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Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday January 16th, 2013 with Bernard Stepien
Canadian improvisers Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens

Thanks to a good travelling pattern, once in a while I slam head-on with something really different. This was certainly the case last December, while performing myself with my Ayler Christmas project at the Art House called Artel in Kingston. The so-called opening act was the Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens duo performing the material of their remarkable High Wire CD that had just been released a few weeks earlier. While I could easily relate to Coat Cookes’ lyrical saxophone playing, I quickly realized that I could not dissociate the saxophone from the other half, the quasi-Ying of the Yang of what at first one could describe the “prepared” guitar of Montreal based Rainer Wiens. The terminology “prepared guitar” usually applies to anyone sticking some foreign objects into the strings or on the sound board but here this would be only a faint attempt to describe the situation correctly. Instead, we could call Wiens’ approach a total instrumental fusion, in this case an electric guitar and the African Mbira (thumb piano), which is adding to the confusion since it is not a really string instrument but more of a rod instrument. While this fusion was already worth the trip to Kingston, the music that came out of it was the next reason to be there. The result of that fusion is a multi-layered, multi-textured music using anything you can throw in to create effects. Virtuosity on a thumb piano where you can use by definition only your two thumbs is already a stretch. But here, each separate instrument was never played separately so to speak. This consisted either in playing one instrument while using the other one as a resonator or play simultaneously both instruments or even creating the illusion of another instrument altogether, the drums. There was no drummer or drum set, neither at the gig nor on the CD. This actually applies to the interplay between the two musicians. Finally, Coat Cooke, also leader of the Vancouver Now Orchestra, gave the immense sense of structure to this game. At the end of the evening we happily exchanged CDs and once back home I had the immense joy to discover that the CD was like the gig, in other words this seemingly total free improvisation was well structured and is fully repeatable over time despite the fact that it is after all composed of a large proportion of free improvisation. May be we will hear them live in Ottawa at IMOO one day… More information on Rainer Wiens is available on: http://www.straight.com/article-323605/vancouver/rainer-wiens-breathes-his-improvisation-life And Coat Cooke on: http://www.coatcooke.com/blog
space landing
Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens - high wire - now orchestra records Canadian New
elevation
Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens - high wire - now orchestra records Canadian New
dimension x sound
Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens - high wire - now orchestra records Canadian New
high wire
Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens - high wire - now orchestra records Canadian New
monkey trails
Coat Cooke & Rainer Wiens - high wire - now orchestra records Canadian New