Unlockings by John Butcher in a quartet with Angharad Davies, Mark Sanders and Pat Thomas

Butcher is interested in particular people and their personalities. He prefers not to work in a generic situation, where there's an agreement in advance to play a certain kind of thing, and the music cannot swerve in a sudden fresh direction.

As he told me a few years back: "What got me so interested in the type of improvising I ended up really spending time on was, at least at a personal level, there was a feeling you could start from scratch. Now you might well be mistaken, and rediscovering endless wheels, but it felt like there was a chance… Whatever things you do pull together from various places into that, relate more to your own personal take on – I’m not just talking about music, but how you want to live as a musician in the world, what aspects of things outside of music you’re hoping will find their way into your activity."

Clive Bell


John Butcher soprano and tenor saxes
Angharad Davies violin
Mark Sanders percussion
Pat Thomas electronics

recorded by Dave Hunt at Iklectik/London on 5 April 2022

edited and mixed by John Butcher
Mastered by Andreas LUPO Lubich at Loop-O Mastering

liner notes by Clive Bell

artwork by Yaqin Si
letterpress by Die Lettertypen, Berlin

all music by Butcher/Davies/Sanders/Thomas

nvnc-lp045

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