On 5 August 2002 Cipher release One who whispers on Gliss Records, the follow up to their acclaimed 1999 debut No Ordinary Man (Hi Art5). The new album further explores Cipher's individual soundworld, mixing live flute, sax and bass with dark soundscapes and hypnotic layers of looped instrumental atmospheres. The nine tracks explore different aspects of the Cipher sound - including the purely abstract and textured sounds of To the Shelters, the WARP- like beats of Panoramic Lounge, the dark electronica of Celluloid, the metamorphosing multi-layered flutes of The Apparent Chaos of Snow and the wah-wah sax and dark filmic world of Love, Death and Drowning and Absorbed.
Six tracks feature the “glissando" guitar textures of Gong's Daevid Allen. Glissando guitar is a free form of slide guitar pioneered by Syd Barrett and Daevid Allen in the mid sixties in which the strings of the guitar are played using various unorthodox utensils (Allen famously used gynaecological instruments). The guitar signal is heavily processed through echoes and loops of different lengths, which can then be reversed or played at different speeds. The result is a hypnotic sound that is both textural and expressive. Celluloid is a collaboration with synth texturalist Richard Barbieri formerly of art-rock bands Japan and Rain Tree Crow. It is also, perhaps surprisingly, the only track that actually incorporates keyboards as opposed to processed organic samples and glissando guitar. Many of the samples and soundscapes are in fact performed by Dave Sturt's MIDI bass, by which different notes on an electric bass trigger whole washes of sound, beats or abstract noises.
The album was mixed and co-produced by Steven Wilson - Porcupine Tree main man and producer of Anja Garbarek, Fish and Opeth. It was mastered by grammy-nominated Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson. The album title comes from a quote by the artist Peter Schmidt who famously once wrote “ in a room full of shouting people, the one who whispers becomes interesting". Theo Travis has established a reputation as a distinct voice on soprano saxophone and flutes in the jazz, avant garde, and rock scenes and has worked with Gong, Jansen Barbieri Karn, Bass Communion (with Robert Fripp), Anja Garbarek and John Etheridge as well as having five solo albums to his name - Mojo magazine referred to him as “a brave and restless talent to watch for “. Bassist/Sound Designer Dave Sturt has been a member of the seminal ambient group Jade Warrior, a producer, engineer and programmer on many albums, a session bass player with the likes of Michael Kamen, Dave Gilmour and Isaac Guillory and has composed music for film and TV. Cipher was formed in 1996 and since then they have made two albums, performed live at chill-out events and written and performed new scores to silent films by Alfred Hitchcock and Karl Valentin. They are currently working on a new score for Pabst's Pandora's Box - a film once described as “The most humanely tragic portrait of obsession that the cinema has to boast" and featuring the erotically alluring Louise Brooks. This will be performed live around the UK in November 2002.
CD now available from specialist retailers and online at the “kasbah" at www.planetgong.co.uk Gliss Records - PO Box 871 Glastonbury, Somerset, England, BA6 9FE Tel - 44 1458 833040
Cipher website - www.cipher.f9.co.uk
For more information contact All About Jazz.
