''The Balance of Trade'' is an album by drummer and electronic musician

Paul Lytton Paul Lytton (born 8 March 1947, London) is an English free jazz and free improvising percussionist. Lytton began on drums at age 16. He played jazz in London in the late 1960s while taking lessons on the tabla from P.R. Desai. In 1969 he began ...

. It was recorded in May 1996 at The Spirit Room in Rossie, New York, and was released later that year by the

CIMP Creative Improvised Music Projects, usually abbreviated CIMP or C.I.M.P., is an American jazz record company and label. It is associated with ''Cadence Magazine'' and Cadence Jazz Records. The label is noted for its minimal use of electronic proc ...

label. On the album, Lytton is joined by trumpeter

Herb Robertson Clarence "Herb" Robertson (born February 21, 1951) is a jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist. He was born in New Jersey and attended the Berklee School of Music. He has recorded solo albums and has worked as a sideman for Tim Berne, Anthony Davi ...

, violinist

Philipp Wachsmann Philipp John Paul Wachsmann (born 5 August 1944) is an African avant-garde jazz/jazz fusion violinist born in Kampala, Uganda, probably better known for having founded his own group Chamberpot. He has worked with many musicians in the free jazz id ...

, and bassist

Dominic Duval Dominic Duval (c. 1944 – July 22, 2016) was an American free jazz upright bass, bassist. Since the 1990s, Duval was active principally on the New York City jazz scene. He did not begin recording regularly until the 1990s, but since then had app ...

Reception

The authors of the ''

Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' awarded the album 3 stars, calling it "visionary in scope." They noted that Lytton's gigantic drum kit "apparently took several hours to set up," although he used it "as sparsely as possible" in the context of the recording. They wrote: "each ieceseems to last as long as it ought to, or has to... Nobody has ever used electronics in the way yttondoes; in fact, it's hard to hear how his electronics even affect the music." They concluded by describing the album as being "about as difficult as it gets." Bill Shoemaker, writing for

Jazz Times ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growth ...

, called the album "challenging," and commented: "The quartet works with the aural equivalent of sub-atomic particles, realigning bits of texture into startling new configurations. Rather than emphasize virtuosity, the work taxes the musicians' ability to build upon emerging forms with tenuously defined materials. It's a cliché to say that such albums reward committed listening, but, in the case of ''The Balance of Trade'', it's true."

Track listing

# "Frames of Mind" – 2:45 # "Diagonals" – 19:34 # "Frogger's Lament" – 6:13 # "Gong" – 7:56 # "Ella's Dance" – 1:45 # "Flitters" – 10:27 # "Panade" – 2:25 # "Bach Goes to Redwood" – 6:23 # "For Breakfast I Eat..." – 9:15

Personnel

– percussion, electronics *

– cornet, trumpet, trombone, tuba, horn *

– violin, viola, electronics *

– bass, electronics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balance of Trade (album) 1996 albums Free jazz albums CIMP albums