The Sealed Knot - Surface / Plane (2001)

Now that all of you have finally trawled the depths of that amazing Vajra album, we can move on. So. Aside from a Royalist association during the English interregnum in the 1650s, The Sealed Knot is also the improvising trio of Burkhard Beins (rubbed percussion), Rhodri Davies (harp) and Mark Wastell (who was still playing the cello in those days). 'Surface / Plane' was their first CD (released in 2001 on Jon Morgan's now defunct Meniscus label, I think this was the label's last release actually) aside from a very hard to find untitled CDR on Confront one year earlier (hey, anyone like to make a guest post of that?). More recent albums were again on Confront and most recently on Another Timbre. When this one was released, it was considered a part of the New London Silence, but nobody uses that term anymore. Let's just call it eai and be done with it. All three players have earned their credentials in this area, Beins in Polwechsel, Phosphor, SLW, Trio Sowari, Activity Center etc., Davies also in SLW and furthermore in Broken Consort, Ist, Cranc, London Improvisers Orchestra, Assumed Possibilities etc., and Wastell in Assumed Possibilities and Broken Consort as well, oh and also in Ist and London Improvisers Orchestra, and furthermore in Quatuor Accorde, The Scotch of St. James, Belaska, Oceans of Silver & Blood, etc etc... If these guys are all so prolific, how come nobody has heard of them? We'll leave that question for another time. For now, enjoy these hushed explorations (in the words of Jason Bivins: 'the slow hissing or whining, the sudden rustles or thwacks, the delicate pizzicato like tiny droplets on the still surface of a pond'), and check out some of the other work these guys have done.
320kbps.
Here.