Home > Event > Evening of Improvised Music: Barracuda Album Launch Performance

Photo of Barracuda album cover, with black and white photo of ploughing.

Evening of Improvised Music: Barracuda Album Launch Performance

Raymond MacDonald – saxophones

Neil Davidson – guitar 

New Record: Barracuda is released on Iorram Records, November 2022 

The Musicians

Raymond MacDonald and Neil Davidson have been playing improvised music together for nearly 20 years. Their practice has taken them to Norway, Germany, Japan and even Falkirk. They’ve made lots of records together and worked with some very fine musicians from around the world. In terms of jobs, Raymond is professor of improvised music at Edinburgh University. Neil used to lecture on the applied music degree at University of Highlands and Islands and is now a software researcher and dry stone dyker. Raymond’s family on his father’s side are from South Uist. Neil lives at Mishigarry, Sollas. 

The Performance

The music we will play comes from listening. 

The kind of listening going on is the everyday kind. It might be the listening of a greeting, finding out how the other person is, or it might be the kind of listening that goes on among family; not everything needs said but often it gets said anyway because it reminds everyone of what’s important. Or it might be the kind of listening we do in nature; we know that in May the corncrake will start shouting but you never know exactly where (and when you point it out, it stops). Or it might be the kind of listening that goes deeper than all that and resonates with things just existing and persisting. We choose sounds that we think do justice to all this listening and see where those sounds take us.