Rempis / Piet / Daisy - Throw Tomatoes (2018)

Contrary to the fabled image, they didn’t really throw rotten tomatoes during Shakespeare’s time at The Globe Theatre. Vegetables, yes, but there are no tomatoes on record in Britain for another seven-score years after Shakespeare. No matter. The title of this album by the Rempis/Piet/Daisy trio is my own flippant gesture to the listener: “Say what you will about this music; this is what we three offer you, unapologetically. If you are revolted by the madness of our method, well, by all means, revolt: throw tomatoes.” As for the stolen titular references to Hamlet, well… I thought I’d spare you my own wordplay-within-wordplay, this once. As I have so often said: “‘Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.’ - Oscar Wilde.”

If there is one thing that perhaps colours my approach to improvising on the bandstand in a way dissimilar to those with whom I share it, it is that I come from theatre first. It was in live theatre that I first experienced that magnificent extrasensory perception that takes place as an actor becomes aware of a trifold energy in the performance space. There is one’s own awareness of self, an awareness of space and troupe energy on stage, and the most mysterious of the three: a psychic awareness of the state of the audience. Getting laughs, of course, renders audible what the actor will use as validation and can be quite the adrenaline rush. Yet, even at the quietest of moments, this constant “read” of a group of strangers in the dark is always accessible, even when one is met with absolute silence. This sounds as though it would be baffling, frightening. Much to the contrary, the silence itself feels not at all like a void, but seems to actively have its own agency, providing the players with willful encouragement to go on

Tracklist:

1. To Play Is The Thing 28:26
2. The Thousand Natural Shocks 27:22