LIVE IN LONDON (WITH YUMI HARA CAWKWELL)

The third and final instalment of productions released by multinational project Humi, consisting of bassist Hugh Hopper and keyboardist/vocalist Yumi Hara Cawkwell, was a limited edition live DVD-R, presumably planned sold at a tour in Japan that never came to be due to Hopper's health failing him in 2008. It is now available through Yumi Hara Cawkwell's website.

It is a relatively brief affair, clocking in at 53 minutes, covering material issued on the studio album "Dune" and the live CD-R "Parallel Dune". As such one doesn't get to hear any additional material from this duo if purchasing one of the 99 copies that were made of this DVD. What you get is footage from two concerts, one from 2007 and one from 2008, the two sets rather different in quality.

The older footage suffers from poor video quality, with grainy picture quality, relatively poor resolution and low quality colour reproduction. Captured by a decent quality video recorder presumably, but without the bells and whistles that enables high quality footage from challenging surroundings. Some simple effects have been applied for variety, superimposed images and black and white effects most notably. Hopper and Cawkwell both gets a fair amount of standalone footage, and I would guess some will find the most interesting parts of the material the shots that focus on Hopper's instrument skills.

The footage from 2008 is better in general quality, and while sharpness is still somewhat of an issue visible grains in the images are non-existent and colour reproduction as well as sharpness is of a fairly decent quality. Some form of collage effects is used extensively, especially on the first of the two tracks from this concert, presumably due to several cameras being in action. Most of the shots taken from different angles are of relatively poor quality however, the main camera heaps and bounds better in quality.

Audio quality is of generally good quality from both concerts, and if it is due to the lower quality speakers in my TV-set or due to the images enhancing the audio experience, my experience with the audio footage was that it was sharper and less dampened in nature than on the live CD issued at the same time.

The music as such is better described by me and others elsewhere, for me that part of a live DVD is actually of lesser importance when describing it to others. I presume that any buyer of a live DVD will be familiar with the music on it already, but in the case of this being otherwise my brief summary of these excursions are that they are of a minimalistic nature, performed with an improvisational and avantgarde approach, residing somewhere within the jazz universe. Bass and piano or bass and vocals are the main ingredients, and the performances explore the dynamics between these in a minimalistic and often repetitive manner.

But it is the image and audio quality combined I emphasize on when summarizing towards a recommendation for this production, and my overall one is that this is a DVD for the specially interested. Existing fans of this duo who know and love their music have this as their sole opportunity to see them performing live, and as long as that is a matter of interest this DVD is the proverbial it. Some bassists may have an interest in seeing Hooper perform too I gather, but other than that I suspect most others will have a stronger interest in assessing Humi's CD's before contemplating purchasing this DVD.