Torna in circolazione in un'edizione in vinile curata dalla statunitense Superior Viaduct uno degli album più leggendari dei Faust, The Faust Tapes, pubblicato in origine dalla Virgin (nel 1973, al prezzo di meno di mezza sterlina) e poi più volte ripescato da Recommended.

"The music on this album, drawn from Faust's own library of private tapes, was recorded informally and not originally intended for release. However, since British interest in the group has been unusually great, it has been decided to make some of this unofficial material available to the public in this country. These tapes have been left exactly as they were recorded - frequently live - and no post-production work has been imposed on them. The group wish to make it clear that this is not to be regarded as their third album, but a bonus release - on sale at the current price of a single - to mark their signing with Virgin Records, for whom they will shortly be recording their next official album. The Faust Tapes reveals Faust at their most personal and spontaneous. It's a unique glimpse behind the scenes of a group which European and British critics have hailed as one of the most exciting and exploratory in the world. Virgin Records".

http://www.faust-pages.com/records/tapes.html

https://www.superiorviaduct.com/collections/upcoming/products/faust-the-faust-tapes-lp

E anche di Robert Wyatt vengono prodotti ritratti di tanto in tanto, più o meno originali, più o meno ben riusciti. Tra gli ultimi in ordine di tempo quelli di Elaine Gorton e Bill Rivers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/robertwyatt

Herm Mew, vedova di Phil Miller, ha realizzato un grande ritratto del compianto chitarrista e tramite il sito web a lui dedicato ne ha voluto documentare in sequenza le fasi di realizzazione. Altre sue opere pittoriche sono in visione al sito http://hlmewpaintings.com, dove spiccano tra l'altro i ritratti di amici e colleghi presenti al commiato funebre per Pip Pyle, nel 2006.

http://hlmewpaintings.com
https://philmillerthelegacy.com/portrait-of-phil-by-herm
http://hlmewpaintings.com/rippip/collage.html
http://hlmewpaintings.com/rippip/strip.html

Per riprender fiato dopo l'eclissi di luna più lunga del secolo non c'è che il nuovo episodio di Canterbury Sans Frontières, confezionato ad hoc da Matthew Watkins: "A remarkable Kevin Ayers song which I bet you've never heard, performed live with The Whole World in 1970, more from the Caravan 15th anniversary gigs in 1983, something from Daevid and Gilli's last album with Gong, something from current Gong frontman Kavus Torabi's debut solo EP, a reunited Hatfield paying tribute to Elton Dean in NYC, Elton at the top of his game with Soft Machine in Oslo '71, members of Henry Cow collaborating with Japanese musicians on a Robert Wyatt classic, something lovely from Robert himself, plus Steve Hillage, Jon Hassell, Bjork and a very early Yes covering The Byrds to great effect. From the Canterbury of today, new work from Koloto, Nelson Parade, Paisley Mess and Humble Pious, plus old favourites from Jamie Dams and Syd Arthur..."

http://canterburywithoutborders.blogspot.com/2018/07/episode-61.html

Dopo le anticipazioni sul web e il debutto la settimana scorsa al Dartmoor Resonance Music Festival esce ora in via ufficiale il nuovo lavoro di Kate Westbrook Granite, pubblicato in proprio per Westbrook Records e distribuito da Proper Music. Lo accompagna un breve video prodotto da Chris Topley: https://vimeo.com/280331550

In un recente scritto Kate accenna all'origine e all'ispirazione del progetto, concepito come un soliloquio in dialogo con le musiche di Mike: "Now in my final decade or so, I feel a sense of urgency, a need to write more, play more music, paint more. Humour seems important, and yet the song lyrics I am writing at the moment are serious and about the environment, and death and there are few jokes. Mike and I live near Dartmoor and we go on the moor when we are able to do so. We have seen a Wheatear there and, through the early part of the summer, there are skylarks. Mike knows birds well. The cry of the Curlew is the sound for which I have a great thirst. The lyrics for Granite spring from being on Dartmoor. Mike and I discuss the ideas and instrumentation. My words sit on his piano in the music room. He plays around with shapes, forming his musical language, and soon he says ‘Can we have another word here?’ or ‘I suggest that we repeat these lines.’ And so the two of us fashion the song together. We often speak about music in terms of painting and find each of the Arts informs the others, synesthesia. Now Granite-a soliloquy exists, played by the wonderful Granite Band. The album was recorded at dBs Studios in Bristol. Producer Jay Auborn and his assistant Callum Godfroy help us cross borders and enjoy the drama of the music with an occasional dash of humour. The first performance is imminent. What could be better at my great age than to have this fresh beginning?"

http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/westbrookrecords/index.shtml
http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook/granite.shtml
http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook/granite_film.shtml

Giunge a ideale conclusione l'appassionante dialogo solitario con l'amato contrabbasso documentato a più riprese dal grande Barre Phillips nel corso di cinquant'anni, da Journal Violone in poi: End to End, su Ecm.

End to End is a solo bass album by one of the great pioneers of the idiom. Over the last fifty years Barre Phillips, California-born but long a resident of France, has periodically issued solo recordings, considering them the musical equivalent of diary entries (the first one, in 1968, was called Journal Violone), updates on his ever-evolving relationship to his chosen instrument. This one, he says, will be the last of his albums in this format, so it is of special interest to those who have followed the story so far and, indeed, to anyone wishing to hear a masterful improviser at work, refocussing lessons learned in the course of a long, creative life. “It’s the end of a cycle” says Barre, now 83, of the present recording. “Not a summing up, but the last pages of a journal that began fifty years ago.”

https://www.ecmrecords.com/artists/1435045739/barre-phillips

Il gioioso concerto in solo che Johnny 'Mbizo' Dyani (1945-1986) offrì al pubblico del Willisau Festival nel 1978 vede oggi ufficialmente luce grazie alla registrazione audio conservata dall'organizzatore di allora, Niklaus Troxler, e all'iniziativa di Karl Jonas Winqvist, che lo pubblica in doppio LP per la sua etichetta Sing A Song Fighter: African Bass.

http://singasongfighter.tictail.com/product/johnny-mbizo-dyani-african-bass-solo-concert-1978-2-lp

Affidato su FB alla KT Appreciation Society giunge da Keith Tippett (con Julie) un ringraziamento per i messaggi di auguri e le iniziative messe in atto a sostegno della sua ripresa dopo la convalescenza, che si annuncia ancora lunga. Inizia così: "Dear everyone, this is a thankyou from the bottom of our hearts. Without you I am not sure what our future would have been. You have given Julie and I room to breathe financially for a few months and we are eternally grateful for your friendship. Kindness and love."

https://www.facebook.com/groups/23038694008

Tra le cronache dei tre recenti concerti statunitensi di This Is Not This Heat c'è anche il passaggio a Chicago per il Pitchfork Festival. E' stato ripreso integralmente e pubblicato su  FB: https://tinyurl.com/ya8s4cz3

Ai confini del tempo e dello spazio? Star Clocks, perbacco!

https://davebarb/dave-stewart_barbara-gaskin_star-clocks

Cartolina d'estate 1967 a Saint-Tropez. Chi c'era?

http://www.kevinayers.org/tours/st-tropez
https://tinyurl.com/yax3jop2

E' il festival Zappanale, al via oggi per il tradizionale summit zappiano d'estate a Bad Doberan (Germania), a offrire il palcoscenico per il secondo concerto del Lindsay Cooper Songbook dopo il debutto al Cafe Oto londinese il mese scorso. L'appuntamento è per domani pomeriggio. E stavolta Dagmar ci sarà!

Lindsay Cooper (1951-2013) brought the bassoon and the compositional techniques of 20th century art music into the world of ‘70s experimental rock. She was a musical polyglot, equally fluent in classical, rock, jazz, and free improvisation and the author of many film and theatre soundtracks. She was a member of the groups Comus, Henry Cow, National Health, David Thomas and the Pedestrians and the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. Lindsay co-founded News from Babel and the Feminist Improvising Group and led her own projects Music for Films and Oh Moscow. She lived for many years with multiple sclerosis, which eventually forced her to retire from performing in the 1990s.

Yumi Hara formed Half The Sky in 2015 to perform Lindsay Cooper’s songs in Japan. The original group was entirely Japanese, with the exception of original drummer and lyricist Chris Cutler. This group - with small personnel changes - was later invited to Europe, when it was joined by the songs’ original singer Dagmar Krause. For these new European concerts the line-up adds two more members of Henry Cow, for whom much of this material was written, and called themselves Lindsay Cooper Songbook. As was true of the original bands Henry Cow and News From Babel - the new line-up retains an equal gender split.

With the exception of Slice, it was only after - and because of - the 2014 concerts that any working scores for the Henry Cow pieces became available, painstakingly pieced together from Lindsay’s notebooks, original band-members’ surviving parts and a careful analysis of the recordings. A handful of the News from Babel songs – none of which had ever been performed live – had been reconstructed for the memorial concert by Zeena Parkins; the rest Yumi had to work out from scratch – as well as rearranging all the compositions for a small ensemble of multi-tasking musicians.

https://zappanale.de/en/programm-29/lindsay-cooper-songbook-uk.html

Prende il via oggi a Nickelsdorf (Austria) una nuova edizione del festival internazionale di musica improvvisata Konfrontationen, quattro intensi giorni di concerti e incontri nell'accogliente e informale ambientazione della Jazzgalerie, con ospiti una settantina di musicisti di varia provenienza e formazione. E con uno speciale pensiero a Cecil Taylor, che così esprime Paul Lovens: "Dieses Festival ist nicht Cecil Taylor gewidmet, zollt ihm keinen Tribut: denn man darf sich nicht mit dem Namen eines verstorbenen Genies schmücken. Deswegen spielen wir auch nicht "in memoriam" seiner. Wahrscheinlich aber würden wir heute nicht eine solche Musik machen, wäre er nicht seit mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert visionäres Vorbild. Nur einige von uns haben direkt mit ihm gearbeitet, wenige sind ihm begegnet, viele haben ihn nie "live" gehört. Weg ist er, doch immer da. Die Jungen sind erwachsen, die Alten dürfen sterben."

Jazzgalerie Nickelsdorf invites you to Konfrontationen 2018 – International Festival for Free and Improvised Music. The 39th edition of our four-day festival brings together 68 musicians, who play 19 concerts at three locations (in the Jazzgalerie courtyard, at Kleylehof and in the Protestant church). A special treat this year are the big ensembles: the Castelló Tentet / The Dark Blue combines electronic noise with delicate instrumental passages to create a magic horror-movie atmosphere; the eleven-piece Prague Improvisation Orchestra works with guest musicians and graphic scores to paint a Central European landscape with musical devices; the electro-acoustic septet Skein seems fascinated by flocks of birds in flight; and last but not least, the all-star octet Without Cecil, which like so many of the musicians that have played in Nickelsdorf over the past decades sees the late pianist and poet as a visionary genius and his radicalism an inspiration to the international avant-garde. At the other end of the spectrum are the solo performances: from virtuoso playing to subtle reductionism, the adventurous US trumpet player Peter Evans and Austria's grand seigneur of avant music, Radu Malfatti, explore melody as a series of musical events and silence as sound. Between these poles you can explore a range of bands that make improv hearts flutter: whether their name reminds you of a beat boxer's sound poem (BZSS) or a password-protected number plate from France (J77D13X442), whether they come all the way from Sweden like Up Umeå or just pretend to, like the three-girl combo Möström, whether its members will be playing for the first time in Nickelsdorf, as for instance Dave Rempis, Michael Marcus and Szilárd Mezei, or are familiar faces like Phil Minton, Georg Graewe and Sofia Jernberg, whether they prepare the piano like Kaja Draksler or prefer to take it apart like Juun – if you come with open ears, you will not be disappointed.

http://www.konfrontationen.at/ko18
http://www.popupmusic.pl/festiwal/977/39--konfrontationen-2018

E nel cuore di Dalston a Londra, già sottoposto ad alta pressione dalle incessanti attività del Cafe Oto e del Vortex Club, si apre occasionalmente ad euforiche incursioni improv anche il Total Refreshment Centre di Foulden Road. E' da lì che proviene il terzo album di Binker & Moses (ovvero Binker Golding e Moses Boyd, rispettivamente sassofonista e batterista) Alive In The East?, tratto da Gearbox Records da una bollente serata dell'estate scorsa con ospiti Yussef Dayes, Tori Handsley, Byron Wallen e un Evan Parker in forma grandiosa di fronte a un pubblico a dir poco su di giri. "The music's default position is ferocity - racconta Chris May per All About Jazz - but discordancy is not a feature. The emphasis is on solo rather than collective improvisation, so avoiding the cacophony that is a characteristic of much full-on free jazz. Jumping-off points are provided as much by Boyd's beats as Goldings's harmolodic centres. Motor rhythms are ever present, not so much grooves as urgent pulses, pushing the music forward. The result is a whirlwind. It can rip the hair clean off the back of your neck."

https://binkerandmoses.bandcamp.com/album/alive-in-the-east
https://www.facebook.com/totalrefreshmentcentre
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/alive-in-the-east-binker-and-moses.php

Da uno dei luoghi più accoglienti e ospitali della scena improvvisata londinese degli ultimi anni, l'Iklectik in Carlisle Lane a Lambeth, giunge uno dei frutti più gustosi dell'estate, offerto dagli ineffabili John Edwards e Steve Noble di nuovo felicemente insieme all'amico Alan Wilkinson: 3 Of A Kind, per Bo'Weavil Recordings: "The trio of Alan Wilkinson, John Edwards, and Steve Noble continue to plot their course ever outward and ever upward. These new songs, recorded in South London at that wonderful performance space at the heart of the improve scene here at this moment, Iklectik, are the very beating heart of improvised music. It's not that they are good, or even representative - such relative terms fail to express the continuum of which these sounds are a key part. This is music that evades the strictures of scientific measurement or critical theory. It just is. Wilkinson is a master of the tribal, balls-out approach to sax playing. He lets it all hang out. But there is great subtlety in what he does with his horn, in the range of inflection, the space between the phrases, the singing tone. At times he sounds like a tight knit sax section in a swinging big band all on his own. There is definitely jazz in there. Edwards and Noble form the rhythmic base for much that is good and beautiful in the improv scene today. Years of playing together and individual brilliance mean they mesh like the gears of a micro-tuned machine. Together the trio make music. And that is all that needs saying."

https://tinyurl.com/y8c5vwm5

http://iklectikartlab.com

In edizione firmata e numerata è giunto ai sottoscrittori della primissima ora assieme allo splendido nuovo cd Waiting for the Bomb, alcune copie però sono disponibili anche singolarmente presso ReR Megacorp: Four Stories, di Allen Ravenstine.

Così lo consiglia Cutler: "Slim, 44pp. perfect bound, paperback containing four stories. Illustrated by Mary Thomas. These four stories were written while Allen was working and touring with Pere Ubu, and speak directly of his experiences in those years. They waste no words - and the words used are meticulously chosen; I’m a fan. These are fine stories, artfully told. I’m not alone - Allen was one of those selected for The Penguin Book of Rock and Roll Writing in 1992. A small limited edition."

http://allenravenstine.com

https://tinyurl.com/y95pyycu
https://tinyurl.com/y9utlzv9

Altra interessante pubblicazione presso Bloomsbury è lo studio condotto da Richard Elliott The Sound of Nonsense attraverso letteratura, poesia sonora, musica d'avanguardia e canzone pop, con celebri esempi dell'assurdo e del surreale da Lewis Carroll, James Joyce e William Burroughs a Bob Dylan, John Oswald, Magma e Ivor Cutler.

In The Sound of Nonsense, Richard Elliott highlights the importance of sound in understanding the 'nonsense' of writers such as Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, James Joyce and Mervyn Peake, before connecting this noisy writing to works which engage more directly with sound, including sound poetry, experimental music and pop. By emphasising sonic factors, Elliott makes new and fascinating connections between a wide range of artistic examples to ultimately build a case for the importance of sound in creating, maintaining and disrupting meaning.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-sound-of-nonsense-9781501324543

C'è anche uno scritto di Chris Cutler, Loops, Memories and Meanings, nel libro Over and Over - Exploring Repetition in Popular Music curato da Olivier Julien e Christophe Levaux e pubblicato in questi giorni da Bloomsbury: "From the Tin Pan Alley 32-bar form, through the cyclical forms of modal jazz, to the more recent accumulation of digital layers, beats, and breaks in Electronic Dance Music, repetition as both an aesthetic disposition and a formal property has stimulated a diverse range of genres and techniques. From the angles of musicology, psychology, sociology, and science and technology, Over and Over reassesses the complexity connected to notions of repetition in a variety of musical genres. The first edited volume on repetition in 20th- and 21st-century popular music, Over and Over explores the wide-ranging forms and use of repetition - from large repetitive structures to micro repetitions - in relation to both specific and large-scale issues and contexts. The book brings together a selection of original texts by leading authors in a field that is, as yet, little explored. Aimed at both specialists and neophytes, it sheds important new light on one of the fundamental phenomena of music of our times."

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/over-and-over-9781501324888

Dopo una presentazione pubblica condotta il mese scorso a Los Angeles da Homer Flynn - di cui si trova qualche testimonianza sul web - e una prima distribuzione di copie ufficialmente autografate dai Nostri, The Residents pubblicano in questi giorni presso Feral House il loro nuovo racconto, The Brickeaters.

First up, the guys are delighted to have their new novel, ‘The Brickeaters’ published today! July 10th. “What the fuck?”, I hear you ask. Well, this the fuck… “The Brickeaters is an absurdist buddy movie story featuring a very tall internet content screener teaming up with an aging career criminal whose primary companions are an oxygen bottle and a .44 Magnum. After a short crime spree cementing their unhinged partnership, they work together to prevent a middle-aged lottery winner from polluting the LA water supply with massive amounts of fluoride. Their adventures unfold via a highly unreliable alcoholic narrator desperately avoiding the reality of spousal abandonment.” It sounds obvious, right? We’ve read it, and we’re re-reading it. Does it get better every time around? And how do four guys write a novel together anyway? Well, there’s only one way to find out…

https://www.residents.com
http://feralhouse.com/the-brickeaters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9lFYpfPS2Q

Il sorprendente esito della campagna I Am A Resident! - che ha raccolto quasi duecento versioni di brani dei Residents prodotte da amici, ammiratori e piccoli fan, poi radicalmente rimaneggiate dal gruppo in forma di condensati sonori - non rimarrà confinato, come inizialmente sembrava, entro la stretta cerchia dei diretti sostenitori del progetto. Ne sono infatti pronte per la generalità del pubblico ben tre versioni, in parte diverse tra loro: singolo cd, doppio cd e doppio vinile. Ne ha qualche copia Cherry Red Records:
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/i-am-a-resident-2cd-card-gatefold-edition
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/i-am-a-resident-limited-vinyl-edition

E Moacrealsloa di Radio Panik propone in questi giorni anche una rarissima intervista a Renaldo & The Loaf sulla scorta dell'ancor più raro concerto tenuto poche settimane fa a Vienna nell'ambito dei festeggiamenti di Klanggalerie. L'etichetta ha intenzione di documentare l'evento su cd il prossimo autunno; intanto ci si può fare un'idea tramite YT.

Renaldo Malpractice and Ted The Loaf took their time to give their impressions after a blast of a concert. They did their first ever live concert in Vienna, after a small performance in 1980. The interview was done the day after this unbelievable experience. Since the late 1970s they released some of the most unique and exceptional music with albums like Play Struvé & Sneff, Songs for Swinging Larvae, Arabic Yodelling, The Elbow Is Taboo and they also collaborated with The Residents on Title in Limbo. Klanggalerie issued in 2014 their new album Gurdy Hurding and they also pleasantly went on reissuing all of their catalogue in wonderful quality.

http://www.renaldoloaf.com
http://www.radiopanik.org/moacrealsloa/renaldo-and-the-loaf
http://www.radiopanik.org/moacrealsloa/renaldo-and-the-loaf-part-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkPLVGETOIo

Un ritratto di Geoff Leigh attraverso la complessa discografia ufficiale, con l'aggiunta di brani inediti, rarità, spezzoni di un recente concerto dal vivo in duo con Makoto Kawabata e una conversazione con il diretto interessato: è negli archivi di Moacrealsloa di Radio Panik, alle puntate del 5 e 19 giugno scorsi.

http://www.radiopanik.org/geoff-leigh-interview-part-1
http://www.radiopanik.org/geoff-leigh-interview-part-2-with-live-concert
http://aliensatsea.blogspot.com

I materiali provvisori prodotti da Domenico Lancellotti assieme a Sean O'Hagan per Soundistante, uno degli eventi culturali di contorno nella Londra delle Olimpiadi del 2012, confluiscono a distanza di qualche anno nell'ottimo The Good is a Big God (Luaka Bop, 2018): un lungo percorso in molti tratti panoramico che dai sentieri della Serra dos Órgãos giunge quasi a incrociare Talahomi Way...

Domenico was asked to take part in an artistic occupation in the city of London during the 2012 Summer Olympics. There, he reunited with famed British musician Sean O’Hagan - whom he’d met a few years prior during a show that paid homage to Tropicália. Before he left for London, Domenico sent O’Hagan a few musical sketches he’d done on guitar; by the time the Brazilian made it to the U.K., O’Hagan had string arrangements to accompany Domenico’s music. “We recorded nine songs that served as the soundtrack for my final Rio-Occupation project - an art film called Soundistante in a big exhibition,” says ​Domenico a renowned drummer with the likes of Gilberto Gil and member of the now-defunct the +2s. The musician added lyrics to some of these songs once he returned to Brazil. His friend and label mate Kassin helped​ Domenico write the words for “Insatiable,” and O’Hagan wrote the lyrics for “Logo.” “There was a record ready!” Domenico recalls with excitement.

http://www.luakabop.com/photobio/Domenico

https://domenico2.bandcamp.com/album/the-good-is-a-big-god

Venne anticipato un paio d'anni fa da un extended play contenente tre brani, di cui uno assai bello, Ibrahim, fortemente caratterizzato dalla partecipazione di Robert Wyatt. Ora è pronto l'album completo, River's Tent, e l'autore Gerald Clark lo diffonde nuovamente sotto il nome The Great Divide: “There’s a line in Ibrahim about ‘the old world creeping up on you’. And in lots of ways that’s a common theme of the songs on River’s Tent (itself a line from The Wasteland by TS Eliot). It's about the clash between the Old World and the New World, and how that clash manifests itself in our culture.”

https://interruptingsheepmusic.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/thegreatdivideuk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP8p3KHmh0k&t=9s
https://soundcloud.com/geraldcmin6/medley-of-rivers-tent

Viene invece dalla versione che gli Henry Cow (con Robert Wyatt) consegnarono notoriamente a Concerts la riproposta di Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road operata da Yumi Hara con due protagonisti di allora, Tim Hodgkinson e Chris Cutler, suoi alleati (anche) nel trio The Watts. Per l'occasione, un concerto a Tokyo/Akihabara lo scorso 4 dicembre, c'erano sul palco del Goodman anche gli altri tre Canterbury Favourites oltre a Yumi, Kazuto Shimizu, Toshiaki Sudoh e Yuya Osabe. Per apprezzare la natura palindromica dell'originale rimane fortemente suggestiva la riflessione di ZissUntEtnah, sempre su YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M0u4JDrhRM&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYcl6SZBFws

Nell'album Knows Time, Knows Change (Fledg'ling Records, 2017) che ne ha segnato la ripresa delle attività dopo vent'anni, il gruppo Daphne's Flight - Helen Watson, Melanie Harrold, Julie Matthews, Chris While e Christine Collister, a vario titolo nomi di spicco nell'ambito del folk-rock britannico più eclettico ed elegante - ha inserito una versione di Shipbuilding derivandola a loro dire direttamente dall'ascolto di Robert Wyatt (e non cioè dalle 'colleghe' June Tabor o The Unthanks, per esempio). Il brano è parte anche del loro repertorio dal vivo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0xfBOV2XS8

https://www.daphnesflight.com
http://fledglingrecords.co.uk/product/knows-time-knows-change
https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/records/knowstimeknowschange

Ora è pronto a svelare tutti i suoi tesori, disseminati lungo trent'anni di musiche secondo un arco evolutivo ampio che ha condotto dal solo (Downtime) al trio (Just Woke Up, Hangman's Hill) al quintetto (Go Figure), con due ulteriori antologie di inediti (It's All 'Experimental') e un libriccino che racconta a più voci mille storie, criptostorie, retroscena (e qualche disavventura): The Peter Blegvad Bandbox.

ReR released the first Peter Blegvad Trio LP in 1988 and since then there's been a new one along about every 10 years, the latest adding Karen Mantler and Bob Drake, so it's a quintet now. In between, the trio toured Europe, America and Japan, did various projects and mounted a music-theatre performance. 30 years in, it seemed timely to collect everything together, add unreleased materials from concert recordings and out-takes, and write a fat illustrated book to tell the story so far. That box does this. In addition to the original releases, now re-mastered by Bob Drake and comprehensively repackaged, there are two full CDs of unreleased materials - and the book. That's 72 pages of documentation, recollections, reactions, insights and testimony - alongside priceless drawings and photographs, and all presented in a beautiful sturdy box. The trio was part of the fallout from the merger between Henry Cow and Slapp Happy in the mid 1970s. Once they'd unmerged, Henry Cow's bassist John Greaves joined Peter in New York to make Kew.Rhone - at Carla Bley's Grog Kill studio (which is where they met Karen, who X years later joined the band). Drummer Chris Cutler, also from Henry Cow, masterminded and released Peter's first independent recording, during the execution of which the trio instinctively came together. Since then, whatever other projects the three may have been engaged in (and there have been absurdly many), they kept coming back together to play Peter's songs. A proper artist: his songs have been covered (amongst others) by The Fall and Loudon Wainwright III - and have featured in movies; his cartoon series Leviathan ran in the Independent on Sunday for a decade [Peter Blegvad's comic strip is one of the greatest, weirdest things I've ever stared at. Matt Groening]; he's a regular on BBC Radio 3's The Word and author of several experimental radio dramas; his paintings appear in galleries and his stories are published in books. This box brings all the strands together - with additional help from B. J. Cole, Adam Philips, Eddie Reader, Loudon Wainwright III, Syd Straw, Phil Shaw, Geraint Watkins, Stoffer Blegvad and Jakko Jakszyk.

https://tinyurl.com/ydelc4wj
https://www.spincds.com/the-bandbox-6cd-box

Sean Kitching dipinge per The Quietus lo strano strano mondo di Charles Hayward, e ne parla nel contempo col diretto interessato. Da lui si fa dire tra l'altro dello strepitoso set solitario proposto dal vivo per anni tra la gioia e la meraviglia del pubblico di mezzo mondo - tra Abracadabra Information e One Big Atom più o meno, ma in epoche anche precedenti - prima di suscitare analoghe reazioni con il più recente, affatto diverso, 30 Minute Drum Roll: "I started to wonder how I could play drums and sing, and not do it with other musicians. So, I devised this system, where there are no click-tracks and in fact nothing is in time with anything else. I came up with a system where I had a collection of foot pedals, which controlled volume and then I had these taped signals which could be up to nine minutes long, which were built and tailored specifically to the song I was making, and as the song changed I’d take some sounds out and bring other sounds in, related to the harmonic shifts and I would bring them in and out in relation to the drum beat and the vocal line and people would think that everything was to a click-track. If I was playing a bass part, when I recorded the bass part, I would be thinking along the lines of a constantly shifting pulse, so there is no pulse. It becomes almost like an extreme funk, the bass doing these amazing syncopations against the drums, but it’s completely random. I think some people think I’m playing to a backing track, and I’m not. I’m playing to some sounds that I have made, that are assembled in front of your ears, differently each time I play. The audience makes sense of it and 90% of the work is going on in their heads. It means I can be wild. If I’m playing to a click-track, I’m being a good boy and the last thing I want to be when I’m making music is a good boy. Having to justify your time keeping against some bit of machinery is dehumanising. The heartbeat is at the centre, not the clock."

http://thequietus.com/articles/24790-the-strange-world-of-charles-hayward

Un concerto di Steve Miller e Lol Coxhill del settembre 1974, tratto dalle cronache del Virgin Crisis Tour con protagonisti Hatfield and the North e Kevin Coyne. Lo propone tra decine di altre perle rare il sito web dedicato alla memoria di Phil Miller, fratello di Steve. Per ogni altra cosa prodotta dal duo Coxhill/Miller (e/o Miller/Coxhill) rimane imprescindibile quanto raccolto da Cuneiform nel 2007 in The Story So Far​.​.​. / .​.​.​Oh Really?

https://philmillerthelegacy.com/music/steve-miller-lol-coxhill-74
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-story-so-far-oh-really

Compie cinquant'anni Machine Gun, Trost/Cien Fuegos lo rimette in circolazione in vinile e il titolare Peter Brötzmann affida un personale ricordo a Downbeat: "I never thought music was a healing force of the universe. I didn’t agree with Albert Ayler. But we wanted to change things; we needed a new start. In Germany, we all grew up with the same thing: ‘Never again.’ But in the government, all the same old Nazis were still there. We were angry. We wanted to do something.”

This historic free jazz album is a heavy-impact sonic assault so aggressive it still knocks listeners back on their heels decades later. Recorded in May 1968, Machine Gun captures some top European improvisers at the beginning of their influential careers, and is regarded by some as the first European -- not just German or British -- jazz recording. Originally self-released by Peter Brötzmann, the album eventually came out on the FMP label, and set a new high-water mark for free jazz and "energy music" that few have approached since. Brötzmann is joined on sax by British stalwart Evan Parker and Dutch reedsman Willem Breuker (before Breuker moved away from free music, his lungs were as powerful as Brötzmann's). The rest of the group consists of drummers Han Bennink (Dutch) and Sven-Åke Johansson (Swedish), Belgian pianist Fred van Hove, and bassists Peter Kowald (German) and Buschi Niebergall (Swiss). Brötzmann leads this octet in a notoriously concentrated dose of the relentless hard blowing so often characteristic of his music. While Brötzmann has played this powerfully on albums since, never again is it with a group of this size playing just as hard with him. The players declare and exercise their right to bellow and wail all they want; they both send up the stereotype of free playing as simply screaming, and unapologetically revel in it. The sound of Machine Gun is just as aggressive and battering as its namesake, blowing apart all that's timid, immovable, or proper with an unrepentant and furious finality. The years have not managed to temper this fiery furnace blast from hell; it's just as relentless and shocking an assault now as it was then. Even stout-hearted listeners will nearly be sent into hiding -- much like standing outside during a violent storm, withstanding this kind of fierce energy is a primal thrill. (Joslyn Layne, All Music)

http://downbeat.com/news/detail/machine-gun-turns-50
http://www.trost.at/peter-broetzmann-octet-machine-gun.html
https://www.allmusic.com/album/machine-gun

Un interessante e articolato scritto di Evan Parker presentato nel 1992 come note al programma in occasione della sua partecipazione al festival di Rotterdam Man & Machine (Zaal de Unie) trova nuova diffusione grazie a un'agile edizione bilingue nella serie delle raffinate produzioni della francese Lenka Lente. Il testo si intitola De Motu (for Buschi Niebergall) ed è stato citato tra gli altri da Steve Lake nella riedizione qualche anno fa di uno dei più esemplari lavori in solo del sassofonista, Monoceros. Nella sua versione sobria è presente anche presso l'archivio di European Free Improvisation Pages tenuto da tempo immemore dall'impareggiabile Peter Stubley.

http://www.lenkalente.com/product/de-motu-d-evan-parker
http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/fulltext/demotu.html