay, Mats Gustafsson

In Hindsight documents a rare duo between Christian Marclay on turntables and the Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, recorded at Café Oto in London on 13 March 2013. Marclay began improvising with records as a student in the late 1970s and has played with Evan Parker, John Zorn and Otomo Yoshihide. He has spent decades turning sound into objects and images, from records to The Clock, his 24-hour montage of film clips that tell the time. In 2016 he received SFMOMA's Contemporary Vision Award. Gustafsson, known through The Thing and Fire!, seeks out partners well beyond jazz. The Vinyl Factory issued the set in 2016, a year after Marclay's White Cube exhibition had used its mobile VF Press. The label treated the record as an artwork in itself, with one side of music and one side engraved.

The duo opened the first night of a two-night Café Oto residency by Fire!, Gustafsson's trio with Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin. The two joined Marclay and Gustafsson in a later set, which is not on this record. Reviewing the concert, Geoff Winston described Gustafsson moving between his baritone saxophone and a fluteophone, a flute fitted with a reed mouthpiece. Marclay bent over two vintage record decks, using his LPs both as sound sources and as physical objects. Out of that came gusts of noise, surface crackle and stray, muffled orchestral fragments. Gustafsson answered with clicks, bloops and heavy blasts, gesturing in the air as he played. The set gathered down to the bare clicking of saxophone keys, rose to a screeching roar, and ended on a fade both players found by instinct. Winston heard the duo as "discreetly balanced and inspired" (London Jazz News, 2013). On record the performance sits on a single side, mastered by Noel Summerville, with design by Laurent Benner. The other side carries Marclay's etching. The card sleeve bears his onomatopoeic artwork, the comic-strip sound words he also painted for the White Cube show.

Single-sided black vinyl LP with an etching by Christian Marclay on the B-side, in a thick card sleeve screen-printed with his onomatopoeic artwork. Limited edition of 500 copies.