The new album - Elemental Forces is now available on the Burning Shed label. You can get it here - www.cipher.f9.co.uk - or here - www.burningshed.com
(Check out 'The Spirit of the Void' and 'The Sea Flows' above)
BIOG:
Cipher was formed in 1996 and since then they have released two albums, performed live at chill-out events and written and performed new scores to silent films by Alfred Hitchcock, F Murnau, GW Pabst and Karl Valentin. They have toured the UK several times performing live with their new scores for classic silent films. Cipher, comprising Dave Sturt and Theo Travis use sound samples from a wide range of sources, create new soundscapes incorporating Daves warm fretless bass playing with his unique harmonic textures and Theos haunting soprano saxophone and flute. The result is structured layers of sound with strong melodies and developing themes that recur throughout pieces. The music is imaginative and compulsive and yet can work on the level of background atmospheres and mood music. It is intense, relaxing, emotional, lyrical, often dark and spontaneous - there is a considerable element of improvisation in all performances.
See - Theo Travis http://www.myspace.com/theotravis
and Dave Sturt http://www.myspace.com/davesturt
Reviews
Cipher @ Sheffield Showroom – Live review
“ Tonight the showroom plays host to only the second ever performance by Cipher of their new score to the silent classic Phantom of the Opera, which was originally released in 1925. The film itself should need no introduction, so shame on you if you don’t know that it’s a masterpiece of horror that shocked cinema audiences for decades and still has genuinely startling scenes, even when viewed today. Lon Chaney is the iconic, facially disfigured ‘Phantom’, whose self applied make-up was kept a studio secret until the film’s premier. Cipher, consisting of Dave Sturt and Theo Travis, have been developing film scores for over 10 years. They use a baffling array of digital sound processing equipment, along side more traditional instruments, such as flutes, clarinets and electric fretless bass guitar. All this is performed live to accompany the film and often you forget their presence, as images and sounds seamlessly become one. Ambient jazz is a phrase often used to describe their sound and it does have an element of free-form and improvisation, but often has a darker edge to it and when needed manages to conjure up some very menacing moods. Sometimes it is an electronic sound wash with percussive counterpoints, at other times flutes and bass create an ambient groove which draws you in and adds to the film’s relentless pace and sense of drama. Separating their musical contribution from the film is impossible and would be pointless. The two must be experienced together and live for it to mean anything. Fortunately for anyone who missed it, there are opportunities still to see them when they play cinemas in Leeds and Nottingham in May. A truly unique evening and one which fans of live music should not miss. “ Sandman Magazine - Vivian Bonzo
On Cipher’s third release, Elemental Forces, woodwind multi-instrumentalist Theo Travis and bassist Dave Sturt create soundscapes that are much more than simply background music. Augmented by percussionist Steve Hubback, they explore music that’s reliant on programming and looping, but still manages to retain a spirit of adventure and interaction through real-time sonic manipulation and improvisation—making it as engaging of the mind as it is soothing of the spirit.
Travis seems to be popping up everywhere these days. He’s a relatively recent addition to the proto-psychedelic jamband Gong, opening up their live dates with a set of processed and looped solo flute documented on the vinyl-only release Eleven Bowls of Acidophilus Flute Salad (Tonefloat, 2006). He’s joined Soft Machine Legacy to replace the recently deceased Elton Dean. He’s in demand by everyone from Norwegian pop singer Anja Garbarek to Porcupine Tree, and has released a series of solo albums, including the jazz-centric but Canterbury-informed Earth to Ether (33 Records, 2004). Sturt is no less busy, between work with the revived progressive rockers Jade Warrior and assorted folk, Celtic and dance projects.
Both are talented players, but here the emphasis is on atmospheric lyricism, not chops. While Hubback can be counted on to create rhythmic foundations, they can often be unorthodox in nature, as all his percussion instruments are self-made. On “Beyond All Things” and “The Sea Flows,” the propulsion comes from hammered harp, though on the latter piece Steve Reich-like saxophone pulses can also be found. Elsewhere gongs, bells and chimes are used to create texture or gentle rhythm.
But Travis and Sturt utilize a wealth of sonic manipulation, so it’s just as likely to be a single bass chord that’s shifted from lower to upper range in a rhythmic pattern at the touch of a switch and then looped, as on “Spirit of the Void.” Looping allows Sturt to then layer a more organic bass groove, supporting Travis’ soaring soprano sax alongside Hubback’s shakers. Travis’ system of ambitronics enables real-time sampling, adding harmonies on the fly in ways so natural and unpredictable that they sound as if multiple players are interacting.
That this English Arts Council-funded work can be performed live as part of a multimedia event is a testimony to how far the integration of technology with music has come. “Into the Air” finds Travis on flute, creating loops and layering improvisations on top that are then harmonized, creating a rich canvas that’s augmented by Sturt’s fretless bass swells and Hubback’s gamelan-like bells. That so few can create a sound so orchestral, where movement evolves almost imperceptibly but inevitably, is the real magic of Elemental Forces, an album that's rooted in ambient music but is more dramatic and interactive in scope.
By John Kelman, All About Jazz
"Cipher consists of Theo Travis on soprano sax, flute and keyboards, and Dave Sturt on fretless bass, programming and loops. Travis's saxophone is not used in a traditional soloistic sense: He generally floats long lines that have a vocal-like quality ('The Lodger', 'The Waiting'), and the most immediate reference point for first-time listeners would be Brian Eno's ambient and film music. Listen closer and Cipher's approach starts to sound much more original. There's a very interesting sense of construction about this music,in the way blocks of sound are built up, metamorphosed and sometimes taken away at odd-seeming moments, as if God were scoring a dub composition for clouds in the heavens. The sonic layers of loops appearing, dissipating and receding, of foreground becoming background, seem endless and make for engrossing headphone listening. The title piece comes closest to a regular pulse, as well as to traditional song form. It's a haunting, lonely dance in space, led by Travis's alto flute, that puts Cipher's narrative abilities in a fairly accessible light. 'Bodhidharma' on the other hand, features shimmering, high chords, a recurring guitar-like sound that subtly changes position in the soundscape on each pass, and light, percussive clicks evoking a flutter of birds' wings.Sturt's fretless bass weaves around a deep percussive base on 'The Waiting', and 'A Far Cry' layers amorphous clouds of sound over an almost subliminal, Terry Riley-like pattern of soprano overdubs. Other parts recall Peter Gabriel's more otherwordly instrumental endeavours and Steve Roach's 'Quiet Music' period. Guests on the disc include Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson and Richard Barbieri on two tracks each, and an atmospheric vocal on 'Desert Song' by Rabbi Gaddy Zerbib. This is trance-out music of the highest order." Progression (USA)
" The ambient -based music of this set draws both on ECM's more ethereal releases and on Brian Eno's work, and while many listeners will dispute its jazz credentials, a spirit of improvisation and creativity infuses every piece. Leader Travis has strong jazz credentials, sounding here like a John Surman devotee, most notably on A Far Cry............ a music of evocative electronic soundwashes, subtle acoustic jazz explorations, and considerable emotional resonance. For those who distrust electronic and ambient music, you might be surprised by this set." Jazz Journal (UK)
" The music on this release by the English group Cipher can best be described as cosmic. There is a galaxial, otherworldly feel about it, with the almost supernatural aura that it creates." All Music Guide (USA)
" Die-hard supporters of the original philosophy of ambient music as espoused by Sir Brian of Eno will experience a frisson of recognition here, while the post-club culture chillers-out will happily go with the flow as usual. Cipher are Theo Travis (soprano sax, alto flute, piano, keyboards, samples) and Dave Sturt (fretless bass, programming, samples and loops). Travis is mainly known as a jazz musician (with several excellent albums to his credit), except when he is being something else (he is also associated with diverse projects such as Gong and Porcupine Tree), while Sturt also works in Celtic music and as a producer, among other things. Here, though, they present a shifting, pulsing musical collage in which the both the common ground and the contrasts between pure electronica and more conventional instruments, notably Travis's plaintive-yet-full-of-conviction saxophone lines, are explored to the full, with excellent results. File between your old System 7 albums and Jan Garbarek--then wonder why there has never been anything to put there before. " Amazon.co.uk
" Cipher's particular skill is to balance lightly and enigmatically on the cusp between an obvious ECM tastefulness and the psychoactive disturbances of dark electronica. And as such they constantly, subtly, wrongfoot you. Given that it's a contemporary soundtrack to an early Jack The Ripper film by Hitchcock, "The Lodger" is appropriately creepy, with Travis haunting the upper air past the smokey, building, menacing wind patterns and Sturt's glassy melodic spindles of rotating bass. "A Far Cry" deliberately undermines associations: the trapped gaiety of a looped'n'buried fairground calliope contradicts the sad, syncopated stagger of backwards tones that makes up the body of the track and underlays Sturt and Travis' unusually intense, bloodshot calling. "Dusk's foreboding swells suggest a disturbance just out of memory range, probed in shifting tones.
"White Cloud, Blue Sky" sees Travis playing bleakly over disintegrating tones somewhere between disturbed wind-chime and the expansive empty-gallery guitar Bill Frisell uses to paint his pictures of America. "The Waiting", though, is pure dreamscape. A simple shaker and cymbal rhythm joined by Travis's moody searching sax gliding in the sky, Sturt's tingling gulp of bass swallowing at the ground, and a growing textural bristle of ringing tones and alien electronics in some blurry area between birdcall and gauze. Eventually all is submerged in a hallucinatory backwards dissolve. "
Dann Chinn - Misfit City (UK)
" Cipher confirm itself as one of the highest expressions of ambient music.............Unmissable! " No Warning (Italy)
Cipher - Elemental Forces documentary
Cipher - live soundtrack to The Last Laugh - recorded at The Barbican, London
Cipher - live soundtrack to The Last Laugh - recorded at The Barbican, London
Cipher - live soundtrack to The Phantom of the Opera - recorded at the Bradford International Film Festival
' Better than ever, tougher and wiser, with ten times the balls and fire of most other bands, looking the audience in the eye. Warning - Wizards of Twiddly are on top form.' The Organ, June 2008
Hey, how are you doing? We just recorded The Tempest Armada's upcoming album "Echoes of the Last Bell". We are looking for new upcoming artists to record and work with so feel free to check out our work. I hope all is well and feel free to comment or write back.
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