Era molto attesa la trasposizione in canzoni e musica del nuovo impegno compositivo e narrativo di Sean O'Hagan con i suoi High Llamas, Here Come The Rattling Trees, presentato più volte in versione teatrale negli scorsi due anni a Londra, a Peckham - dove O'Hagan vive e dove ha ambientato vicende e protagonisti - e a Covent Garden. Ora è un delizioso album per Drag City, introdotto dal suggestivo video di animazione che Elisa Ambrogio ha creato per McKain James, uno dei punti focali della storia.

While cycling around his home-district of Peckham (in southeast London) a few years ago, Sean O'Hagan decided that not only would the new High Llamas music be driven by narratives, a collection of stories, but they would first have to be performed as theatre; reshaped theatre, if you like, blending stories, songs and soundtrack. It was essential for these performances to take place before the songs and underscores were recorded. The resultant piece, Here Come The Rattling Trees, introduces six characters, some real, some less so, whom Sean has encountered over past years in Peckham. It is also The High Llamas new LP. Here Come The Rattling Trees was first performed in the Montpelier Theatre pub in Peckham in June 2014, and in October 2014, it played for a week-long run at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, London. The original performance cast was: Ray Newe, Richard Heap and Jennifer Scott Malden. The story centers around Amy, an unsettled 28-year-old with a desire to travel. She finds herself in Peckham Square working in temporary employment publicizing the rebranding of the local leisure centre. Peckham Leisure is to become Step Tempo and will pass from public ownership to private management. While leafleting in the square Amy encounters five characters, who, it transpires, have their own stories to tell. These stories have emerged from Peckham over the past 25 years and speak of buildings and change; of hopes, ambitions and disappointments. This is the soundtrack to those stories. With witty, artful musical strokes, Sean and The High Llamas have crafted deft musical sketches with the signature Llamas sound that has evolved over ten album releases since 1992. A colorful array of electric, acoustic, and synthetic instruments, alongside Sean O'Hagan's gentled vocals, are deployed to transport the listener to the low-key highs and lows of the British working week an incisive, sympathetic view to the wonders slipped in between the pages and too often passed over in everyday life.

http://www.highllamas.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEJO5yiT0xk

Dopo il seminario di improvvisazione condotto ieri e oggi al conservatorio Cantelli per Novara Jazz, Evan Parker incontra questa sera in concerto il Decoy Trio - Alexander Hawkins, John Edwards e Steve Noble - sempre a Novara, all'Attico delle Arti. Inizio alle ore 21.00.

http://www.novarajazz.org/eventi/workshop-cura-di-evan-parker
www.novarajazz.org/eventi/decoy-evan-parker

In piena fase di post-produzione e ormai quasi in dirittura d'arrivo è anche il film Nihao Hamtai, l'esteso resoconto di Coralie Van Rietschoten dell'avventura concertistica - e non solo - dei Magma in Cina lo scorso anno. Presso Kickstarter, dove ha avuto luogo con successo la campagna di finanziamento collettivo, si possono seguire tutte le ulteriori fasi del progetto: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coralie/nihao-hamtai

La campagna lanciata da Mônica Vasconcelos per sostenere la realizzazione dell'album di canzoni di protesta brasiliane The São Paulo Tapes, con l'attivo coinvolgimento di Robert Wyatt, non ha forse raccolto quanto sperato in termini di finanziamento collettivo, tuttavia i lavori per il compimento del progetto proseguono, conquistando nel frattempo il favore e l'apporto anche del bassista Yaron Stavi. Informazioni presso IndieGoGo: https://goo.gl/20SF66

"In case you are wondering, these are not sad songs. Yes, born out of anger and pain, but life affirming, they soothe you and move you. Like art can do. I feel right now these songs are desperately needed. Maybe they cannot change the wrongs around us... But they can make us a little stronger perhaps? Give us courage to do the right thing.  Remind us of our humanity. Each song on this album will come beautifully introduced by David Treece, who teaches Brazilian culture and literature at King's College London. So English speakers can really get their beauty and power. And appreciate how relevant they are in the world today."

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/making-album-with-help-from-my-friend-robert-wyatt--4#

Lussuose riedizioni in vinile dei tre classici This Heat per Light in the Attic: "Formed in Brixton, a multicultural, and - at the time - down-at-heel part of south London, This Heat were born into a music scene in rapid flux, first thanks to the punk explosion and then via new wave and its myriad offshoots into pop, rock and art-rock. But while many sought to apply punk attitude to chart-friendly sounds, This Heat were concocting some of the most experimental ideas ever committed to tape, taking influence from musique concrète, krautrock, the burgeoning industrial scene and even the dub reggae blasting out in their home borough. Four decades on, the tireless efforts of This Heat’s process can once again be a revelation for new audiences."

https://www.facebook.com/thisheat.official
http://lightintheattic.net/artists/1292-this-heat

Sono aperte su Bandcamp le prenotazioni del nuovo cofanetto antologico Architecture Of Language 1979-1982, in via di pubblicazione per Fire Records. Il titolo un po' chomskiano si applica agli splendidi album del periodo critico dei Pere Ubu, New Picnic Time, The Art Of Walking e Song Of The Bailing Man. C'è anche un quarto titolo, Architectural Salvage, con rarità, versioni alternative e brani dal vivo. Come il precedente box - Elitism For The People, andato subito esaurito - la versione in vinile è prodotta in tiratura limitata: 'These are records of "unique beauty - a beauty marked by truth and thus also tragic and sometimes painful" (Chris Cutler)'.

http://www.ubuprojex.com/language.html
https://pereubumusic.bandcamp.com/album/architecture-of-language-1979-1982

Chi apprezza l'estetica del cd nella confezione cartonata che simula l'antico formato in vinile trova in commercio da qualche mese alcuni titoli Gong in edizione giapponese: due terzi della Trilogia, tre album dell'era Moerlen e l'ibrido Live etc. completo dell'Ooby-Scooby Doomsday or The D-Day DJ's Got the D.D.T. Blues omesso dalla Virgin in qualche precedente versione.

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/feature/gong_minilpshmcd_20150513

Una versione di studio della wyattiana Sea Song, registrata nel maggio 2011, e un brano ripescato dall'album e2x10=Tenure, Ocean In The Distance: è il singolo pubblicato a nome di University of Errors lo scorso 13 gennaio, per celebrare - il primo senza di lui! - il compleanno di Daevid Allen. Lo si trova in poche centinaia di copie presso il bazar di Gong Appreciation Society.

The last recording by University of Errors to be released on January 13, 2016 in honor of Daevid Allen’s first non-birthday day, it would have been his 78th birthday but it isn’t. It is the bands’ version of Sea Song by Robert Wyatt. The recording was done at Daevid’s home studio in May 2011. Daevid reworked and finely tuned his vocal and glissando parts and the final mix was done by Orlando Allen in 2014.
It was Daevid’s idea to release it as a thank you to everyone after his surgery and temporary recovery in 2014. He chose the artwork, photos and b-side Ocean In The Distance from the album e2x10=Tenure. It is being released as a 7” single, packaged like a small album in a cardboard sleeve with a spine and full color inner sleeve and pressed on heavy audiophile quality vinyl.

http://www.universityoferrors.com/news.html

Tramite Soundcloud c'è la possibilità di sentire gli esiti della collaborazione del compianto Daevid Allen maturata a Byron Bay con il duo locale Dinkum Bohos, ovvero Jem Edwards e Vasudha Harte: il brano è Lone Goat, cui contribuisce anche Gina Lakosta con un proprio testo, All Creation is a Love Song.

https://soundcloud.com/dinkumbohos/dinkum-bohos-with-daevid-allen-gina-lakosta-lone-goat

Presso Mixcloud è conservata la puntata di Clear Spot - programma radiofonico di Resonance FM - dello scorso 26 novembre, quando ospite di Tim Goldie era Tim Hodgkinson, invitato a illustrare e presentare brani da Cuts (Freeform Association, 2015), allora freschissimo di stampa.
Altrove Mixcloud conserva anche un breve estratto di un recente concerto tenuto da Hodgkinson a Budapest, all'UH Festival. Con lui in quell'occasione c'erano Christian Kobi e Zsolt Sőrés: http://tinyurl.com/hh787l8

http://timhodgkinson.co.uk/CUTS%20CD.html
https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/clear-spot-26th-november-2015-abject-bloc

Presente a vario titolo all'edizione di quest'anno del festival norvegese All Ears, Otomo Yoshihide non ha fatto mancare al fedele pubblico il dono di un gesto chitarristico solitario: lo si apprezza su YT nelle riprese video di Lars Ingebrigtsen.

http://www.all-ears.no
https://www.facebook.com/AllEarsFestival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ui6mfeK6fU

Sono disponibili presso lo spazio YT del Festival Météo di Mulhouse (Francia) le riprese video di alcuni concerti in cartellone negli anni più recenti: dell'edizione 2015 ci sono Akira Sakata, Arashi, Kaze, l'Electroacoustic Nonet guidato da Evan Parker, Fred Frith in quartetto con Barry Guy, Daniela Cattivelli e Samuel Dühsler e in duo con Lotte Anker.

https://www.youtube.com/user/FestivalMeteo

Un esteso ritratto dello Schlippenbach Trio composto dal regista e produttore video Bernd Schoch a partire dai concerti tenuti dai tre magnifici - Alexander von Schlippenbach, Evan Parker, Paul Lovens - in anni consecutivi dal 2007 al 2010 presso il Jazzclub di Karlsruhe (Germania): Aber das Wort Hund bellt ja nicht. Lo si ottiene richiedendolo direttamente all'autore: burntbernd@gmx.de

The film dissects an event and puts it back together again in the cinema. It narrows the space, expands time and enables an intense cinematic experience with the free jazz of the Schlippenbach Trio. And suddenly the invisible becomes audible and the fragment is equivalent to the whole. This film is more than a portrait of musicians. It is also a film which, in a radical way, deals with the issue of translation and the reinvention of reality in documentary film.

The Schlippenbach Trio exists since forty years and they are part of the european Freejazz history. Each year in December they go on the 'Winterreise' to play their sound of divergence, catharsis & explosion. The film But the word dog doesn't bark is shot over the period of four years at the Jazzclub Karlsruhe. Each year the camera focuses in a single frame shot on one of the players. In 2007 on Paul Lovens (drums), in 2008 on Evan Parker (reeds), in 2009 on Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano). In the last year of the performance shooting, in 2010, a handheld singleframe shot combines the improvisation of the three individuals in one picture. But the word dog doesn't bark questions the possibility of transforming sound into pictures.

www.berndschoch.de
burntbernd@gmx.de

In viaggio da Mosca a Volgograd, per presentare Oh Moscow! al festival Unidentified Movement. Con Lindsay Cooper e Sally Potter ci sono Alfred Harth, Phil Minton, Veryan Weston, Hugh Hopper e Chris Cutler... Dai diari di bordo del sassofonista, 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKD19KgNwMg

Sul progetto che presto farà rivivere in digitale l'opera a quasi trent'anni dalla sua prima stesura ha detto di recente Sally Potter: "Oh Moscow is grounded in the notion that unless we understand our history we’re bound to repeat it. Do we now have the means using digital technology to link music that animates one part of our brain with knowledge that animates another? Can digital layering allow each individual to become an information archaeologist, digging deep to collect essential information from the past to the make the links between the people in the 20th century who stumbled across Europe in their hundreds of thousands, driven from their homes by war and persecution, with those we are now watching every day on our smart phones and TVs?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WanXjAHwJ5g
http://www.screendaily.com/news/sally-potter-plots-digital-reboot-of-oh-moscow/5095543.article

Do You Know The Way To St Tropez? Steve Foster cerca di ricostruire cosa davvero sia successo ai Soft Machine durante quel fatidico soggiorno francese dell'estate 1967, tra Sainte-Maxime e Saint-Tropez (e tra mito e leggenda...). Il quadro lo compone incrociando testimonianze e ricordi dei diretti protagonisti, interrogando le fonti più credibili - da Aymeric Leroy a Marcus O'Dair, da Graham Bennett a Mike King - e perfino recandosi di persona in quei luoghi. L'ultima parola però non è ancora scritta: "There’s a lot more to be said about this trip to the South of France, I am certain. I’d be interested to know more. It is sad, though a fact of life, that at least five of those who made up the Soft Machine party in the summer 1967 are no longer in the room. I’ve written to Les Archives Municipales in St Tropez for any articles (there’s mention of an article in Le Figaro, and the local paper must have reviewed these events) or any photos that they may have. I intend to make a return visit to St Tropez in the summer of 2017 to ‘Do It Again’."

http://www.kevinayers.org/tours/st-tropez

Floating World dissotterra antichi reperti Wilde Flowers per porgerli ancora a nuovi conoscitori e buoni intenditori: stavolta è un doppio cd, The Wilde Flowers, con i materiali provvisori e definitivi di allora, qualche divagazione e un paio di successive riletture.

http://www.floatingworldrecords.co.uk/albums/the-wilde-flowers2

Non sono andate perdute le registrazioni effettuate nel novembre 2006 da Daevid Allen in compagnia di Don Falcone, Trey Sabatelli e Michael Clare allo scopo di dare un seguito all'album Djdday (Voiceprint, 2005) uscito a nome Weird Biscuit Teatime. Dopo ritocchi e rimaneggiamenti vari - e qualche contributo da parte di Paul Sears - l'esito di quelle sessioni californiane è racchiuso in un album dal titolo Elevenses, ora attribuito al Daevid Allen Weird Quartet. Daevid ha fatto in tempo a sentirlo l'anno scorso, prima del compiersi degli eventi: "You have done a fascinating job of mixing this up for me and I find myself both moved and nicely surprised..."

https://www.facebook.com/DAWQ2015
https://www.burningshed.com/store/psychedelic/product/333/7204

The Crowdaddy.

 (Giorgio Gomelsky, 1934-2016) 

Michel Besset rende noto il programma definitivo della prossima edizione del Rock in Opposition France Event, a Cap'Découverte (Le Garric) presso Carmaux (Francia) dal 16 al 18 settembre 2016: No Noise No Reduction, Pixvae, Nippon Eldorado Kabarett, Magma, Jump For Joy, Jean-Louis, Cicala Mvta, Uz Jsme Doma, Half The Sky, Upsilon Acruz e Apollonius Abraham Schwarz. In apertura di festival è previsto anche uno speciale concerto per studenti, ancora da rivelare nei dettagli. Informazioni: http://www.rocktime.org/rio/index.php/en

La viennese Klanggalerie si incarica nuovamente di diffondere musiche dei Residents tramite il tradizionale supporto fisico del compact disc, in questo caso un doppio cd semi-antologico con tre distinti lavori del 2007 composti 'per altre occasioni': Strange Culture, The Rivers of Hades, Haeckel's Tale. Al sito ufficiale del gruppo continuano invece a essere proposti materiali aggiuntivi e alternativi nel solo formato digitale, acquistabili tramite la piattaforma Bandcamp; tra i più recenti, una versione più compatta e inedita del celebre Cube E-The History of American Music in 3-EZ Pieces (1990) e un ennesimo ordigno attribuito all'alias Charles Bobuck, As a Child I Sold the News
(inediti del periodo 2008-2014). Nel frattempo, gruppo e ospiti vari scaldano i motori per una nuova - inattesa solo pochi mesi fa - tranche di concerti in Europa e Australia di Shadowland.

Residents music from 2007: Strange Culture (OST): In 2007, Director/artist Lynn Hershman-Leeson heard of a strange situation of an artist being arrested as a bioterrorist due to the fact that his “art” used harmless mold. She gathered a number of friends to make a film to bring more attention to the artist’s plight. Among the friends were Tilda Swinton and The Residents who had worked with Ms Hershman on her previous film, Conceiving Ada. The Rivers of Hades: An aural art piece, Chaos Is Not Just A Theory, was written by The Residents in 2007 to accompany the release of The Residents toy figures designed by Steve Cerio. The sound installation was not included in the final gallery presentation, however, and the essence of the much larger project was reduced to this piece, The Rivers of Hades. Haeckel’s Tale: The Showtime Channel has a long running horror TV series, Masters of Horror. The season included a Clive Barker story, Haeckel’s Tale. Director, John McNaughton (Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer), was employed to oversee the project. McNaughton called in The Residents to score the film after having worked with them on a previous film, Condo Painting. For unknown reasons, the score was not used for the broadcast. Of these three 2007 projects overseen by Charles Bobuck, only The Rivers of Hades has been released on CDr in an extremely limited fan edition. This is the first release of Haeckel’s Tale and Strange Culture on CD.

www.residents.com
http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg215
https://residents-the.bandcamp.com
https://bobuck.bandcamp.com
http://www.residents.com/historical4/shadow

...smiling and waving and looking so fine...

(David Bowie, 1947-2016)

E per rincuorarsi dopo oltre cinque ore di Pianoforte Ben Intonato ci si può ben rivolgere a uno strumento che sul ping-pong tra intonazione e stonatura (e altre malfunzioni) ha fin dall'inizio costruito il proprio mito: The Story of Mellotron, episodio radiofonico di Resonance FM recentemente recuperato via Mixcloud. Interviene lo specialista Nick Awde.

https://www.mixcloud.com/henrysgigs/the-story-of-mellotron-with-nick-awde-wanted

Si è concluso ieri - ma lo si può riascoltare ancora per qualche giorno attraverso il web - il fitto programma di musiche classiche e d'avanguardia con cui Radio 3 della BBC ha salutato il nuovo anno, New Year New Music. Leafcutter John, Vicki Bennett, Psappha, Stevie Wishart, Mark-Anthony Turnage, molto Lachenmann, moltissimo Stockhausen, e l'ascolto integrale del celebre lavoro di La Monte Young The Well-Tuned Piano, nell'esecuzione del 25 ottobre 1981 documentata in cinque cd da Gramavision (1987). Preceduto quest'ultimo dagli amorevolissimi consigli dello speaker, che invitava a seguire l'opera al riparo da distrazioni e nel massimo comfort domestico, magari immersi in un bagno di luce. Magenta, se possibile.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dkh0h

Su YT c'è una ripresa video integrale del composito lavoro multimediale di Steve Reich e Beryl Korot - marito e moglie - Three Tales (1998-2002), presentato appena qualche settimana fa a Novosibirsk (Federazione Russa). A fagiolo, in epoca di test nucleari e bombe all'idrogeno made in (North) Korea.

"Especially during the interviews with the scientists, the thought that kept coming back to me was, humility or arrogance? The Hindenburg burned because it was filled with hydrogen. The Germans were completing the Hindenburg in 1935 and tried to buy helium for it from the United States. We were the only people who had it. Roosevelt refused, because Hitler was in power and Roosevelt was rightly unwilling to sell him anything. The Germans went ahead and built it anyway, with hydrogen. They took every possible precaution with the hydrogen but, of course, it exploded. The real answer should have been, “If we can’t do it with helium, let’s ditch it because it’s too dangerous.” When the American Navy exploded the bombs at Bikini, they initially blew up one in the air and one deep in the ocean. The scientists told them that with the one in the ocean, all the radioactivity that would normally be released into the air would instead get trapped in the water. The water would shoot up and then fall all over the target ships, and when they tried to measure what was going on with these ships, they wouldn’t be able to get close to them because they’d be glowing with radioactivity. That’s exactly what happened; the whole test was a boondoggle. The only thing that really happened was that the 167 people of the Bikini nation were relocated and are still not able to return. With “Dolly” you see different scientific and religious personalities - it’s a theater of revelation through utterance. Some of these people are very adamant about their ideas and others say, “Maybe we don’t have it right yet.” I suggest the latter attitude may be a useful one to have in a world where playing with some of these things may have catastrophic unintended consequences." (Steve Reich)

http://www.stevereich.com/threetales_info.html
http://bombmagazine.org/article/2521/steve-reich-and-beryl-korot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR-53RLFw1Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgIQZ60pd0c

Never with a baton.

 (Pierre Boulez, 1925-2016) 

Mr. Joy! 

(Paul Bley, 1932-2016)

Era spesso in scaletta nei concerti di Robin Williamson di fine millennio. E sarà risuonata più e più volte nei giorni scorsi - forse anche nella sua versione - tra gli omaggi a Ian Fraser Kilmister, detto Lemmy, dei Motörhead: Ace of Spades. "You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools. But that's the way I like it baby, I don't wanna live for ever..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8WBveikgKY

A qualche settimana dall'uscita in cd sono annunciate per oggi le edizioni in vinile degli album tratti dai recenti concerti a Piacenza di Keith Tippett (Mujician Solo IV-Live in Piacenza) e John Greaves (Piacenza): produce l'etichetta Dark Companion Records.

www.darkcompanion.com

"We invite you to listen to Cuneiform's The Albums of 2015. We're honored to have worked with and released albums by some of the best musicians in the world in 2015." Con giusta soddisfazione il team di Cuneiform Records volge uno sguardo retrospettivo a un anno di ottime musiche - nuove e attuali, o recuperate da preziosi documenti del passato - e ne offre un saggio su Bandcamp pescando tra le proprie produzioni del 2015. Curioso, ma forse casuale, l'affollamento di chitarristi di spicco: Bill Frisell, Alan Holdsworth, Ray Russell, Henry Kaiser, Richard Pinhas, Raoul Bjorkenheim...

http://www.cuneiformrecords.com
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-albums-of-2015

A dispetto dei buoni propositi e le tante promesse di autorealizzazione che tipicamente assalgono a inizio d'anno, qualcosa del 2016 rimarrà precluso al desiderio dei più. Già lo si sa, da qualche settimana: This Is Not This Heat.

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/this-heat

Cin cin di capodanno 2016 con auguri & auguri. Buono il vino, ma niente male anche i sottobicchieri...

https://www.youtube.com/user/photocronista