Crowhurst AKA Jay Gambit is a prolific underground musician who has released over 75 shapeshifting pieces of music that traverse the musical domains of ambient electronica, drone, black metal and noise. He’s collaborated with many other artists, and his latest is with the great British composer and arranger Gavin Bryars, who has himself collaborated with Merce Cunningham, Brian Eno and more recently with Father John Misty on his Pure Comedy triumph of 2017.
The press release calls their unusual duet, Incoherent American Narrative, “a shimmering orchestra of desolation.”
Here’s Jay Gambit describing the work in his own words:
“In 2017, I moved away from my longtime residence of Los Angeles into a house in Philadelphia and fell into a fairly deep creative slump where I was unsure of my abilities and purpose. I ended up signing up for the only grant I’ve ever applied for, and ended up getting it. This allowed me to go to France and study composition under Gavin. Upon arriving at the 17th century hotel in the Pyrenees to a house full of classically trained musicians, I fumbled my way through a presentation of drones and experimental music only to find that my insecurities toward my own abilities were rooted in a lack of technical ability rather than composition skills. I proceeded to ask Gavin if he had any fragments or abstract sound sources available that I could distort, and he found a number of random files including instrument multitracks of various rehearsals from different performances, from when he opened the Tate, to cancelled operas. Excerpts of live performances of Sinking Of The Titanic where percussive elements were recorded underwater while the orchestra played on the ship above - all weaved into new compositions that mirror a style of storytelling that Gavin refers to as an “incoherent American narrative” style. Each of the tracks carry the same weight of Bryars’ seminal pieces like Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet while retaining all of the peaks, valleys, emotion and distortion present in my more conceptual albums such as Aghoree and Memory-Loss. “
To this Gavin Bryars added:
“It’s not my world. I’m an old fashioned composer who works with pencil and paper, so when you place it into new context and it becomes something new. I think it’s terrific.”
Crowhurst + Gavin Bryars Presents: Incoherent American Narrative is set for release in January 2020. The record’s artwork is by Arizona artist Lauren Bailey.
The album’s opening piece, “Blistered Glaciers”
Gambit and Bryars talking about their collaboration.