Colin Potter ‘We Couldn’t Agree on a Total’ CD ICR DISTRIBUTION

In 1981, Colin Potter released a compilation LP, ‘We Couldn’t Agree on a Title’, the inaugural release on Integrated Circuit Records. ‘We Couldn’t Agree On A Total’ is the 100th release, but it’s not a compilation. To celebrate this milestone, Potter selected two live recordings from his concerts at Cafe Oto in 2018 and 2016 and one studio piece of something he played live a couple of times but never managed to get a great recording of. The cover shows Potter and a plethora of instruments; I am sure this photo is some construction of various images, but it’s an impressive display of gear. Next to playing as a musician, solo and with Nurse With Wound, Potter runs the ICR studio, so I am sure he knows all about gear, cobbling these together and making them sound simultaneously, with Captain Potter at the controls. The mixing board is the big audio canvas to paint sounds, add effects, change frequencies, and do whatever people do behind big mixing consoles to produce great music. In the April 2018 concert, Potter goes for a take on cosmic music, with arpeggios and rhythm in slow motion, and once that train leaves the station, it majestically rolls about. It has that cosmic Krautrock idea, and it works very well. In 2016, he did something similar, but the arpeggios come in later here, and it takes some time to get there. Potter needs some time to get his stuff brewing from below the surface, but it erupts like a volcano with clockwork precision. In the studio construction, none of these arpeggios are rolling about but a slow melodic touch over drone-like synthesiser tapestries. Maybe also a bit on the cosmic side, but less urgent and more ambient. To me, it seems Potter exercises more control in this piece, whereas in the live pieces, he’s wilder and lets things run wild. Two sides of the master, and while I slightly prefer the controlled constructions, it’s a great release.