Often, when an improvising musician makes a solo album he finds himself at a loss as to where to take the music. Without a collaborator to push and pull against, every decision that a musician makes becomes vital. Is he still improvising if nothing comes as a surprise? Cyril Bondi’s solution to such a dilemma is to utilise vibration, and the uncertainty formed when you set objects free on a vibrating surface, in this case two floor toms. Experience may suggest to the musician how objects may respond when placed onto the rapidly vibrating skin of a drum, but he can never be completely sure in which direction an object may move, against which other objects it may rattle, or exactly how all of these differently sounding elements may combine. The Foil captures Bondi improvising with this ecosystem of uncertainty. Rapidly pounded drumming provides a distinctly human element, but again these vibrations blend with the less recognisable textures to form music that feels organic, alive and vulnerable. This isn’t to say that anything here could really be called an accident. Bondi’s constant, acute, decision making is what transforms this recording from a chain of partly circumstantial events into a neatly structured composition. The unpredictable force of vibration may drive this music along, but its direction is very much under the control of a highly skilled musician. Music is, of course, the human perception of vibrating air, and so a nice circularity is formed when you press play and set free the vibrations! held virtually in this CD and they flow out of your speakers.

Richard Pinnell