Planet Mu Rec. 
Leafcutter John : The Housebound Spirit (UK,2003)****'
Leafcutter John is the alias of John Burton. He makes use of interactive programming and is very much interested in the use of electronic gadgets to manipulate acoustic sound and some computer program designs to create visual images. He still has his roots as a folk musician. The acoustic aspects dominate or are completely adapted into the collage depending on the release. This release shows an interesting mixture which had not been possible without any of its elements.
Many tracks show improvisations on the acoustic guitar or mandoline which are extended to electro-acoustic manipulations, organised within rhythmic time signatures and some smaller element of collage for a richer arrangement. “Electric Love” amongst the other tracks starts with the feeling of a quietened live avant-jazz improvisation being tempered with a few delicate changes of sound, and the bit of electro-acoustic collage, then is with more and more dominance of choir voices, of an apparent baroque nature. Many voices contributed to this, including a figure like label colleague Venetian Snares. This changes once more into an electro-acoustic ambient mood piece with some guitar, cello, wind chimes and echoing tones. A real song emerges from there, like a mourning tune. The next moody track uses subtle electronic rhythms, rhythms with vocoder and voice arrangements and some singing (E.Dulwich). “Walk on back” after that is soft independent rock with subtle arrangements of bass, electric and acoustic guitar, echoing electronic beeps and fuzzed sounds. Some part shows a warm keyboard arrangement mixed with electric bass and drums and quiet fuzz guitar. “Recain” plays again with the sound manipulation of a guitar improvisation, including watery and other oscillating elements, rhythmically arranged, before a bass and accordion improvisation emerges out of this. “Mandoline work” also is based upon an improvisation on mandolin, manipulated in speed and nature so that it becomes a strange mixture of semi-rhythmical sounds ranging from semi-electronic to acoustic, from string sounds to resonating waves, like a soundtrack meditation, with some real picking parts arising in it too. “House on a soul” then suddenly is a songwriting track, guitar, voice and accordion. “For Two” is a near-new classical piece of improvisation with accordion, clarinet and electro-acoustic accentual effects. Also “All I could think of” includes something like neo-classical arrangements becoming part of the composition, in a fundament of electro-acoustic rhythms. “Arches never sleeps” strangely makes a dub music example with the same electro-acoustic mixing sound elements with an electric dub bass repetition. The next three tracks are again more interesting picking/ticking electro-acoustic collages, half real-time, half rearranged, expanded in sound, with the third track with a recognisable melody within a more rhythmical structure before one more song to end with.
I love to balance between all the elements in this album, changing perspective several times as a necessary reorientation on the creative process.
The constructive collage elements is not always most dominant for Leafcutter John's work. Most recently he cooperated with the wonderful folk voice Lisa knapp on stage.
