THE MINTON-BEYER DUO

Phil Minton – voice
Kriton Beyer – daxophone

The MINTON–BEYER DUO seems like a study of the phenomenon of the voice with two different instruments: the human voice and the daxophone.

Phil Minton, perhaps the best-known vocal artist in free improvisation, is known for his remarkable extended vocal techniques that span the entire spectrum of human expression: from simple breathing, to murmurs, grumbling and whispering, to whistling, burping and rattling, screaming and moaning – from shrill highs to rumbling lows, all part of his vocabulary. And all his vocal abilities are always paired with an extraordinary, unique presence and an absolutely unfiltered expression.

Kriton Beyer in turn, uses his still quite obscure instrument, the daxophone, in an extremely voice-like way, often imitating human and animal sounds and speech patterns that seem to have been built into the nature and character of the instrument. Compared to other instruments, it seems to be very easy to imitate animal sounds and voices, from bird song to grunting, roaring, cawing, croaking, chattering, cooing and chirping of various animal species on the daxophone. All of this has been well researched and practically tested by Kriton Beyer in cross-species communication with his daxophone as an instrument and is also audibly processed in the musical dialogue in the work in this duo.

Acoustically, despite the speed, changeability and abundance of musical information, the sound of this duo is simple, clear, unambiguous and direct and therefore very intimate and never artificial. The two voices complement each other equally, without one ever covering up the other. They move gracefully somewhere between the animal and the human, sometimes comical and grotesque, sometimes subtle and fragile, in an intuitive musical exchange of blows between two multifaceted voices of different natures.

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Phil Minton (born November 2, 1940 in Torquay, Devon, Great Britain) is a singer of avant-garde jazz and free improvisational music who began as a jazz trumpeter. As a vocalist, he is considered a fixture in the free improvisation scene with “almost unbelievable and uncanny sounds for which there is nothing comparable far and wide” (Bert Noglik).
Minton, whose parents were singers and who sang in the church choir, received his first trumpet lessons at the age of fifteen. Between 1959 and 1961 he played in the Brian Weldon Quintet in Devon. In 1962 he moved to London, where he worked with Mike Westbrook, whose band he played in Las Palmas (1964/65) and Sweden (1966 to 1971) for many programs from 1971 to 1990 (e.g. On Duke’s Birthday ) and international tours. Through Westbrook he came to sing and came into contact with London’s avant-garde and free jazz scene.
In 1975 he founded the vocal quartet Voice with Julie Tippetts, Maggie Nicols and Brian Ely. From the same year he developed a solo program. Since the 1980s he has appeared in various constellations at relevant festivals around the world, initially working with Fred Frith, Roger Turner, Günter Christmann, Peter Brötzmann and Willi Kellers, and later with Radu Malfatti and Phil Wachsmann (Raphiphi) John Zorn (Angelica 94) or Tom Cora (Roof). At the same time, he took part in film scores and recordings by Lindsay Cooper, theater productions by Mike Figgis, performances by Georg Gräwe’s GrubenKlangOrchester, Tony Oxley’s Celebration Orchestra and multidisciplinary works by the composer Konrad Boehmer. Since 1987, the collaboration with the pianist Veryan Weston has resulted in several CDs, of which the oratorio for choir “Songs from a Prison Diary”, which is based on texts by Ho Chi Minh, is particularly worth mentioning.
Minton played a key role as vocal soloist in the European premiere of Carla Bley’s “Escalator over the Hill” in 1997. He also worked with numerous improvisation artists such as Thomas Lehn and Axel Dörner (who together form the trio TOOT), Derek Bailey, Erhard Hirt, John Butcher and Bob Ostertag. In 1998 he sang imaginary shanties in the Berlin band Frigg. He also worked in projects by Alfred Harth (Vladimir Estragon), Franz Koglmann (O Moon My Pin-Up, 1998), Klaus König, David Moss, Simon Nabatov, Paul Hubweber, Uli Böttcher (Schnack) and Oliver Schwerdt (EUPHORIUM_freakestra Free Electric Supergroup, 2007) and can be heard in radio pieces by Grace Yoon, Andreas Ammer, FM Unit and Ulrike Haage.
In workshops, as a choir director under the name The Feral Choir, he teaches the (often very large numbers) participants his style of improvisational singing.
His singing style is full of ecstatic moments and imaginative noise enrichments with “ludicrous and artful rattling vocals” (Ulrich Ohlshausen). He also performs emotional ballads. In 1988 he was recognized by Jazz Forum magazine as the best male singer in Europe. He is involved in numerous recordings.
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Kriton Beyer is a Greek-German musician and composer, who – as a performer and improviser – mainly works with the harmonium and the daxophone. He studied musicology in Greece where he collaborated with a variety of local music groups as well as musicians like Sakis Papadimitriou and Floros Floridis.
In 2004 he moved to Berlin, where he got heavily involved in the improvised music scene of the city.
Since then he has worked with many musicians like Phil Minton, Audrey Chen, Steve Noble, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Axel Dörner, Liz Kosack, Kresten Osgood, Tristan Honsinger, Tomomi Adachi, Richard Scott, Willi Kellers, Matthias Bauer, Antonis Anissegos, Olaf Rupp, Alexei Borisov, Els Vandeweyer, Harri Sjöström, Nicola Hein and Liz Allbee, dancers like Yuko Kaseki and visual artists like Akiko Nakayama. Kriton Beyer founded the “FRAGMENTATION ORCHESTRA“, is a member of the electroacoustic trio “uproot” and the ensembles “Redox Reaction” and FDBK EXPT.
In his work with the harmonium, Kriton Beyer uses both the natural sound of his instrument and “traditional” playing techniques as well as preparations, objects and extended techniques, while his daxophone play is characterized by a very personal musical and sonic aesthetic, and an unconventional technique, sometimes also supported by the subtle use of electronics. As an improvising musician, he has performed throughout Europe. His compositions are usually characterized by conceptualism.
Kriton Beyer has also conceived and commissioned the music software CinePrompt®, which was specially developed for the use for live musical performance and live recording to films.
Kriton Beyer also curates and manages the concert series and record label “THE PROCRUSTEAN BED”, dedicated to Experimental & Improvised Music.
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