eJazzNews Archive

Fred Frith & Chris Brown: Cutter Heads (Intakt, 2007)

Originally published on eJazzNews · · By Glenn Astarita · CD Reviews

In August 2007 eJazzNews published Glenn Astarita’s review of Cutter Heads, an album of improvised duets by English guitarist Fred Frith and American pianist and electronic musician Chris Brown, released by the Swiss label Intakt Records in June 2007. The original page has not survived in a retrievable form, but the Wikipedia article on the album cites the review and preserves several of its phrases.

What the review said

As quoted on Wikipedia, Astarita described the duo’s work as “semi-controlled noise-music movements and more.” He heard Frith’s plucking and sawing on guitar as balanced by Brown’s “investigative acoustic piano manipulations,” called the six tracks “fragmented tone poems,” and wrote that the pair’s gradual way of building an improvisation paid off, with themes that seem to liquefy and re-form into asymmetrical musical statements.

The record was well received elsewhere too. Wikipedia’s summary of its reception cites positive reviews in The Wire, in Cadence, where Roberto Iannapollo called it one of the finest things he had heard from Frith in some time, and in the Italian edition of All About Jazz.

About the album

Cutter Heads (Intakt CD 124) was recorded live in the concert hall at Mills College in Oakland, California, in January 2002 and August 2004. Both players taught there at the time: Frith composition and improvisation, Brown electronic music, as co-director of the college’s Center for Contemporary Music. Frith plays electric and acoustic guitars, Brown piano and electronics. Philip Perkins mixed and edited the recordings at See a Dog, Hear a Dog studio in Berkeley in May 2006, and Myles Boisen mastered them at Headless Buddha in Oakland that October; Patrik Landolt was executive producer. All six pieces are credited to both musicians: “Telltale Streamers of Dust,” “Nothing but Make Me,” “Swing Like Riddle,” “Thick Air,” “Sings the Foundation” and “The Way You Do the Things.”

The two musicians

Frith co-founded the rock collective Henry Cow with Tim Hodgkinson in 1968 and went on to play in Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew. Beyond improvising, he has written for film, dance and theater, including the score for the documentary Rivers and Tides. Brown writes music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics and for computer networks and improvising ensembles, and builds his own electronic instruments; his recordings include the electroacoustic work Lava (Tzadik, 1995).

What happened next

Frith taught at Mills for twenty years, retiring in 2018, and co-directed the improvisation master’s program at the Musik-Akademie in Basel with Alfred Zimmerlin. His official biography lists him performing solo and with groups including Fremakajo, Frelonia and the home-made instrument duo Normal. Cutter Heads remains in Intakt’s catalog. For background on the practice at the heart of the record, see our guide to jazz improvisation.

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here.
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