Away, I was is a collection of eight solo pieces by British innovative tenor and soprano sax player John Butcher, the earliest one from 2008 and the latest one from 2025. The pieces explore Butcher’s idiosyncratic and inquisitive sonic palette, utilizing how the saxophone—its whole body and parts—can sound. The cover artwork is by British visual and sound artist Benedict Drew.
The opening extended piece, “Brinks”, features Butcher improvising on the tenor sax, live, at the 8th Spontaneous Music Festival held at the Dragon Social Club in Poznań, Poland, in October 2024. Butcher patiently and thoughtfully lets his free associative voice reverberate and experiment organically and poetically with the club’s acoustic qualities. The second extended piece, “Fujin” (風神, the Japanese god of the wind),
