Free improvisation is a global language. Even as the players come from different parts of the world, possibly with differing cultural perspectives, once they begin making music together the language is common and understood. While touring Asia, Dirk Wachtelaer took the opportunity to record with Kok Siew Wai and Yong Yandsen in Kuala Lumpur, capturing that meeting through a shared language. The exhilaration of encountering like-minded musicians and creating these unique moments of improvisation is clearly evident in this recording with a sensitivity between the players translating firmly into the music.

The cover art is by Jamalia Binti Abd Rahman. She works in acrylics and oils on canvas, using water and movement to blend the paints. This creates colourful landscapes with the visual texture of marble, much like aerial photography over a vast land.

Kok Siew Wai - voice
Dirk Wachtelaer - drums
Yong Yandsen - tenor saxophone

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Album review by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg

(Translated from orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2023/10/tony-oxley-kok-siew-wai-dirk-wachtelaer.html?m=1)

Recorded in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, this album bears witness to the growing internationalization of free improvised music to all antipodes. Encounters & Perspectives brings together a remarkable singer, Kok Siew Wai , a free saxophonist, Yong Yandsen and a Belgian percussionist, Dirk Wachtelaer . Dirk Wachtelaer has several recordings and collaborations to his credit documented by the FMR label, one of the largest catalogs of avant-garde, improvised, experimental jazz etc. I know a little about Yong Yandsen's work thanks to Future of Change, a CD in trio with Sabu Toyozumi and Rick Countryman for the Japanese label Chap Chap (CPCD017). The singer is inspired by the vocal tradition of South East Asia: she uses many techniques and secrets. It's simply fascinating. She transforms her voice into real chirps – bird whistles and seems to be a wonderful storyteller. We hear him in a duo for a few songs with drummer Dirk Wachtelaer in an ideal combination for several reasons. The first is that Dirk improvises on the drums and utensils of his drums by shifting the pulsations and strikes with a floating, unstructured and organic conception of “drumming” (free), light as can be, creating a beautiful balance with the voice of his colleague . The second reason is that her percussion is not tuned in a Western European twelve-tone scale, which from the singer's point of view gives her all the space and freedom to concentrate on her improvisation on her own terms. defined by the musical elements and paradigms of its Asian musical culture. Indeed, the note scales of the modes of this region of the world (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia) have completely different intervals, as well as the conception of sound emission, rhythms, tuning …. In Encounter 4 (in 5/), we hear her voice borrowing accents and blue notes close to blues and jazz because she is confronted with the saxophonist Yong Yandsen who plays a Western instrument. As I am an improvising vocalist myself, I listened to Kok Siew Wai 's interventions with great pleasure and interest. As for Yong Yandsen, his playing is not limited to “singing” free jazz. This artist has developed thoughtful work on the sound material and the possibilities of his instrument by his own means while being geographically very far from the European or American scene. Special fingerings, harmonics, breath effects, extrapolation of simultaneous techniques, etc... in a personal and quite original way with a good dose of energy and audacity which goes perfectly with the free drumming of Dirk Wachtelaer. The sixth and final piece brings together the three protagonists in a playful and successful improvisation. A great discovery and great perspectives.