Within the lineage of improvised guitar-and-saxophone duo recordings, Earth’s Precisions sets itself apart with its stated aim: exploring a single simulated hybrid of the two musicians’ instruments. Across five expansive tracks, saxophonist Erin Rogers and guitarist Alec Goldfarb establish an entrancing language that seems to grow out of their mutual interest in exploring the small sounds available to them within this exposed instrumentation.
From a cobwebbed heap opens the album with a bloom of microtonal guitar and long, rich saxophone tones. This gentle beginning might create an expectation that the album will follow the familiar brontosaurus¬-back arc of improvised music, but such expectations are quickly annihilated. The New York–based duo turns on a dime with a frequency that betrays their unique virtuosity. While they both possess brilliant technique, their intense ability to listen creates the impression of a clairvoyant musical symbiosis.
Goldfarb’s guitar playing eschews the prevailing fashion of boutique signal processing in favour of his seemingly endless supply of novel techniques. Similarly, Rogers has such control over her sound that she can find multitudes within it. Throughout Earth’s Precisions, and especially on nothing but a voice that laughed, blankly, the physicality required of both performers is palpable, and it gives these recordings a visceral quality where the listener can feel the massive amounts of energy generated.
