Greg Buium

Guerrilla Mosaics drops John Butcher back down onto the Bay Area scene in a one-off with koto player Miya Masaoka and drummer Gino Robair. Butcher and koto are, simply, a revelation. (Robair seems to hear this right off, weaving in his array of percussion piece by piece.) Masaoka's MIDI-triggered laser koto, a bizarre and provocative appliance, is also used; it just redoubles the date's complex and exotic notion of line. Indeed, her unique drones can color Butcher's purrs, flutters, and tonal tampering in entirely original ways. It isn't terribly daring to say that these 12 improvisations scuttle common musical ideas: they might reach for sounds in nature, rudimentary construction sites or scruffy city streets. Guerrilla Mosaics makes the improvising arts a vital and urgent place all over again.

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