
The Ascension Band: Evolution
By Simon Sweetman
David Edwards and Nigel Patterson were at the head of The Ascension Band; captaining a ship that featured 17 Wellington-based musicians improvising around musical themes composed and arranged by Patterson (and in part co-conceived by Edwards). The 50 minute piece of music, broken down in to five movements, was performed live over a few nights for the Fringe Festival in 2005; the group taking out the Best Music Award. I managed to catch a repeat performance - it was stunning. Discordant guitars were choked, drums clattered and crashed, voices mingled with percussion and keyboards - but this form of free-improvisation had a structure to it. It had movement, it had a plan. It was a great beast of a song that writhed and wriggled and often managed to run downhill, away from the players - in the best possible way. Here, the show has been recorded onto a CD for posterity - and it begs discovery. It's an intense listen - but that's to be expected from a group of players who took their name from one of John Coltrane's toughest listening albums.
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