We don’t think of Suchness Monster as Rob Clutton’s second solo string bass recording on Rat-drifting.  “Solo” — that shines a spotlight on the player and the absence of others; “string bass” — that shines a spotlight on the instrument and how it’s being played.  It’s not that looking at what these lights might illuminate would prove unrewarding (indeed, how Rob plays the bass when he’s alone is a wonderful thing), its more that it’s secondary to another way of approaching the Suchness Monster.  Suchness Monster is the second recording of compositions by Rob Clutton on Rat-drifting; they just happen to involve Rob playing the solo string bass.  And since we’re wondering about how we represent things, calling this sounding suchness a collection of compositions might seem problematic given that much of the album is improvised (sometimes the music resulted from written scores that enable improvisation through various strategies, other times the music was spontaneously invented).  But the ideas of composition and improvisation aren’t really at odds — the concept of instant composition has been around at least since the ICP.  Again, it’s just a matter of where the spotlight is shining.  “Improvisation” points to methodology — how the music is made, to the spontaneous, directly audible choices of the improviser.  “Improvisation” points to how what we are hearing has been produced (a bit like “solo” or “string bass” in this regard).  “Composition” points to what we are hearing; to those arrays of sounding events brought together by Rob and given names: “Rule of the Downbow”, “Wilberforce” and so on through the album.  And what we hear when we play Suchness Monster is what really captures our imaginations.   Rob presents you here with eight multifariously distinct, ephemeral sound worlds/sound creatures — both places and things—to move through and have move through you.  We invite you to move and be moved.