Mats Gustafsson/dieb13/Martin Siewert: Fake The Facts: Soundtrack

Stripped to its core, music is communication. It is the accompaniment to life's movie. The first fabulists, our cavemen ancestors probably invented music by imitating the sounds of nature, such as bird calls, wolf howls, and the patter of rain on the cave's entrance. The pleasure delivered by that experience caused several members of the cavemen's tribe to give up hunting-and-gathering for a steady gig as musicians. Fast forward twenty thousand years and with noted music in place, our Bird, Charlie Parker, a bluesman, Howlin' Wolf, and the rainmaker, Buddy Rich became the 20th storytellers

Music without notation, free music, is probably the closest listeners can get to man's earliest performances. Saxophonist Mats Gustafsson has always had the talent for stripping sound down to its essence, be it through the blast of a saxophone or as he has wont to do of late, toil in the world of electronics and noise. He has performed and recorded with the king of Japanese noise, Merzbow and with the likes of David Grubbs and Thurston Moore.

In the trio Fake The Facts, he has found his band of cavemen. Dieb13, aka Dieter Kovacic is a turntable artist (not a DJ) that has contributed sound to Gustafsson's Swedish Azz band and projects by British saxophonist John Butcher. Guitarist Martin Siewert also eschews the language of his instrument for an abstract primeval sound.

The trio's previous efforts include the self-titled (Fake) the Facts (Editions Mego, 2011) and a 7" Record Store Day release (Trost, 2013).

This session, from January, 2013 is less noisy than their previous efforts, or maybe it just contains less noise. The three storytellers describe, not the elements of nature but the nature of electronics. Their instruments are driven back to the stone age where analog replaces digital. Saxophones are for breathy ambiance, guitars for hum and feedback, and turntables forgo beats for the rumble. Where Gustafsson blows his horn, it is more a circular breath of a gurgling brook and Siewert's guitar describes nerve impulses of the brain. Dieb13's samples chronicle the world, not the caveman's mother earth, but the modern electric cosmos.