At Detail by Posset

The pieces that you can hear today are all based on my reading of improvising guitarist, Ash Cooke’s ‘Ascension to Detail’ book.

You can find the book here and I urge you to check it out

https://ashcookemusic.bandcamp.com/merch/ascension-to-detail-a-toolkit-for-exploratory-free-improvisation


‘Ascension to Detail’ is part guidebook, partly a set of improviser’s exercises but also an important source-code for developing improvising situations.

Reading this book and pondering the suggested exercises made me consider more deeply what I wanted my improvisations to be; where I wanted them to end up and where they were going to visit on the way.

I paid more attention to my environment; the ever-present gassy hum of the faulty boiler, the haughty nee-nah of police cars scuttling down the West Road.

At first I used the ‘source-code’ drawings (themselves potential graphic scores of a stark cellular beauty) for individual pieces. Then I found, once carefully inserted in an improvising mind-state, these ideas started influencing my choice of instruments: balloon, Dictaphone, voice or a combination of all three.

These suggestions, hints and drawings jump-started my frazzled brain and hoofed me into a space clear for free expression.

I hope you enjoy what you hear. But more importantly – why not check out Ash’s book, dust down your chops and j-a-a-a-a-a-m?

Huge thanks to Ash Cooke for writing this book and allowing me to lean on it so heavily.

Posset. Dictaphone and vocal improviser. All goof, all the time. Skronk etc.