EDITORIAL

Flung is proud to present gwaith anwel, the first recorded document of the long-running musical partnership between violinist Angharad Davies and double bassist Dominic Lash. Recorded in Oxford's Holywell Music Room, one of Europe's oldest purpose-built concert halls, the album distils almost twenty years of mutual listening, improvisation and artistic exchange, bearing traces of a shared musical path shaped through collaborations with figures as diverse as Tony Conrad, Éliane Radigue, Jürg Frey, and many others. Their improvisations range from near-silent, microscopic exchanges to dense, driving passages, drawing equally on traditions of reductionism, free improvisation and composition without settling into any single category.

A.D. — I find it really interesting which aspects of the music are physically visible, and which things aren’t.

The title, gwaith anwel ('hidden labour' or 'invisible work' in Welsh) suggests an invisible architecture that supports every sound. It speaks to the unseen craft of instrument makers and builders, to the accumulated experiences that quietly shape instinct, and to the highly-tuned understanding developed between two musicians through years of mutual listening, before stripping everything back to this exposed conversation. 

The Holywell Music Room and its centuries of memory become an active collaborator here too, reflected both in the architectural titles of the tracks and in the vivid physicality of Davies and Lash's responsive playing. The building's creaks, shifting air, distant Oxford bells, and the hall's warm wooden acoustic are woven into the recordings, lending the music a quiet sense of place without ever distracting from the intimacy of the duo itself.

D.L. — I suppose it’s like an iceberg idea. With any music, there are things that you hear, and then there’s all this stuff that makes it what it is, but which is not directly perceptible.

Presented as six distinct pieces entirely improvised in essence, yet subtly expanded through discreet layering on two tracks, gwaith anwel resists the expectations of free improvisation as readily as it sidesteps compositional thinking. Instead, it inhabits the fertile ground between the two, revealing a partnership built on trust and memory, where countless invisible moves seem to melt into sound, the moment they are made.

TRACKLIST

1. colfach cudd, part 1

2. colfach cudd, part 2

3. colfach cudd, part 3

4. colfach cudd, part 4

5. colfach cudd, part 5

6. circular lunette

7. moulded cornice

8. apselike northend

9. stuccoed brick

10. llechi cymreig

CREDITS

All music by Angharad Davies and Dominic Lash

Recorded by Bruno Guastalla at the Holywell Music Room, Oxford, on 18th March 2024

Mixing, mastering, cover, and design by Nicholas Moroz

Special thanks to Eric Clarke, Siwan Rhys, Paul Whitty, and Ben Smith

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