Alan Wilkinson - Practice - Bo' Weavil Recordings - Weavil45CD

The future of British free improvisation is safe in the hands of modestly monumental musicians like Alan Wilkinson, captured here alone and virtually naked, blowing his horn unaccompanied in a disused Dalston hospital.

A stately and stark take on Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman shows sceptics Wilkinson can carry a tune should he wish to, and that means you have to trust him on the other tracks.

Long squiggled lines flatten into vast plateaus of sustained sound, duck parp reed blab blends into talking tongues, and the barrier between endurance and transcendence blurs beatifically.
Solo saxophone free improvisation album of the year.

(20/11/11)