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English harpist Rhodri Davies
turned his harp into an electronic instrument (and not a pretty one) on his
solo albums
Trem (december 2001), a live recording,
Over Shadows (january 2004),
Wound Response (december 2011), possibly the most brutal,
and
An Air Swept Clean of All Distance (2014).
The four albums are compiled in Pedwar (2014).
His collaborations include:
Ieirll (2005) with percussionist Ingar Zach;
Amber (april 2004) with reedist Lucio Capece, tuba player Robin Hayward
and viola player Julia Eckhardt;
Cwymp Y Dwr Ar Ganol Dydd (july 2005) with the trio
Traw (Owen Martell, Richard Llewellyn, Simon Proffitt);
Compositions For Harp And Sho (march 2006) with Ko Ishikawa;
Hum (june 2007) with bass clarinetist Bechir Saade,
flutist Samantha Rebello and trumpeter Matt Davis;
Tried In The Scales And Found Wanting (september 2006) with
laptop musician Dennis McNulty and percussionist David Lacey;
Midhopestones (january 2009) with laptop musician Louisa Martin,
soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda and vocalist Phil Minton;
the live Twrf Neus Ciglau (july 2008) with
cellist Guilherme Rodrigues,
electronics musician Carlos Santos,
soprano saxophonist Stephane Rives and
viola player Ernesto Rodrigues;
Kravis Rhonn Project (april 2008) with guitarist and noise maker
Annette Krebs;
Dark Architecture (november 2008) with veteran sound sculptor
Max Eastley;
Valved Strings Calculator (february 2007) with
laptop musician Taku Unami and tuba player Robin Hayward;
the live Fragments Of The Cadastre (january 2009) with
laptop musician Louisa Martin,
noise maker Lee Patterson,
soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda
and vocalist Phil Minton;
Wunderkammern (july 2006) with
noise maker Lee Patterson and
David Toop;
Carliol (april 2009) with John Butcher;
Feathered Swing Of The Raven (december 2011) with flutist, bassist and
vocalist Laura Cannells;
etc.
He also formed the trio Common Objects with John Butcher and Lee Patterson,
a trio documented on Live In Morden Tower (Mikroton, 2013).
A collaboration with Butcher was released as Routing Lynn (2014).
Rhodri Davies' Common Objects, formed in 2005, debuted with Live In Morden Tower (january 2013), and then released the multisession Whitewashed With Lines (may 2013 and march 2014), consisting of two very long suites (the 57-minute Cup And Ring and the 44-minute Repose And Vertigo). Their third album, Skullmarks (march 2016), mainly devoted to the 37-minute Skullmarks, featured Lina Lapelyte and Angharad Davies (both on violin), John Butcher (soprano and tenor saxes), Lee Patterson (amplified devices and processes) and Pat Thomas (electronics).
The 38-minute suite Transversal Time (composed in 2017) was recorded with Ryoko Akama (electronics), Sarah Hughes (zither), Sofia Jernberg (vocals), Pia Palme (contrabass recorder), Adam Parkinson (programming), Lucy Railton (cello), Pat Thomas (piano, electronics) and Dafne Vicente-Sandoval (bassoon).
Telyn Rawn (january 2020) contains improvisations on Davies' custom version of a long-forgotten 13th-century Welsh harp.
Rhodri Davies also formed (in 1995) the trio IST (Improvising String Trio) with
celloist Mark Wastell and bassist Simon Fell, documented on
Consequences (Of Time And Place) (april 1997),
Anagrams To Avoid (december 1995),
containing the eleven-minute Strim Stram Strellach and
the 13-minute Chwit Chwat Chwilen Bwgen,
the eleven-minute Ghost Notes (september 1998), containing Composition No 42 - Cubism,
New York (april 2001), which featured John Zorn on alto sax,
and various live albums:
Lodi (2002),
At The Club Room (july 1996),
Archif #13: BMIC 17/09/1997,
Archif #23: The Picket 11/11/1998,
and the five-disc A More Attractive Way (Confront, 2022), which collects live performances recorded between april 1996 and may 2000, notably the 34-minute Vivo Study I (april 1996), the 28-minute Orthographic Dissonance (february 1998), and the 26-minute Generating Contexts (may 2000).
A one hour solo harp improvisation is documented on
For Simon H. Fell (june 2020).
Dwa Dni (january 2021) instead collects 15 brief solo improvisations.
The 41-minute suite Dyslexic Harp (Deciphered In The Dark) (january 2010) was composed by Jean-Luc Guionnet.
Hen Ogledd
(july 2013)
documents a collaboration between Rhodri Davies (playing various harps, drums, cymbal, wood block, etc) and singer Richard Dawson (also on bass and guitar),
including
the 21-minute Chickpea To Cook.
Hen Ogledd became a full-fledged band with violinist Laura Cannell, keyboardist Dawn Bothwell and others, as documented on
Bronze (november 2015), Mogic (recorded in 2018),
Free Humans (september 2019) and No Wood Accepted (recorded between january 2018 and december 2020).
The 8-disc box-set Wyth (Amgen, 2024) collects eight compositions by Rhodri Davies, who plays horsehair harp, lap harp, electronics, lever harp, e-bow, pedal harp, tape and percussion. Some were
recorded live at the end of 2001 (CD 1) and others in the studio (2004-23).
The most imposing are the 36 minute Over Shadows and
the one-hour For Simon H Fell.
Telyn Wrachiod
(august 2023) contains solo performances
on Welsh harp.
La Montagne Change Le Paysage
(february 2024)
documents
improvisations between
Rhodri Davies (pedal harp) and Pierre Gerard (guitar).
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