See jpegs of articles on Walter & Sabrina in Wire magazine here, and Rock a Rolla here.

Philip Clark on Sabrina – Study for Three Demonic Dances in the Guardian Playlist of 5/5/15:

'Stephen Moore is the main lyrics man and Walter Cardew assembles the music, with input from Moore. But who is Sabrina? Not someone you’d like to hang out with, that’s for sure. Sabrina is a persona scooped out from the darkest recesses of Moore and Cardew’s brain – a dispossessed maniac who skulks around hipster London flaunting his itchy sexual desires, which are rarely satisfied, at least in company: “For I am A Leaker! And woe to those who drink not from my cup,” Sabrina yells. This lurid, psychologically frenzied music is paradoxically organised very diligently, Cardew imposing overall harmonic order on top of material generated variously through improvisation and cut-and-paste montage. And dark undertones of the blues put you in mind of New Orleans Vodou, as if Sabrina were the bastard offspring of Jelly Roll Morton and Lola.'

Rigobert Dittman on Study for Three Demonic Dances by Sabrina in Bad Alchemy 85 (Germany) April 2015

SABRINA Study For Three Demonic Dances (Danny Dark Records, DD1162): Dan Warburton hat einst in seiner spürbar irritierten Paris Transatlantic-Besprechung von Chioma SuperNormal - The Dark Album (2006) das, was das Odd Couple Walter & Sabrina einem da vor den Latz knallte, halbwegs begreiflich zu machen versucht mit "sort of Art Bears meets 1930s Paul Hindemith with strategic doses of The Residents and Trout Mask Replica thrown in for good measure." Wer würde sich danach nicht die Finger lecken? Es muss nur wahr sein. Walter ist immer noch Walter Cardew und Sabrina immer noch Stephen Moore, spitting out tough spiky lyrics with Cockney venom. Und ihre neueste Studie dämonischer Tanzstile ist immer noch so irritierend, wie alles, was bisher aus ihrer Hexerwerkstatt kam. Von einer Trennung keine Spur. Part One bringt wieder eine von Moores krassen Tiraden, zu denen Cardew an Gitarren & Posaune, Ray Wallen, einer von Londons urigsten Bluesern, an der Mundharmonika und Tas Danazoglou (von Satan's Wrath) an Bassgitarre einen nicht stubenreinen Blues improvisieren. Part Two wird von Cardew allein an Orgel, E-Gitarre & Percussion intoniert als kurzes instrumentales Intermezzo im Artrock-Stil der 1970er. Und Part Three entstand als Walter & Sabrina-Duett mit Vocals, Trommel, akustischer Gitarre und Sequencing, wurde aber überformt mit sowohl Midisequencing als auch danach komponierter Musik für ein Kammerseptett mit Harmonium, Flöten, Oboe, Klarinetten, Trompete, Violine und Viola. Wobei immer noch Moores atemlos abgesonderte pornokkult bußpredigende Rap & Rant-Poetry und sein theatralisch umeinander stampfendes Temperament dominieren. Sowohl für seinen Zungenschlag und seine Poesie, deren Gänsefüßchen eindeutig Bocksfüße sind, als auch für die musikalische Zubereitung, die Klänge mehrerer Jahrhunderte ­im elektroakustischen Mashup verwurstet, lässt sich kaum etwas Vergleich­bares finden. Weder 'postmodernes Oratorium' noch 'komisches Musiktheater' scheinen mir dafür treffend genug. I drop the underpants, reveal myself of human race / For I was uncircumcised, / Me purple prose shod in decent foreskin. / Armed with staff such as Noah float on... Als hätte Joyce das Wir sind primitive Söldner der modernen Welt. Wir stacheln einen Bürgerkrieg unter friedlichen Affen an des zweiten Blast-Manifests auf ein In-yer-face-Punch-and-Judy-Stück angewandt. Mit Sätzen, aus denen einem Beauty und Death, Fuckusuppashima und Godless mit Ho ho ho und dem Arsch voran ins Gesicht springen. Oh yes rage. Oh the Hate. / The humiliation. The horror as we move. Ihr seht schon, ich bin immer wieder leicht zu haben für solche Tänze. [BA 85 rbd]

Philip Clark on Chamber Music by Walter Cardew Group in Wire February 2013

Walter Cardew Group
Chamber Music
Danny Dark CD

With titles like Quartet 45/2, Duet 43/2 and Trio 54/1, this sequence of seven line drawing-like compositions by the London based composer and improviser Walter Cardew strikes an enigmatic pose. Each piece works with a specific combination of instrumental voices drawn from a pool of Helen Whitaker (flutes), Horace Cardew (clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone), Androniki Liokoura (piano), Mizuka Yamamoto (violin) and Walter Cardew (electric guitar). An intriguing air of music trying desperately hard not to be noticed prevails: think of Satie’s furniture music principles imbued with Stravinskian aloofness. Cardew’s melodic lines are exquisitely turned, with occasional unruly climaxes or deep-integrated improvisations momentarily stepping the music outside of itself.

Rigobert Dittman on Chamber Music by Walter Cardew Group in Bad Alchemy 75 (Germany) December 2012

WALTER CARDEW GROUP Chamber Music (Danny Dark Records, DD1153): Das hier ist eine andere Welt, eine ganz andere, als die von Walter & Sabrina, seinem Projekt mit Stephen Moore, in der bisher meine Bekanntschaft mit Walter Cardew bestand. Schon 'Country Concert after Giorgione', ein Gemälde von Stella Cardew, auf dem Cover ist ein Indiz, dass Walter zusammen mit seinem Bruder Horace, dem Leiter des East London Clarinet Choir, hier in eine pastoralere, eine weiblichere Klanglandschaft strebt. Es erklingen drei von Walter Cardew komponierte Duette, zwei Trios und ein Quartett für Klarinetten, Flöte (Helen Whitaker) und Piano (Androniki Liokoura) sowie abschließend ein Solo für seine E-Gitarre. Deren Klang ist zwar immer noch un-'klassisch', aber Cardew demonstriert mit jeder seiner Noten die Tauglichkeit des Instrumentes zu zarten und bedachten Abstraktionen. Wenig erinnert dabei an Classic Rock, kaum etwas an Electric Eden. Der Duktus erscheint mir neoklassisch abgeklärt,
friedvoll, auch wenn 'Quartet 45/2' mit energischen Gesten voran schreitet und Cardew die Macht seines Instrumentes aufscheinen lässt. Gezierter kommt das Duett mit der vogeligen Flöte daher, aber selbst da ist die Gitarre keine Mandoline und hält daher die Geister von Perückenträgern auf Distanz. Wenn sich anschließend eine Bassklarinette sonor einmischt, kann die Phantasie bis zu Milhaud & Co. zurück lustwandeln, aber sie bleibt doch im 20. Jhdt. Zum Date mit dem Piano erscheint die Gitarre tagträumerisch gestimmt, muss sich aber einige handfeste Takte anhören und sich einige gute Gegenargumente einfallen lassen. Das 'Duett in three parts 38' mit der Geigerin Mizuka Yamamoto wechselt von winterlichem Frösteln zu einem schnellen Trott in Pink Floydsche Gefilde, verlangsamt wieder, nun mit lebhaftem Gedankenaustausch, um im dritten Teil sich mit harmonischen Haltetönen aneinander zu schmiegen. Das 'Trio 54/1' mit Piano und Bassklarinette versöhnt kirchenliedhaftes
Pianospiel mit jazzig angehauchtem Klarinettengesang. Allein zeigt sich Walter Cardew zuletzt als behutsamer, etwas wehmütiger Rosenzüchter, dem ein altes Lied nicht aus dem Kopf geht. [BA 75 rbd]

Massimo Ricci on Chamber Music by Walter Cardew Group in Touching Extremes,
4th October 2012

'After the inordinate amounts of difficulties – in every meaning – introduced to largely unfertile audiences by Walter & Sabrina (the duo’s continuum effectively terminated in 2010) Walter Cardew comes back to action with a quartet comprising himself on electric guitar, Helen Whitaker on flute and alto flute, Horace Cardew on clarinet, bass clarinet and soprano sax, and Androniki Liokoura on piano. The unpretentiousness of the names – both of the group and this short record – belies the profoundness of the intelligent complexity defining Cardew’s newer music; its communicative pellucidity (in spite of a number of unannounced quirks) will make levelheaded listeners blissful.

An identifying attribute of this gathering of scores – three duets, two trios, a quartet and a solo guitar piece ending the program – is the sense of involved closeness transmitted by the performances. All the compositions are tightly executed and indubitably well-rehearsed, intelligible down to the tiniest details. The choice of positioning an electric guitar – tones ranging from bright clean to overdriven, amplifier’s hum included – amidst the acoustic scents of a chamber ensemble might have resulted in serious damage. But Cardew is a first-class player gifted with digital facility and rational connectedness that elevate the nuances of his instrument and the album’s overall resonance alike. My suspicion is that the large part of the material was composed with the hands on the axe, as several contrapuntal junctions seem to evolve directly from chordal clusters and fingered figurations that are typical of a specific way of approaching the six strings, with which this writer sympathizes entirely.

References? I could not exactly say, though names that vaguely came to mind were Fred Frith (the initial “Quartet 45/2”), Gavin Bryars (especially in the sections where melancholic luminance and semi-darkness fuse over the course of severe harmonic propagations) and even Nick Didkovsky’s Doctor Nerve (the angularity of certain lines, the abrupt surges in the distortion level characterizing, for instance, “Duet 23/2” – incidentally, the lone track in which I detected a modicum of improvisation by WC). In “Duet In Three Parts 38”, violinist Mizuka Yamamoto joins the leader in a series of oscillations halfway through ascetic composure and extreme strain, to a point of nearly intractable energy. Indeed, the balance between suspensive environments and fascinating evocations in cantabile dressing is practically perfect throughout the set; for this, one has to thank Whitaker, Horace Cardew and Liokoura warmly.
Beware: treat these mere suggestions as such, for this is not the sort of work that can be easily compared. Chamber Music opens a new stimulating phase in the career of a composer whose famous cognomen is the symbolic representation of the handing of an immaterial baton of creative thinking from a generation to another.'

Massimo Ricci on Two Tales in Touching Extremes, May 2010

'Just in case you weren’t attentive, Walter Cardew and Stephen “Sabrina” Moore parted ways last year. The email exchanges subsequent to the decision – apparently due to Cardew’s will – constitute an essential part of the libretto that comes with this edition, comprising the Two Tales CD and a book called Amalgam, Gotta Get A Shag. We are also introduced to the script to an unrealized short movie, Cor Blimey, You’ll Never Get Rid Of That. Add to this the thorniest music you’re likely to hear in half a decade and realize why the duo was first dignified, then abruptly thrown amidst the pariahs by the erstwhile “specialized” avant-garde press. As Cardew wrote in the accompanying letter, “there’s plenty here to get your teeth into, I hope”. Provided that one doesn’t break them, of course.

The poetry of human dissipation that has characterized the story of WandS is exalted at the maximum degree. The graphic description of sleazy sexual acts and the overall aura of grimy desperation surrounding the wretched lives of the persons involved in the “plots” is set in a typically perplexing literary style that lets the listener confused in between warped glimpses and nightmarish flashes, similarly to the by-products of the mind of a drunkard fallen asleep in front of a C-level hard-core flick. Everything is fragments, snippets, indistinct details, lewd memories, obliteration of eroticism, sanctification of the most absolute immorality. And yet we’re listening and reading assiduously while thinking what’s wrong with us, still interested in analyzing the reasons of a stimulus that, in its purest form, should cause a levitation towards the highest levels of communion and instead is very often the origin of trouble and, at worst, of psychic degeneration that occasionally leads to excessive gestures. Fascinating issues that Cardew and Moore are, as usual, unafraid to toss in our face without ointments.

The sonic substance is typified by a choice of conspicuous aspects, beginning with a severe fragmentariness. The obstinate permanence of the voices in the extreme registers of soprano (both female and male performers are utilized in that sense) defines the whole program. Some of them are processed with distortion, if in selected tiny parts; a complicatedness which is exhausting only to imagine during the realization process. One can envision poor Celia Lu’s strained vocal cords after many hours of session to execute what sounds like Schoenberg’s Sprechstimme squeezed with a sponge imbued with acid. The non-superficial ear realizes that solemn counterpoints are applied to these Pindaric flights through depravation. The arrangement of “Tale Two” is splendidly enriched by Chris Edwards’ oboe and Kati Lawrence’s bassoon – not to mention Androniki Lioukura’s exceptional performance on piano. Written pieces and improvisations are practically indistinguishable; when the engine gets going, radically remarkable stuff arises. A comparison to Crass – yes, the punk group – found on another write-up had me smiling in resignation. Do these individuals really listen to the records they’re sent? There are more intricacies in these scores than in the entire careers of certain geniuses. Have a taste of the absurdly jumbled “Untitled” – the album’s lone instrumental – to drown alone in cerebral disintegration.

A sheer summary cannot say that much, and it’s too late anyway. The couple is broken up, the final chapter of their life containing the kind of art that equals rare commodity these days. Music that gives the finger to the shallow-minded unfortunates who can’t read between the lines, that is excessively complex for the average critic to assimilate, and that causes people who didn’t understand it, but are afraid to appear dumb, to review it with discouraging superficiality. Heaven knows if Walter & Sabrina were truly aware that this couldn’t go far, artistically speaking, in today’s world. What I’m sure of is that their attempt won my utmost respect, besides causing the re-evaluation of all those horrific pseudo-erotic movies watched lots of years ago, forgotten masterpieces of supreme mediocrity that nevertheless possess the great merit of showing the reality of things. The type of ascension that starts from the slimy waters of filth. The holiness of squalor – now that’s a title.'

Daniel Spicer on Two Tales in The Wire, November 2009. Click here to view a pdf.

Rigobert Dittman on Two Tales in Bad Alchemy 64 (Germany) November 2009

'An outrageous Gesamtkunstwerk made from sound & fury, chants, images, role play and provocation, from supra-pop & after-classic, as you can expect it only from WALTER & SABRINA...' click here for a pdf of the German original.

Nicola Catalano on Two Tales in Blow Up (Italy), October 2009

'Walter & Sabrina
Two Tales * CD + book Danny Dark Records * 3t - 54:19
"Two Tales" ovvero il crepuscolo di Walter & Sabrina, l'episodio finale, epitaffio definitivo più che eredità per i posteri. Denso di amarezza e rimpianti, rabbia e ripensamenti, di cupezza a tratti lancinante, com'è scritto nel DNA della formazione. Cardew e Moore hanno portato alle estreme conseguenze, un limite invalicabile, la propria esperienza musicale e letteraria, un peso e una sofferenza impossibili da portare avanti, un punto oltre il quale c'era e c'è solo il suicidio (artistico, va da sé). Che puntuale arriva con un capitolo conclusivo degno della parabola esistenziale del progetto, una parola fine le cui motivazioni sono ampiamente illustrate, in forma di carteggio elettronico tra i due titolari, nel libretto del CD che pure contiene i dettagli sulle singole partiture e la trascrizione dello script originale per la mai ultimata pellicola "Cor Blimey, You'll Never Get Rid of That". Detto del volume allegato, centosessantaquattro pagine di farneticazioni a briglia sciolta romanzate dallo stesso Moore, rimangono le tre composizioni che, come atto liberatorio, chiudono definitivamente il sipario sulla storia di W&S e che sin dagli istanti iniziali ne mettono in chiaro le coordinate lirico-musicali. Esattamente le stesse dei dischi precedenti, magari con maggiore riflessività nella centrale Untitled, audace universo atonale al crocevia tra la musica contemporanea, le invettive free-punk dei Crass e il rock in opposition più sghembo. (7/8) Nicola Catalano'

Claudio Baroni on Two Tales at Musica Popolare, November 2009

'TWO TALES THE TWILIGHT OF WALTER AND SABRINA (Audio CD, Colour Booklet & Book - Danny Dark Records - 2009)
E' veramente impossibile (ancora di più in questa particolare occasione, ed in molte altre) catalogare (scriviamo così) il sotto genere musicale proposto da Walter Cardew and Stephen Moore. Teatro dei sogni morente, ma forse la verità sarebbe ancora molto lontana. Per orientarci meglio (e recepire il meglio) nella loro arte contorta (ma neanche tanto) sarebbe generoso ed opportuno definire la loro musica (per certi versi, da prendere con le pinze) un cerebrale free rock. Mondo strambo, mondo ribaltato dalla furente genialità di questi due caldi artisti. A me sembra che, con questo nuovo progetto discografico intitolato "Two Tales", i due musicisti vogliono riappropriarsi di un ben preciso (e definito) percorso sonoro. Un valido tappeto artistico costruito non solo di note, ma comprensivo anche di un netto stile di vita. Anima e corpo che si interrogano sui peccati del mondo, il bene ed il male contrapposti per l'ennesima volta. Uno stile di vita sperimentale (curioso e vivo) e molto vicino ai confini della cosidetta realtà umana. In definitiva "Two Tales" è opera cupa e solare allo stesso tempo, colpisce ai tendini del cuore e rapisce i sentimenti dell'anima.'

Mike Wood on Two Tales in music emissions, August 2009:
'Ever the dark archeologists, Walter & Sabrina mine territory covered by Byron and Burroughs, Genet and Galas, yet add their own historical piece to the long line of artists unafraid to taste the distasteful and find an odd glory in it. "Two Tales" might imply a finale to this project, begun several years ago by Walter Cardew and Stephen Moore. If so, they are going out in majestic, jaundiced style, and this time they deliver both haunting, deceptively romantic music and a novella sized book full of squalid and yearning characters for whom appetite is all.

As is their wont, they make their observations deceptively wistful by couching them in operatic, classical suites. Chamber music has never been so menacing, however. Female sopranos Celia Lu and Laura Pooley, together with male counterpart Peter Crawford and counter-tenor Gunnar Brandt-Sigurdsson, add a disquieting lilt to the transgressive lyrics, an almost childlike quality that not only seems to mock the sentiment of the words, but yet also revel in them. In that sense, "Walter & Sabrina Play Classical Tale One," is the most horrific of the three songs here.

"Untitled" quickens the pace a bit, and seems a relief. The rock band line-up, with the addition of tenor and alto sax and the sopranos, is comforting in its familiar structure, yet is likewise eerie and menacing. The Velvets ought to reunite again just to cover this.

"Walter & Sabrina Play Pop Tale Two," also  provides a familiar sonic foundation within which to stress that, even here, there is no real solid ground. Or, rather, as is made explicit in the included novella, the only solid ground is the self when it seeks what is wants. The rest is deprivation from that which is sought.'

Massimiliano Drommi at www.miuzik.it, February 2009

on Jung Ahh Fleisch:
'Nuovo lavoro (che segue “We Sing For The
Future”) per Walter & Sabrina, vale a dire il
multistrumentista Walter Cardew (figlio del
celebre compositore/improvvisatore Cornelius
Cardew) e l’artista Stephen Moore.

“Jung Ahh Fleisch” non è un album facile, e
per digerirlo occorre avere un buono stomaco.
Oltre un’ora di musica protesa- concettualmente
parlando – su un unico versante: non si registrano
grosse variazioni sonore, e il tutto sembra essere
assemblato per dare senso ad un’idea di ‘opera’
(con delle liriche ruotanti intorno alla sfera della
sessualità).

Ciò lo si percepisce specialmente ascoltando le
prime sei tracce (“Descending To Earth With
Mercury”, “Cradle To Grave”, “Big Tits” – Your
Age”, Maxy Boy”, “Thought She Was Special
Again”, “Kat’s Fitting In”), segnate da un austero
ed eccentrico approccio improv/avant/lirico non
esente da fascinazioni di musica classica
contemporanea.

A dare un volto diverso al disco ci pensano la
minacciosa/temibile “HP” e “ Is That Nice?”,
quest’ultima brutale, catastrofica e devastante
quanto può esserlo uno stupro.

Circa una ventina i musicisti (al sassofono, piano,
violoncello, violino, electronics, oboe, harpischord,
basso ecc.) che hanno contribuito alle registrazioni.

(Danny Dark Records)

(4/5)'

and Demons!:
'Non paghi della pubblicazione di “Jung Ahh Fleisch”,
Walter Cardew e Stephen Moore – in combutta con il
Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble – mettono fuori in un
batter d’occhio un altro lavoro, addiritttura doppio.

Rispetto a “Jung Ahh…” questa nuova raccolta
risulta essere più ‘molesta’ e malefica, pur sempre
adatta ai palati forti e a chi disprezza formati canzone,
melodie, arrangiamenti delicati e musiche rasserenanti.

Qui tutto è torvo, tagliente, scabroso, crudo e ‘pestilenziale’,
esasperato ed esasperante, ridotto ad un lumicino, dove i
testi dei pezzi spiazzano/ammorbano/inquietano e le
sonorità soffocano e feriscono, generando effetti
comatosi dopo essersi insinuate sottopelle
silenziosamente.

“Demons!” si regge su spoken words velenosi e intimidatori,
sorretti da strumenti – dal fluire improv - quali harmonim,
chitarra, harpiscord, basso, percussioni (viene utilizzata
anche la componente elettronica) che stravolgono,
irrompono, disturbano, scorticano, ustionano; ogni
tanto si percepisce qualche leggero lamento femminile,
a completare un quadro di per sé alquanto annichilente.
A ognuno i propri demoni.

(Danny Dark Records)

(4.5/5)'

Claudio Baroni on Demons! at Musica Popolare, January 2009

'Come un caos ambientale collocato in quel di Berlino (città ove è stato registrato "Demons!"), località affascinante che deve aver colpito (e parecchio) l'immaginario del duo Walter Cardew e Stephen Moore. "Demons!" è un'opera lunga e tremendamente intrigante (116 minuti spalmati su due compact disc), ove sogni ed allucinazioni sonore vengono proiettate su di un grande schermo. Tutto rigorosamente in bianco e nero, il non colore delle anime dell'inferno. Rintocchi genuflessi e botti improvvisi si materializzano nella lunga cavalcata di questo imponente lavoro. Con la benedizione cinematografica ed artistica di Luis Bunuel. Non dissimulare e non nasconderti semplicemente (sembrano oggettivamente urlare le note di "Demons!"), ma dipingi con -squallida naturalezza- il tuo piccolo quadro di bianche margherite. Piccole anime tonde e dal viso rosso per il troppo correre. Cerchi di note quadrate che si aspettano di trovare una loro ben precisa collocazione. Voci, percussioni, piano che paiono proprio impazziti. Ostacolano il pentagramma e non ne vogliono sapere di stare al loro posto. Per una volta molto meglio una ponderata anarchia.'

Claudio Baroni on Jung Ahh Fleisch at Musica Popolare, December 2008

'Camminare sopra il sacro fuoco della morte in arrivo. Comprendere, con dovizia di particolari, tutto quello che ogni singola persona deve per forza assimilare. Fare tesoro delle molteplici esperienze, anche le più strambe ed apparentemente inutili. Non bisogna sottovalutare nulla, ogni piccolo aspetto e retta via possono essere di prezioso aiuto per la comprensione del magico mistero. Solo allora, ma solo allora, si potrà (timidamente) tentare di fare luce nel microcosmo artistico e crepuscolare di Stephen Moore e Walter Cardew. Due personaggi che impastano la musica come meglio non si potrebbe fare. No rock please, but only free rock. Se non mi sono spiegato bene "Jung Ahh Fleisch" ammorbidirà le fredde notte invernali con note di violino e viola, sassofono e la voce del soprano Celia Lu. Tutto molto profano e spudoratamente pagano.'

Mike Wood on Demons! in Music Emissions, November 2008

'"Desire is exploitation," the label notes for this ambitious two disc set proclaims. The demons get in any way they can, through laws that repress or through indulgence that never seems like it will ever be enough. "Demons!" explores the dread that accompanies our facing our own capacity for evil, as individuals and as a culture. Once again, Stephen Moore and Walter Cardew use orchestral and cabaret motifs to propel their horrific tales of sin and revenge. And where better to probe the personal and political depths of sin and its wages than in Berlin? Hey, it worked for Lou Reed and David Bowie, and it works here. There are, sadly, more than enough examples of demons to explore in that city.

Soprano Celia Lu's ethereal vocals and the harpsichord work of Dietrich Eichmann stand out among the ensemble. Evoked are both the calm before the storms and then storms themselves; using Germany as a metaphor and as proof, the decadence of the early 1930's and the horrors of the 40s are of a piece. Allusions to a coming visceral appearance of evil in the present is represented by violent video games and porn. The dread, the gothic menace of the tracks, especially "Make It Sinister," "a vain committing (antiwar.com)"-which is a section of a longer piece titled "Spoilt Brat Sacrifice" and "Mouse Girl Stoned," dig for evil and the choices that lead to it in both the personal and political. They don't need to dig deep to find, but they do. This is a two disc set that is as moral as it is shocking, beautiful as it creepy. "Demons!" reminds us of choices, and of what results when those choices are made in fear.'

Nicola Catalano on Jung Ahh Fleisch & Demons! in Blow Up (Italy), November 2008

'FREE-ROCK
Walter & Sabrina
Jung Ahh Fleisch o CD Danny Dark Records o 8t - 67:47
Walter & Sabrina/Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble
Demons! o Danny Dark Records o 7t - 59:57 + 4t - 56:23
La lapidaria presentazione in esergo impone di sintetizzare in due parole il contenuto dei dischi che mensilmente andiamo a esaminare. Nel caso di Walter & Sabrina, la composita formazione messa in piedi da Walter Cardew e Stephen Moore, e dei due dischi più recenti pubblicati a ridosso l'uno dell'altro azzardiamo la dicitura free-rock, ma potremmo tranquillamente mutare il prefisso in art, avant o post (ma veramente post, nel senso che in questi lavori rimangono in risalto più che altro i tagli autoptici sulla carcassa putrescente di una creatura un tempo familiare). O, con ancora maggior semplicità - si fa per dire - adottare i più calzanti aggettivi espressionista e sofferente, come chiaramente veniva fuori nell'articolo che al numeroso organico dedicammo lo scorso anno giusto di questi tempi (BU #114) e dalla lettera aperta indirizzata a Keith Moliné e al sottoscritto che Moore si preoccupa di inserire nel libretto del primo dei due CD.
Ecco, i materiali ammassati caoticamente in "Jung Ahh Fleisch" e "Demons!" sono e rappresentano proprio tutto il male attraverso il quale bisogna passare per arrivare da qualche parte, non importa dove sia, la sofferenza necessaria come processo di crescita e di analisi di sé e del mondo, sempre che poi tale percorso - che si vorrebbe catartico - approdi a qualcosa. Per dirla tutta, a chi scrive pare che il nichilismo no future del punk degli inizi sia ben pallida cosa rispetto all'ossessione claustrofobica suggerita da musica, testi e immagini di Walter & Sabrina. Un suono greve e sgusciante, scorbutico come non mai, articolato a mezza via tra new music, improvvisazione e spoken word, dove i semi dell'eredità disconosciuta di certo Cardew padre marciscono anziché germogliare, contaminati come sono da una furia - in tutti i sensi - hardcore (a volte sembra di ascoltare un gruppo che somiglia ai Crass andati a male, inaciditi dagli anni). Né il fattivo intervento del Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble, relativamente ai due pezzi conclusivi del primo disco, in toto nel secondo, contribuisce ad alleviare o lenire negatività e sound design gestuale-orrorifico, una tortura - va da sé anche autoimposta - che si prolunga lungo le complessive tre ore d'ascolto: make it sinister, facciamolo sinistro, recita uno dei pezzi di "Demons!" e i nostri ci riescono perfettamente. (7/8) Nicola Catalano'

Massimo Ricci on Jung Ahh Fleisch and Demons! in Paris Transatlantic, November 2008 (click here and scroll down to go to their site)

'I set out to shed some light on Walter Cardew and Sabrina (Stephen) Moore, but I hereby declare myself trounced by the intricacy of their subplots. A solitary, apparently unconnected consideration, more literary than musical, grazes this listener's mind when attempting to hook up the different parts of the conundrum: the cryptic essays decorating every item churned out by multimedia artist and psychoacoustic sonic researcher Andrew McKenzie, better known as Hafler Trio. Unlike McKenzie's calculated circumventions of normalcy, Moore's merciless lyrics offer the audience a quest for the reasons for human helplessness, a lookout for hope of sorts. Still, when trying to focus the attention on the words' cultivated sleaze it's easy to get sidetracked by the exceptional quality of the instrumental material, since, unlike Hafler Trio, Walter & Sabrina dress words with something more than drones. Their output is expertly designed to disturb the disturbed and stymie those searching for the missing link between the music and their ignorance. Forget the sordid pictures adorning the sleeves of the duo's releases and the fact that all human beings must every once in a while come to terms with ungovernable impulses, especially sexual. Everything else causes perplexity, too: the duo's façade actually hides a chamber group; the porn elements coexist with some of the most notable playing of the last twenty years; and the lyrics are frequently submerged by the music, or slashed by ruthless, stabbing noise. What are we looking for, besides being aware that Jung Ahh Fleisch and Demons! are the second and third part of a trilogy that began with We Sing for the Future?
In Jung Ahh Fleisch's liners, there's a partial answer: "We are lonely, don't want to be; we need to give people clues, ways into our art." The only discernible clues are to be found in the extraordinary complexity of the music, scored for reeds, brass, strings (including guitar and double bass), piano and percussion, and including vocal parts for two counter-tenors (Peter Crawford and Samuel Penkett), a soprano (Celia Lu) and a contralto doubling on cello (Ayanna Witter-Johnson) plus Moore and Gunnar Brandt. Sections where the orchestration is confined to a three-semitone span suddenly open out into marvelously stern counterpoint, on a par with the sharpest offerings by Art Bears or Thinking Plague, yet the dissonant idiom makes this much harder to take. An urge for redemption underscores the entire CD, intellectualism partially forgotten in favour of a systematic rejection of whatever logical explanation one might try and find. "Kat's Fitting In", the strongest track, is a superbly designed if distressing patchwork, a blend of virtuosic theatre and unforgiving reality – picture a cross of early Art Zoyd and Motor Totemist Guild – that will upset any pitiable listener eager for a lazy Sunday morning. The record is tough as nails, the final tracks "HP" and "Is That Nice?" (both featuring the Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble - more about that later) dealing with not-so-secret relationships via devastating clangor and raving desperation.
Demons! is a longer project – 116 minutes on two CDs – and the words are mostly delivered this time by Moore himself, his often hysterical yet polished recitation a challenge for those hoping to discover new sources of post-Henry Cow methodological complication. Dietrich Eichmann – composer, musicologist, pedagogue and founder of the Oaksmus label, who has studied with Alexander Von Schlippenbach, Frederic Rzewski, Garrett List and Walter Zimmermann – would appear a most unlikely partner for W&S's tales of human failure, even though the members of his ensemble, Gunnar Brandt-Sigursson, Michael Griener, Alexander Frangenheim and Christian Weber, are no slouches themselves in highlighting this kind of obsessed response through sheer procedural brilliance. The soundtrack to Moore's performance includes autistic repetitiveness, expressive hostility, neurotic patterns, percussion whenever a hole becomes available and a pair of magnificent double basses rumbling in the crucial moments. Make no mistake, this is as uneasy listening as it comes, and Walter & Sabrina caution that the digital distortion disfiguring the voices and instruments "shouldn't be mistaken for faults". Funny, then, that during the first playback, a power shortage in my house caused the disc to fizzle in the player and grind to a halt with an error message. Fiendish stuff, indeed! Lovers of avant-garde theatricality, or those who still revisit the spoken segments of Zappa's 200 Motels, will have no problem with this, but greenhorns may find it tests their endurance.
So, we're back to square one. Distortion eats chunks of text in Demons!, and the instruments are often louder than the singers in Jung Ahh Fleisch's mix. Does this mean that the artists prefer us to be acquainted with just a fraction of the story? Are we supposed to pick up on the available clues and formulate a private narrative? Should we listen to the music watching a silent hardcore movie for enhanced comprehension? Is this just a big hoax? Words, I'm convinced, are a deception, incapable of bridging the millions of conflicting points-of-view of human existence. These two CDs, results of a collision between spiteful malice and craving for salvation, are in any case nourishing fare for the attentive listener.–MR'

David Keenan on Jung Ahh Fleisch and Demons! in The Wire, November 2008. Click here to view a pdf.

Rigobert Dittman on Jung Ahh Fleisch and Demons! in Bad Alchemy 60 - click here for a pdf of the German original. Here are a couple of excerpts roughly translated into English:

"If a screw drive can lead from New to Weird, and the next from Weird to Bizarro, WALTER & SABRINA'S Musica Nova has reached this 'Turning of the Screw'. But the future Walter Cardew and Stephen Moore sang about in We Sing For The Future is just one of the heads cut off at every strike of the hour, and which every hour grow again on the dragon we call history, to hiss the blazing breath of Now. [...]"

"[...] ad-hoc illustration, accentuated with chopper and chain saw. In a dialect which would make any bowler hat cringe, Moore evokes apocalyptically chilling fnords. [...] The musical conditioning is a raving, coarse-meshly hammered, or sawn, plinkplonking with gross peaks like the furiously hammered Shell Shock or ubuesque gargle and groaning from Brandt and Lu in a theatre of cruelty, 'Disgusting and perverted'. Visions of Blake and Alan Moore's From Hell, smeared in paint by Bacon. A music leastwise bizarre as bastardized Burroughs or gogolized Nabokov, as a Chymical Wedding of hellish bang and clairvoyant delusion."

Norman Records on Jung Ahh Fleisch (September 2008):

"(This record left our Ant feeling happy.)
Walter & Sabrina albums are never an easy ride. 'Jung Ahh Fleisch' is no exception. The sleeve as usual has blurred and distorted pics of women showing lots of flesh. The music is demented avant garde bobbins which like most good art you'll either think is genius or total nonsense. The vocals go from operatic, theatrical to posessed to schizoid ramblings and jibberish. The music is all over the shop too... I'm truly lost for words!"

Mike Wood on Jung Ahh Fleisch in prefixmag.com, September 2008

"Call this Choral Manouevers in the Dark. Walter & Sabrina echo the classical and the avant-garde with their Weimar decadence-meets-Mothers of Invention sonic explorations. Jarring and hypnotic, mythical and gutter gritty, Jung Ahh Fleisch is a challenging work that dwells on the awkward and perverse, placing Walter & Sabrina in a context where operatic vocals drive the narrative. The odd time singatures of brass, strings and white noise add to the disorientationof songs that on the surface are disjointed but beautiful arias but lyrically are explorations of vulnerable and terrible sexual confusion. The dark charm of this record is deeply unsettling.

On the follow-up to last year's We Sing for the Future, Steven Moore and Walter Cardew create little jarring morality plays with centuries of musical ideas at their disposal. Here, they are joined by the Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble, a slew of woodwind and string players and, most effectively, Celia Lu , a soprano who serves as the tour guide through most of the record, with able backing by tenors Peter Crawford and Samuel Penkett.

The beauty and emotinal depth of the performances might lead us to remain at that surface level, but the real meat is in the menacing and fragile lyrics. 'Descending to Earth With Mercury,' 'Big Tits-Young Age' and 'Thought She Was Special Again' reveal a terrible narrative of hope and failure through sex, and stunning random lines are found on all eight tracks: 'Have we then, from god to man/ Human sunrise to crinkled, stupid talking, lorry drivers slut' and 'The dress suggests a lovely/ Awful lots more' and 'But all things within limits/ Adjusted, will regulate the vey animation of life' and 'It fucked her/ Though hadn't not even tried force/ Though she ran don't touch me, don't touch me.'

The final track is the most noisy and chaotic. 'Is That Nice?' implies that the experiences, damage and wisdom gained from these sexual psalms will always be elusive, in flux. Jung Ahh Fleisch is Walter & Sabrina’s daring ode to appetite and to the epic moral choices often implicit in each randy thought. In that sense, it too is a moral and not exploitive peek at the horrors that can lie behind the most common pleaures."

Eric Lanzilotta on "We Sing For The Future", Bixobal, January 2008.

"...Instead of taking this backwards into the avant-garde classical idiom that Cornelius moved away from, Walter takes this into the present world of experimental music. An experimental music that is not the typical, as it really goes into territories that some people might find difficult because of its mixture of pretty vocals, from the duo of Celia Lu and Mette Bille, on the chorus with orchestration which is decidedly unusual in its arrangement of the elements. It seems to me that I may have heard some things by Jim Stanley and Eric Belgum in the past that might be in a similar realm, but overall this seems to chart its own territory..."
 

Mike Wood on "We Sing For The Future", Foxy Digitalis, December 2007.

"Like a chorus of eunuchs standing over you on your deathbed sending you off to hell with jews harp and squalid tunes from children’s plays—or like outtakes from a Diamanda Galas Mass, in which the choir tries to have fun with the libretto to keep from killing themselves-- Walter & Sabrina makes us fear them and fear for ourselves on “We Sing For the Future.” The title track is a cover of the Cornelius Cardew piece (CC being Walter’s father and huge influence) which sets the stage for a whimsically somber meditation on the horror of war and the seeming carefree ignoring of war until the horror is too huge to ignore. “Sad Days/Bad Days,” “What Have We Done” and “Our Sometimes Fathers” round out this short but emotionally disorienting set, with the occasional guitar, sax, cello and piano joining that haunting chorus in its relentless search for form in the midst of chaos.

Walter and Sabrina are not ones to shy away from the horrific, but they do so more to hold up a mirror than to wallow in the excess. This a moral work that doesn’t preach, nor care to. “We Sing For the Future” is a record to ponder, run from, then ponder some more. They are merely worried about and pissed off by these ugly times, and are fearless in their facing that ugliness. The hope they offer is that one at least become aware of the mess we’re in; reaching out or in is up to the listener. 9/10"
 

Rigobert Dittman on "We Sing For The Future", Bad Alchemy 56, December 2007. This article was written in an idiosyncratic style of German difficult to render in English. Click on the link to the right to see the original.

"The hymn We Sing For The Future (Danny Dark Records, DD1120, mCD + video), recorded by Frederic Rzewski together with Thälmann Variations for New Albion, is a typical later work of the committed Cornelius Cardew (1935-81). He himself had explained the piece, that was as much a rejection of the avant-garde as to the No-Future-defeatism of punk:
'The song is for youth, who face bleak prospects in a world dominated by imperialism, and whose aspirations can only be realised through the victory of revolution and socialism. In the framework of a solo piano piece lasting about 12 minutes, something of this great struggle is conveyed. The music is not programmatic, but relies on the fact that music has meaning and can be understood quite straightforwardly as part of the fabric of what is going on in the world.'
About that, what happens in the world, Cardew's diagnosis- 'unlimited decadence and parasitism... all-sided crisis with economic at the base... spiritual and cultural devastation...' ­ stayed actual. The remedies/cure ­ 'proletarian struggle... the brilliant future of communism' - WALTER & SABRINA, (who are Stephen Moore & Cardew's son Walter), nethertheless are trying consitently to continue Cardew´s difficult heritage, consistent, that means different.
To begin with Walter & Sabrina Play Pop; Walter & Sabrina Play Classical (1994) and Sadness & Life (as Sabrina 1996) and with a second approach (on Chioma Sings Tales of Danny Dark (2003) as Danny Dark Group together with Horace Cardew, W & S intensified (sharpened) the frequency of the attack with Chioma SuperNormal - The Dark Album, their 3-CD-Opus maximus from 2006 (Dan Warburton's exhaustive characterization: Art Bears-meets-Zappa-meets-Penguin Cafe Orchestra-meets-Eisler-meets-Residents-meets Alternative TV post-prog post-punk cantata oratorio rock opera), and with Rock ‘n‘ Roll Darkness (2007). Keith Moliné was in The Wire (July 2007) so impressed of von W & S collision pathos (???), that he drew a comparison to Scott Walkers The Drift and he certified Cardew & Moore 'as proscriptive as...Cardew‘s father...in his final Maoist phase.' Only that W & S visit consequently the “popular” in aesthetic shadow zones(??). Cyber-decadence that is illustrated with trashy pornography, with bizarre Musica Supernova, manneristic quasi-kind of rock, arranged for a small ensemble. With vocoder-singing (?) of the multi-instrumentalist & samplingartist Cardew himself, the Lolita-soprano of Celia Lu and the alto of the danish softjazzsinger Mette Bille. Finally the “art songs” sound so naturally like the should, like they should sound in my wildest dreams.
Brittens Our Hunting Fathers crossbred in a radical Update with Trout Mask Replica, Kew Rhone or News From Babel. Only like that as a rough course/direction and wild association. The catchy tune coverversion of Cardew sen., that illstrate the wobbly picture video with tears, the faces of Celia and Mette during the session and the mouth of a abominable snowman, who sings the descant strophes, W & S put their songs Sad Days Bad Days and What Have We Done by the side. With lines like: 'These are sad days Baby Optimus / Long cold empty days, lean, defiant, surly days' or 'Under mask bacchanal / Vices, defects, blemishes / Maliciously noted / The laughing moralist: What have we done? / We got drunk, went on a real bender / Now it’s time to sober up.' Who wouldn´t be reminded of the fall of the Western Empire? With Dagmar-Krause-Sound, that is in for it now. The motherless Cardewsons were nursed with spurge and Art-Bears-milk. Finally Stephen Moore recites, only accentuated by Bells, Our Sometime Fathers. Fathers and sons.
What‘s the point of trouble? ...the bright side, explored, Found empty... a claim to some future, unknown...

Has everything to become different, to change something? The famous dead father as a pricke/thorn for psycho-archaeology and the liability to nekro-realism to be put aside. It´s a exciting forming (formgiving), that impresses/captivates.

Moliné is right, music, so brave and ambitious is looking for equals."

Massimo Ricci on "We Sing For The Future", Touching Extremes, December 2007:

"Difficult not to remain perplexed at first, fascinated at last by the artistic vision of Walter Cardew and Sabrina (Stephen) Moore, a duo who’s getting a growing exposure in recent years and, based on this 25-minute disc which constitutes this writer’s personal premiere of their work, deservedly so. Walter & Sabrina’s artwork includes old pictures of themselves as kids, modern abstraction and porn imagery, the latter a sort of trademark as far as I could see. The lyrics are beautiful, provided that you don’t ask me about significance: I will always refuse to comment on someone else’s words (too complicated to explain my view here). But what really counts in the final judgement is the quality of the music, which in this release is symbolized by a congruous diversity of scope and the intense focusing on determinate issues of composition that might even be defined staggering, both for sheer number of complexities and the ironic twist that quite often Cardew and Moore apply to the material, splendidly rendered by a “small chamber ensemble” orchestration featuring male and female vocals (at times filtered). The title track, of which the enhanced CD contains a QuickTime video version, is an obvious homage to Cornelius Cardew (Walter’s father), a well-known hymn that gets dismembered and reinterpreted with intelligence to spare, voices and instruments a unique amalgamation of deformation and purity. The subsequent “songs” are an uncontaminated heritage of RIO and “elaborate” progressive (think Henry Cow, Art Bears, Motor Totemist Guild, Lindsay Cooper’s solo production just to assemble a very vague conception) yet there are sections, most notably in “What have we done”, where a Michael Nyman-meets-Slapp Happy feeling appears from nowhere to project the playing towards an unconscious look-ma-no-hands vibe. The record is ended by a brief declamatory piece, Moore’s voice over Cardew’s bells, which only augments an already high degree of rational bewilderment. Substance prevails everywhere."

Nicola Catalano on Walter & Sabrina and "We Sing For The Future", Blow Up magazine, December 2007 (translated from the Italian. NB some passages have been translated from Engish to Italian and back to English again):

“Our songs are songs of proletariat fight, revolution and sacrifice. Come and sing for the future, the victory of the revolution is on the horizon.” [from “We sing for the Future”]

The surname is an important one, even though is hidden under a phantom duo, whose name evokes the inoffensive rock’n’roll of some couples like Jan & Dean, John & Jackie, Bruce & Terry and similar ones...

However, it’s a completely different story and, since Sabrina is just imaginary, Walter Cardew is the only member of the duo. As we said before, he has an important surname, as his father, like Horace’s father too, is Cornelius Cardew, who is considered one of the most significant contemporary composers by many people. read on...

Keith Moliné on "Chioma SuperNormal. The Dark Album" & "Rock 'n' Roll Darkness" in Wire magazine, July 2007:

"You'd be hard pushed to find a more formidable body of work than that of Stephen Moore and Walter Cardew. Its musical intricacy, thematic complexity and shady subject matter feel like nothing less than a confrontation, a challenge aimed at the pathetic, puny listener to see if they can deal with such concentrated intensity. The texts and accompanying visual materials, including some particularly dubious QuickTime movies, are full of sociopolitical abjection and riddled with sexual imagery of cloying, misahthropic degradation. The printed lyrics make Céline read like PG Wodehouse.

A three hour descent into hell, Chioma SuperNormal is a massive undertaking, not least for the listener.The byzantine structure centres around an 'album within an album', in which various narrative characters re-enact their fall from grace. The music is closely composed but performed with earthy, messy gusto, resembling Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler performed by John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett. Rock 'n' Roll Darkness is more instrumentally assured, distilling some of Cardew's excellent ensemble chamber writing, which also features on parts of Chioma SuperNormal, into just-about viable song structures that recall Tim Hodgkinson's longform experiments with Henry Cow. Moore's spoken lyrics, delivered in a mockney sneer that adds yet another level of alienation, are perhaps even more harrowing than those on Chioma - and that's no mean feat.

Ultimately, Cardew and Moore have pursued their singular vision to such an extent, and in the face of such incomprehension, that they seem to have lost any interest in connecting with an audience. The shock-horror transgressions of power electronics at least pack a visceral punch, and Scott Walker's The Drift offers its constituent parts for the listener to try and piece together. Walter & Sabrina, however, have slammed the doors and boarded up the windows, operating by principles every bit as proscriptive as those of Cardew's father, composer Cornelius Cardew, in his final Maoist phase. Nevertheless, Cardew and Moore's originality deserves praise; certain passages of this work represent some of the bravest and most ambitious music around at the moment."

John S on "Rock 'n' Roll Darkness" in Rock-A-Rolla magazine, May/June 2007:

"Hot on the heels of the recent triple CD Chioma SuperNormal, the hardest working man of the moment Walter Cardew (son of avant-garde composer Cornelius) offers another set, a three-song and one movie piece entitled Rock 'n' Roll Darkness. And much like his previous output this is just about the strangest piece of music you are likely to hear. Stripped down and with severely avant-garde tendencies, the pieces - part spoken word, part singalong and mostly built around flutes, clarinets and the like - have few points of comparison, all delivered with a dark sexual imagery on the cover art and the accompanying film that makes matters even more confusing. Nudity, spoken word, nipple rings - ultimately, any discussion as to what exactly is going on here are fruitless, and maybe that's the whole point."

Dan Warburton on "Rock 'n' Roll Darkness", Paris Transatlantic May 2007:

"Just when I was finally getting over the impact of the monumental triple CD Chioma Supernormal reviewed in these pages a couple of months ago, here comes another helping of Walter Cardew and Stephen Moore's idiosyncratic Art Bears-meets-Zappa-meets-Penguin Cafe Orchestra-meets-Eisler-meets-Residents-meets Alternative TV post-prog post-punk cantata oratorio rock opera. If you took the plunge and forked out for a copy of Chioma, you won't be all that surprised by Rock'n' Roll Darkness, nor its cover art with the strategically defaced soft porn imagery, but newcomers to the world of Walter & Sabrina expecting some kind of dirty Stooges apocalypse could be disappointed. Moore's lyrics might be full of whores, piss, sweat and semen but there are no whammy bars or fuzz pedals in sight in the band ­ instead there's glockenspiel, trombone, violin, and that most un-rock'n'roll instrument, the oboe, and not much groove either in Cardew's odd, polyrhythmic universe. An acquired taste, perhaps, but the music of Walter & Sabrina, despite its obvious stylistic precursors (see above) sounds like little else in today's new music. If you find the album cover umm titillating, you might also be interested to know there's a bit more full frontal nudity on offer in the Quicktime movie the disc also contains to accompany its title track, but this odd homemade DV (shades of the new and ever so disappointing David Lynch offering, and Moore and Cardew's chicks don't even get to sing "The Locomotion") doesn't add much; the music works perfectly well without it."

Nicola Catalano on "Chioma SuperNormal. The Dark Album" and "Rock 'n' Roll Darkness", Blow Up magazine, May 2007 (translated from the Italian):

"Let's make things clear. First of all Walter & Sabrina is not a duo and Sabrina does not exist. Walter does and his last name is Cardew. He is the son of Cornelius, a peculiar cultivated composer, who died an untimely death in 1981, who at some point quitted a bright career and the golden and elitist milieu of the avantgarde to devote himself to folk and protest music and especially to a Marxist-Leninist militancy which even led him to jail (see the recent album Consciously edited by Laurie Baker for Musicnow featuring recordings of post-Scratch Orchestra ensembles: People's Liberation Music, Fight Back Band, Progressive Cultural Association). It is hard to make this connection while looking at the aggressive Hell’s Angel look, including tattoos and military boots, and the obsessive interest for extreme-explicit sex. And the music? It is certainly dark, as the titles of the two albums released within a short time suggest. The first is no less than a monumental triple album with 45 tracks and almost 3 hours of music, of crabbed art-rock (or avant-rock if you prefer) as we haven’t heard since the golden age of rock in opposition (Henry Cow and Art Bears remain the best comparisons). A sinister, awkward and almost cruel beauty emanates from the overflowing trajectories offered by Cardew and friends (above all Stephen Moore, the co-author, as well as a large ensemble playing strings, brass, harpsichord, jew’s harp, vocals, etc.): askew expressionist cabaret atmospheres, music which is difficult to handle and sometimes hard to digest, so that occasionally, with symptoms of migraine appearing, we surprisingly find ourselves wishing the musicians an acute form of arthritis, and maybe even a laryngitis. The other, much shorter album, is not very different (featuring Walter’s brother, Horace, playing clarinets and saxophones in the first track): unstable, elusive, ‘hold-less’ music, with the addition of a 15-minute video which is as dark and grim as the musical contents and is full of female nudity, of expropriated and desperate bodies which are far from being erotic. Grades: 7 to both."

Scott McKeating on "Chioma SuperNormal. The Dark Album", Rock-A-Rolla magazine, March/April 2007:

"Triple albums are hard enough to get through without the listener being dragged through the unpleasant underbelly of pity and degradation along the way. The Dark Album is well named; this is like witnessing the unpeeling layers of a city's sexual dysfunction, rage and misanthropy at close quarters. These songs don't even attempt to consider a catharsis through the other side of the protagonist's self-censure; the anger just becomes a solemn, ugly internal thing as it progresses through the forty-five tracks here. Snapping between biting sharpness and awkwardly flowing rants, these cheerless vignettes of modern life are backed by live jazz styled instrumentation. This group backing intermittently reveals a melodic discolouration, taking left turns into Waits and Magazine-type pop devolution. This post-punk-violent-jazz subterranean opus is a genuinely grimy experience wrapped in damaged pop and faux theatrics. Rather than follow The Tiger Lillies route of comedic punk opera with a wink, these monologues of cockney malice and layered choruses stack up into a heavy listen. Unfortunately though, that's about all this Walter Cardew (son of Cornelius, the noted avant garde composer) led collective has to offer. No pot of gold, glint of redemption of elbow-in-the-ribs stirring diversions, just a selection of gnarled and rutted lyrical slides down into a sewage outlet. Maybe this excessive trawl is just another part of the artist's theory on existence - in real life things can get bleak, and then they can get persistently bleak."

Tom Sekowski on "Chioma SuperNormal. The Dark Album", Gaz-Eta February 2007:

"The 3 CD set that comprises "The Dark Album" is one of the more messed up and chaotic affairs you're bound to hear this year. Composed and arranged by Walter Cardew [Cornelius' son] Stephen Moore and played by Walter & Sabrina Group, this package contains some of the darkest stuff I've heard in a long while. Considerably Artful, these guys go on to spend nearly three hours ranting and raving about decay, death and the human remains. I'm not sure how one is supposed to approach their music. With a grain of salt or is this really sombre stuff? How sombre, you ask? Take "Things Fall Apart Live" for instance:

"Once, I schemed.
My fingers damp, around, behind, inside her knickers.
Why? Drawn together in lust
We find something missing
That fills our souls.
Together, alone,
I cup your breasts.
We fill our mouths
It's hopeless, pointless
We move to death."

This has got to be possibly the saddest description of love gone pointless I've ever heard. Examples such as this one are endless. It's all about depravity, human cravings, emptiness and utter despair. Delivered in an almost operatic fashion, the vocals sound like they're a latter-day Dagmar Krause, while the music is part rock, part opera and all high art. Best thing is, these guys sound like a fully coherent band. Real instrumentation, choruses and everything is rehearsed and properly presented. My only concern is much of this stuff is too dry to withstand repeated servings of this sort of gruelling exercise. Without a doubt, one of the most demanding releases I've heard in a long time. Recommended to those with masochistic tendencies."

Dan Warburton on "Chioma SuperNormal. The Dark Album", Paris Transatlantic January 2007:

'The 45 tracks on this extraordinarily (ridiculously?) ambitious triple album are performed by the Walter & Sabrina Group, a six-piece band featuring Walter Cardew (voice, various instruments), Matthew Dungey (voice, keyboards, oboe), Mette Bille (mezzo soprano), Nima Gousheh (voice, guitar, santur, Persian translation), Dave Baby (Jew's harp, swanee whistle, kazoo, clap) and Celia Lu (soprano and Mandarin translation), augmented where necessary by members of a 14-strong instrumental ensemble. Walter & Sabrina Group was the brainchild of Cardew and Stephen Moore (who writes most of the extraordinary lyrics) and was formed back in the early 90s when Cardew was studying for a Master of Music degree at Goldsmiths College. The members of the group, with the exception of Dave Baby, were Cardew's fellow students.

Just in case you were wondering, Walter is the son of the late Cornelius Cardew, but "any influence he had on me has taken unexpected forms," he explains. "I played with him in the Progressive Cultural Association band in the year before he died. And although I came to realise that the politics of that movement were abhorrent I think it is from that music that I derived the strongest influence. It always surprises me now how similar Walter & Sabrina lyrics are in style to those political songs (although I don't actually write our lyrics ­ Stephen does)." Cardew came to music "through jazz and pop rather than classical music (which came later), playing various instruments but mainly drums. Cornelius of course encouraged our musical involvement and would sit at a table on a visit and make a more or less instant transcription of our latest favourite jazz tune, and arrange it for sax (played by my brother Horace) and trombone (me), with transposed parts. We used to spend holidays in Cornwall with my grandfather, uncle and cousins, and musical evenings there would range from arrangements of Frescobaldi to Louis Armstrong via 'Colonel Bogey'." Though his first "big loves" were jazz drummers ­ "Buddy Rich and Elvin Jones ­ Cornelius used to take us to see them close up at Ronnie Scott's (I looked older than I was)" Cardew eventually developed an interest in rock and soul. In the late 80s he played for a while with The Pasadenas, but left the group to study composition at Goldsmiths, where he started working with Moore on "some very rough and ready recordings, often using home-made instruments. This eventually became Walter & Sabrina and we produced our first album in 1995. Stephen came from an arty/rocky background and turned me on to tons of stuff from Howlin' Wolf to Throbbing Gristle."

By way of putting the Cornelius connection to one side so we can concentrate on the album at hand, it's worth quoting briefly from the huge, sprawling essay cum prose poem cum autobiography cum manifesto that accompanies The Dark Album's 173 minutes of "hymns of hate [..] bedded in songs designed for others to sing": "Forever overshadowed by pseudo famous Father, who died, run down on snowy hump outside Leyton station, before became even less respectable and successful. A grimy supermarket carrier bag knocked from his hands, skid on ice into the gutter."

Cheery stuff, eh? And the opening "Archaeology Part 1" sets the scene nicely: "And it's all dead all dead ­ everything you see / Everything you hear and eat / Everything you touch just seems to rust / Useless useless, everything useless, never a thing / that you can smell / That doesn't reek of death.." And so on. But behind the verbose Oedipus Schmoedipus noir rhetoric of both text and lyrics, all pain, porn and self-doubt projected out into poisonous guilt trips, this is an oddly attractive if often user-unfriendly collection of "heightened, expressionistic folk" songs. Several of them ­ "Archaeology", "Mr Pain", "Self Harm" and "Susan Cure" ­ come in pairs, with one version featuring the text intoned over the instrumental ensemble by Cardew, spitting out Moore's tough spiky lyrics with Cockney venom (Alternative TV's Mark Perry inevitably comes to mind, and a passing reference to "Sniffing Glue" ­ Perry's legendary punk fanzine, though that was spelt "Sniffin'" ­ would seem to indicate they're aware of the reference), and the alternative take setting the words to elaborate angular melodic lines. If this album had come out a quarter of a century ago it would probably have been released on Chris Cutler's Recommended Records ­ it's sort of Art Bears meets 1930s Paul Hindemith with strategic doses of The Residents and Trout Mask Replica thrown in for good measure. Drop the needle (as it were) just about anywhere and you'd be hard pressed to find any of the trappings of 21st Century New Music ­ there's no laptop drizzle, no sleek post-techno glitch, no dreary New Weird folk noodling, no stoner metal. Or any kind of metal. God knows how a track from it ended up on a Wire Tapper compilation. Instead there's a strange, colourful array of acoustic instruments, mostly traditional / classical, in a set of arrangements that wouldn't sound all that out of place on an early Mothers of Invention album. Primitive ­ but effective ­ electronics sit side by side with carefully scored charts, gnarly Zoot Horn Rollo guitar and odd twangs of harpsichords and Jew's Harp. And Cardew's tortured declamations, whose matter-of-fact narration contrasts brutally with the sadomasochistic viciousness of the texts. He reads "I watched someone being brutalised" as if he was discussing the football results in the taproom of a pub on the Isle of Dogs.

For all its charms (sorry, even if I'm not supposed to enjoy it ­ "it is SuperNormal, relentlessly, boringly, tragically, pretentiously dull" ­ but I do!), the ear begins to tire by disc three of the set, which is a shame as there are some scorching live versions of songs heard earlier. One wonders whether two discs might have sufficed. But then again, the full power of Moore's bleak vision - forget Neil Hannon, this is the Divine Comedy - is perhaps best appreciated if you grasp the nettle and OD on the whole package.'

Louis Pattison on "Chioma SuperNormal. The Dark Album" in Plan B magazine, December 2006:

"Walter Cardew (son of Cornelius) helms a six-part goth-industrial orchestra built from wet horns and shrill, detuned strings. Songs creak and squelch like pandrogynous curves in old leather; sensuality is the aim, but this love affair is made of gastric kisses and punctured flesh."

Normanrecords.com

on We Sing For The Future, October 2007

Walter & Sabrina: 'We Sing For The Future' (Danny Dark). Some Marxist-Leninist pop across four tracks with a quick time movie of the title track. On first listen it sounds like a wonky foreign choir singing weirdly translated carols over pompous sounding orchestration. Dig a little deeper and you'll realise the agit-prop aesthetic in the lyrics and the so-called avant-garde music as written by Cornelius Cardew and arranged by Walter Cardew and Stephen Moore. It's like the music you hear in experimental film/theatre, just not sure which or whose future they're singing for. It'd be album of the week if I had my say. Who the fook are Stock Aitken and Waterman?

on Rock 'n' Roll Darkness, March 2007:

"Here she is again. WALTER & SABRINA with their cover star, bare chested and parading her pierced nipples off. If they think they can irk some lesbian tendencies in me they got to be joking but why a short pink nurses outfit as well???. Anyway to the music. Well this is their umpteenth thing I've reviewed from them and today we catch them in almost a musical mood. First 2 tracks are chuffing too weird and disturbing with references to smelling spunk. However I'm on Track 3 and it happens to be my favourite thing they've done as they almost get a rhythm and tune together. They've got some lovely ingredients with flutes and clarinets and all sorts of percussion going on. The variety and mix of genres is wild to be highly praised and whilst the male voice is so bad its not bad; as a musical moment its worth a bite."

on Danny Dark Records, November 2006:

"This week we've got the back catalogue from Danny Dark Records and there's some strange fruits here. I'm reviewing the triple CD by WALTER AND SABRINA entitled 'Chioma SuperNormal - The Dark Album'. Its a weird and wonderful mix of spoken word,strange eerie sounds, avant rock and modern composition. It's such an eclectic mixture of theatrical ramblings and verse that it turns into a strange aural journey with each disparate section weaving into the next. Its getting a 'pretentious' suggestion from elements of the office and the band do admit its 'open to ridicule' but let's keep our judgmental hats in the drawer and appreciate this for all its innovation and bravery. They describe it as 'A performance inside a theatrical room that is inside the bigger locked building that is Supernormal'. So there. Also worthy of note is the fantabulous WALTER AND SABRINA PLAY POP WALTER AND SABRINA PLAY CLASSICAL which is them being more mainstream ????) kind of. Also we have a label taster called DANNY DARK RECORDS TASTER (contains audio and video). 'Sadness and Life' By SABRINA and 'Chioma Sings Tales of Danny Dark' by DANNY DARK GROUP. Listen to the whole lot back to back and you'll end up chewing your own ear off. Nutty"

Keith Moliné on "Chioma Sings Tales of Danny Dark" in Wire magazine, January 2006:

"A vibrant mixture of avant-rock, modern composition, jazz and experimental electronica, this mysterious album has been circulating for a while now and deserves to be heard.Put together by Walter and Horace Cardew (sons of Cornelius), and featuring the instrumental input of various ex-Loose Tubes and Billy Jenkins alumni, it interleaves electronic textures, treated vocals and thorny, angular composition that is strongly remininiscent of Art Bears around the time of Hopes And Fears.The album also includes material created in workshops for young people, and fantastically morose lyrics by Moore, transmitted through the heavily treated voice of Laura Pooley, who sounds like a ringer for Dagmar Krause in places. The fact that it's clearly taken a superhuman act of will to bolt all this disparate material together is what gives the album its strange, edgy charm. Walter Cardew's abrasive sheets of guitar and brother Horace's dry, insinuating tenor sax are the dominant voices on this powerful album."

Louise Gray on "Walter & Sabrina Play Pop; Walter & Sabrina Play Classical" in Top magazine, November 1995:

"Walter Cardew, half of Walter and Sabrina Play Pop. . . Play Classical (WS), follows Eno in welding experimental techniques to format. A collection of songs and instrumentals, this album jangles along with all the verve of the Residents or Eno circa Tiger Mountain. It is also, and here’s a word under-used in the vocabulary of modern classical criticism, fun."