Daunik Lazro & Phil Minton - Alive at Sonorités

Daunik Lazro: baritone saxophone
Phil Minton: voice

The sheer humanity of his vocalising comes across most effectively when there are no other instruments around, and even when the sounds produced are trans-human. Then the set with saxophonist Daunik Lazro appeared, an astonishing coordination of two very different but similarly conceived voices, Lazro's baritone horn capable of everything from emphysemic whispers to huge, heavily tongued blarts to singing passages that sit perfectly with Minton's occasional forays into abstract bel canto. Minton's is the nimbler voice, inevitably, and often some of the time Lazro muses behind him in short bursts of cello tone rather than engaging him directly. But the parallelism works and, while there's nothing on the set to match the sheer astonishment of the "Breath Out" sequence on No Doughnuts, the 50 minute Montpellier set is deeply involving and ultimately just as satisfying.
Brian Morton - The Wire

2007 ALIVE AT SONORITES