Tim Berne’s Science Friction – ‘Science Friction +size’ (2020)

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If “X” artist is really good, then it might be said that “X” artist’s chaff is better than most other artist’s wheat. Similarly, a live recording on a disc from such an artist laying around on the floor unnoticed for fifteen years might qualify as a breakout record for the 98-99% of good musicians in Brooklyn striving to get notice. That’s not some hypothetical; saxophonist/composer/bandleader Tim Berne did some cleaning up in his studio one day and stumbled upon a CD-R that he recognized as a live performance of his long-dormant electro-acoustic outfit Science Friction. He asked his friend and frequent collaborator David Torn to perform his mastering magic on it and on Christmas Day 2020 made it available for public enjoyment.

Science Friction +size is a souvenir of that gig at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village toward the end of 2003. This was during the time when Science Friction was one of Berne’s main going concerns, a band that was Hardcell (Berne, keyboardist Craig Taborn, drummer Tom Rainey) plus guitarist Marc Ducret, or Big Satan minus Taborn. In the long continuum of Berne’s discography, I see Science Friction (and Hardcell) as a successful adaptation of Berne’s highly individual compositional/improvisational approach to a mixture of acoustic and electronic instruments, an important precursor to the Torn-led Prezens and Sun of Goldfinger bands.



But, does Science Friction +size really offer something worthwhile to someone who’s long absorbed the genius of those bands? I say yes, emphatically, because…

1. There were previously only two proper Science Friction releases.
2. This one might be the only documented Science Friction recording that’s augmented by Herb Robertson’s trumpet.
3. These guys were slaying it.

Over fifty-one minutes and two songs, this quartet plus guest member Robertson perform many musical gymnastics as they traverse freely between the premeditated and the impulsive. Spoiler alert, Robertson fully adapts to this and augments it.

The Hardcell tune “Heavy Mental” begins with a fracas between Robertson and Berne, and even before the electrical stuff kicks in, it already sounds like electric Miles because of the devil’s tone of that trumpet. A Berne-esque pattern breaks out seemingly spontaneously, with everyone falling in line into perfect syncopation and Ducret — to toss in another Agharta metaphor — is shredding like Reggie Lucas. But then Robertson returns and he is a raging inferno this time.

“Deadpan” is another Berne composition, one that would soon appear months later on a Big Satan release. Rainey, who was a monstrous presence within Science Friction/Hard Cell, gets to show off his prowess unaccompanied at the start of “Deadpan,” but when Ducret plus the horns drop in, it’s such provocative sound to hear Ducret, Robertson and Berne bob and weave around each other, in particular because Robertson’s trumpet simulates a human vocal. When Robertson backs out, Berne and Ducret joust with a lot of uncanny mind-reading. Afterwards, Robertson is conjuring up complex moods, using the full tonal array available to him as Taborn carves out ambient textures. That sets the table for Berne’s next pattern, an enigmatic figure that could have been a song on its own. In another compelling moment, Berne is applying bop chops in a percussive way that relates perfectly to Rainey. In another charted segment, the band gets funky and that provides the launching point for Ducret’s slashing guitar attack.

The best jazz is the music of discovery. With Science Friction +size there were two discoveries involved: the night of the performance when a quartet was discovering new possibilities with a trumpet player added and a second one when Tim Berne scraped a barely-marked, shiny plastic disc off the floor.

Science Friction +size can be had from Screwgun Records. Grab a download from here.


S. Victor Aaron