Jason Kahn & Tim Olive: Two Sunrise

For those familiar with the two previous releases on Tim Olive's own 845 Audio imprint, the release of Two Sunrise will hold few surprises. As before, its brown chipboard sleeve is adorned with basic graphics and information, giving it a "cottage industry" feel—no bad thing as it follows a noble tradition created by such musician-run labels as Incus and Matchless. Again, the music was created by a duo of Tim Olive plus a like-minded player who complements Olive's use of electronics; following Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Katsura Mouri, this time out Olive is joined by the prolific and renowned Zurich-based electronic musician Jason Kahn, the first meeting of the two.

Their recording methodology followed a familiar pattern to before: the two played together in a studio, with the released tracks being chosen, edited and sequenced from the resulting several hours of recordings. Given that selection process, it is inevitable that the music is of a high quality—with so much to choose from, who would select low quality stuff? As if to counteract any suspicion that selection has made them sound good, in addition to the three studio-recorded tracks, this time there is one recorded live in concert. Of the four tracks it is just about the best, and suggests that releasing concert recordings could be a fruitful route for Olive.

in typical 845-fashion, none of the tracks is given a title. More positively—following another 845 trend—Olive is again paired with a musician experienced in empathetic duo interactions. In situations with two players on electronics, there is an ever-present danger of the two overlapping, intermingling and becoming indistinguishable, thus losing any sense of a duo at work. Kahn and Olive never sound remotely in danger of doing that. Throughout, they can be heard as two distinct, easily-distinguishable voices, obviously listening and reacting to one another. Consequently, this is a real improvising duo just as much as if one were playing saxophone and the other trumpet.

Two Sunrise completes an impressive trilogy of releases from 845 Audio, the three stylistically similar but recognisably from the same stable.