Mark Cain: "Reeds" Reeds is a new CD by West Austalian composer and improvising multi-instrumentalist, Mark Cain. As its name suggests, this album features a wonderfully diverse and exotic variety of wind instruments ranging from saxophones and clarinets to ancient, ethnic and newly-invented instruments, all played with consumate musicianship by a veritable "one-man wind orchestra" with occasional percussion support. In surprising and imaginative ways this richly textured music traverses jazz, non-western and early music influences. Its a venturesome and very listenable recording that takes the listener on a journey beyond maps and boundaries. As Cain puts it: "Since my teenage years, I've listened to 'music from the other side of the fence'. It's been a rich vein of inspiration that's taken me into Balkan, klezmer, jazz, folk and beyond, as well as inspiring me to make my own instruments". A reviewer in the British Folk Roots magazine put it thus: "It's hard when multi-tracking yourself not to emerge with an unsparky thick lifelessness. But Australian, Cain, experienced in several traditions and master of a wide range of conventional, ethnic and unlikely reeds and flutes with gorgeous rich tones, joined by percussionist, Paul Tanner, makes clear-cut melodies with an interplay and wit that sounds like a finely attuned group. Also described by Doug Spencer (ABC Radio National, Australia, "The Planet") as "adventurous, highly diverse and readily accessible", "Reeds" is an apt title for Cain's cornucopia of winds, which include lesser known instruments such as the gralla, a folk oboe from Catalonia; the taragotino, a small wooden saxophone; the gemshorn, a medieval bullhorn recorder and a range of self- made instruments, including the surgical glove bagpipe, a pvc chalumeaux and the slide 'didgeriloo'. Some of the tracks also include some superb percussion courtesy of Paul Tanner. The many instruments on this album serve the music masterfully. Reeds is a breath of fresh air from a musician for whom the next breath is just a sound away. Visit his website: www.markcain.com.au