Tony Marsh

Tony Marsh/Steve Franklin/Tim Crowther: Shell of Certainty

by Scott Andrews
August 1, 2000

Marsh, Franklin, and Crowther have recorded and toured extensively in British jazz/fusion and improvised rock, including Marsh's work with Harry Beckett and Franklin and Crowther's improv band Conglomerate. Shell of Certainty is their first CD together, and all tracks were improvised and recorded live with no overdubs.

These improvisations are sonically and thematically chaotic, loosely in the vein of King Crimson's live improvs in '73-'74, except containing a stronger jazz influence. Melodic fragments are jumbled; chordal features are short and ...