Giunge al capitolo numero 25 l'eccellente serie Probes curata da Chris Cutler per Ràdio Web MACBA presso il Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Barcellona. Al centro dell'attenzione è nuovamente l'impiego di oggetti e strumenti non convenzionali nei molteplici aspetti della creazione musicale: "Probes #25 continues to trace the importation of non-instruments into compositions and performances as, in their search for new sonorities, early jazz and blues musicians, contemporary composers, film composers, rock groups, sound artists and improvisers hit the toyshop and the hardware store."

https://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes-25-1-chris-cutler/capsula

https://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20190423/25probes_transcript_eng.pdf

La scaletta dei brani la si conosceva già da qualche giorno, ora c'è anche la copertina. Manca soltanto l'album - The Godfather Of Odd-A Hardy Fox Tribute - ma l'attesa è ormai breve. Scrive Walter Robotka, che ne cura la pubblicazione per Klanggalerie: "In 2015 Hardy Fox retired from The Residents, and two years later identified himself as the band's co-founder and primary composer. Hardy continued to record under various pseudonyms, best known as Charles Bobuck, until later he worked under his own name and released such seminal albums as Heart or Rilla contemplates Love. A week before his untimely death, Hardy recorded a very personal good-bye to his fans, a mini album entitled 25 Minus Minutes. For many of us, Hardy wasn't only a genius musician, but also a close personal friend. Philippe Perreaudin and I have thus put together a tribute album to him which collects specifically recorded music by former label mates, collaborators and friends, and also some musical admirers. The cover was made by Helge Wagner and it also features a piece of art by Liz Robotka."

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg300

Tra i piatti forti in programma alla mostra sui Residents in corso negli spazi del centro d'arte Transpalette di Bourges (Belgio) c'era ieri sera una versione dal vivo di God In Three Persons, realizzata con l'apporto di giovani musicisti e artisti locali e con la partecipazione di Joshua Brody e Leigh Barbier. L'ha trasmessa in diretta FB Hein Fokker:
https://www.facebook.com/hein.fokker/videos/10213432302154139

God In Three Persons est une interprétation de la trinité à la fois allégorique et personnelle où un impresario, nommé Mr. X. découvre deux jumeaux siamois guérisseurs, un frère et une sœur. Il les convainc de devenir leur manager, mais il est obsédé sexuellement par la jumelle du duo. Il les sépare et viole la jeune fille. Les jumeaux meurent et Mr. X. réalise que lui seul alimentait l’obsession dont il était victime. God In Three Persons est une histoire de l’Occident qui pleure sur la beauté qu’il a violée. Cet opéra-album créée en 1988, le plus “queer” à ce jour, a été conçu comme une possible pièce de théâtre.

En 2019, God In Three Persons devient une expérience tant sonore que visuelle où la fragilité de l’improvisation côtoie la précision de la composition musicale. Pour l’élaborer, une semaine de création collective rassemble de jeunes artistes du post-diplôme son de l’Ensa de Bourges, des étudiants en école d’art et des collaborateurs de longue date de The Residents: le musicien Joshua Brody et l’artiste Leigh Barbier. La performance donnée est donc un évènement unique: une forme totalement originale résultant d’un processus nouveau et d’un dispositif résolument expérimental.

http://www.bandits-mages.com/en/blog/2019/04/02/bandits-mages-presente-the-residents

Mike Westbrook ha visto di recente Henry Lowther in azione con il suo gruppo Still Waters, e ne scrive per lo Smith's Academy Notice Board: Trumpet for all Seasons.

"Now in his late seventies, Henry Lowther, along with Dave Holdsworth, is one of one of the very few representatives still around of a generation of trumpet players who lit up the London scene in the 1960s. London then boasted such luminaries as Kenny Wheeler, Harry Beckett, Mongezi Feza and Ian Carr. Over subsequent decades Henry has always been close to the action. Appearing in contexts ranging from free improvisation to big bands, orchestral music as well as small groups of every description, he has retained his distinctive voice. He has been featured soloist in projects by almost every composer and bandleader you can think of. Happily that includes me, and I still value enormously his contributions to Metropolis, and Citadel/Room 315."

http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/smithsboard/index.shtml

Primo appuntamento nel Continente per il progetto Granite di Kate Westbrook: questa sera alla Georgenkirche di Halle (Germania), per la rassegna Women in Jazz.

"I wanted to keep an ambiguity about humankind's engagement with Nature. Personification and Animism quite appeal to me. So, we have a mythical Quarry-worker who is both human and part of the landscape itself. But I want to emphasise that the ambiguous nature of this creature is an essential element. There is an underlying (I hope not didactic) concern with the relationship between humankind and the earth, between our responsibility for the planet and the death of both the Quarry-worker and the earth itself, between the environment and mortality." (Kate Westbrook, intervistata da Duncan Heining).

https://www.womeninjazz.de
https://www.womeninjazz.de/event.php?id=711
http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook/granite.shtml
http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook/duncan_interview.shtml

Si prepara la strada per il lungo addio dei Pere Ubu - indicando una svolta, ma non ancora uno stop alle attività del gruppo - con un album annunciato per luglio in due formati e toni hardboiled (The Long Goodbye, appunto) e una serie di concerti progettati con cura fino al 2020. La versione in cd conterrà anche il concerto dello scorso dicembre a Montreuil (Francia), quando in formazione c'erano David Thomas, Keith Moliné, Gagarin e Chris Cutler. Saranno proprio loro ad inaugurare i nuovi appuntamenti dal vivo il prossimo settembre, alla Bush Hall di Londra.

Ne parla per esteso lo stesso David Thomas a Danil Volohov di Peek-A-Boo: "I’m always thinking about “What’s next ?” – I don’t look backwards. I don’t sit here and think: “Oh! Everything is going well!” or “Everything is great!” We inherited this magnificent vehicle and I thought to myself: “Oh, I’m gonna get this thing out of its state and see what It can do!” – and I open that baby up. I push that pedal to the floor. It was satisfying! I was driving through the wilderness. After a while there is an “Exit” sign on a freeway, saying “Satisfied City – Exit – One mile”. I think to myself: “Yeah, I’m going to get to Satisfied City and get a house, settle down… and be happy doing something normal! I always wanted to work in an office or superstore. Or maybe I can get myself a little office supply store and sell paper clips…” But then I see the road disappear over the horizon. I see the road disappear over the next hill. And I’ve got to know what is over that hill. I have to know! So I drive on! I cross the great continent. Now I’m at the point when I’m looking down the road to the hill. And see the road disappear. I’m 65 years old. The road is running out for me. I don’t have much road left. I know that the end is coming. And I can see the end now. When you’re 20 – you don’t see the end. When you’re 30 – you don’t see the end. When you’re 40, 50 you kind of began to think: “Hmmmm, maybe there is an end. But I’m at the point when I can see the end. It’s really clear. So I've just got more to do. I still haven’t started my major process which is to reconfigure classical music. I always wanted to go and rewrite classical music. The rules and the forms. I should have studied mathematics because I know that the main problem with mathematics and physics and science is the notion of there being a zero. Of being a zero and being an infinity. So I need to prove mathematically, that these things are illusions. They don’t exist. But I don’t have time anymore. I've given that one up. So the things that I can do… I’m pushing the pedal to the floor now. That’s all."

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/pere-ubu-the-long-goodbye-2cd
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/pere-ubu-the-long-goodbye-lp
http://www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be/david-thomas-pere-ubu-2019

E sempre Klanggalerie pubblicherà presto un nuovo album dal vivo di Fred Frith, Woodwork, tratto da un recente concerto a Bruxelles all'Atelier Claus.

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg308
https://soundcloud.com/lesateliersclaus/2018-11-20-fred-frith-les-ateliers-claus-excerpt

Chi è a caccia di musicisti è invece Charles Hayward, pur in attesa della pubblicazione ormai prossima del suo lavoro solitario Begin Anywhere (su Klanggalerie). Lo ha detto a Klemen Breznikar, in una bella intervista pubblicata il mese scorso da It's Psychedelic Baby: "The big thing for me now is to make a group to do my songs, that’s the new thing I have to start from scratch and build, I’ve not let myself do that properly since Camberwell Now, been working in these other ways, but that feels like the biggest challenge on the horizon. I need to be able to develop it constantly so I’m looking for London based musicians for that."

https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2019/03/this-heat-interview-charles-hayward.html

Chi è a caccia di sorprese a Pasquetta può senz'altro rivolgersi all'inesauribile catalogo Chadbourne, dove come da tradizione coesistono bellamente novità dell'ultima - o penultima - ora, tracce estemporanee colte ovunque dal vivo, da solo o in compagnia, e preziose rarità d'archivio montate in imprevedibile sequenza. Tra le ultime cose spiccano un capitolo pre-Shockabilly con David Licht e Tom Shepard (Unreal Band) e un ripescaggio di nastri che in passato confluirono - ma solo in parte - nella serie Country Music in the World of Islam, con lo zampino di Elliott Sharp, Sun City Girls, Jon Rose e Derek Bailey (Cat Jammers: Invitation To A Jam Session). Da non perdere su YT è anche un reboante e recentissimo incontro di Roscoe Mitchell (Nonaah) e Syd Barrett (Lucifer Sam) trascinati sul terreno del power trio...

http://eugenechadbourne.com
https://eugenechadbourne-documentation.squarespace.com
https://youtu.be/ArG3NjmEi-0

Non è buona e promettente soltanto la notizia che Keith Tippett sia tornato a suonare in pubblico qualche giorno fa dopo la lunga convalescenza, è cosa lieta anche l'imminente ripubblicazione di un suo antico capolavoro solista, The Unlonely Raindancer, divenuto oltretutto di rara reperibilità quasi subito. Ne dà annuncio Martin Archer, per la sua Discus Music: "A great many of you expressed interest when I posted recently that Discus Music will, in 2019, be re-issuing Keith Tippett's very first solo piano album - The Unlonely Raindancer (originally released in 1980 by Universal Productions on a double LP). Well, the good news is - this CD is now at the factory and should be out into the world in around 3 weeks. I'll be taking pre-orders very soon for this fabulous and dynamic CD/DL; music which effectively sets the scene for Keith's subsequent solo piano oevre, notably the Mujician series which appeared in the decade following. Watch out for this upcoming delight."

www.discus-music.co.uk

Nel dopoconcerto di Terry Riley con il figlio Gyan ieri sera a Trento qualcuno cercava - ingenuamente - una copia di A Rainbow in Curved Air nell'edizione del cinquantesimo anniversario, una sciccheria trasparente da collezione prodotta da Music on Vinyl in soli 750 esemplari. Era disponibile invece l'ultimo lavoro dei Rileys, Way Out Yonder (Sri Moonshine Music, 2018), un più comune cd tratto in gran parte dall'esibizione del duo al Fimav di Victoriaville un paio d'anni fa. Un frammento di Rainbow è tuttavia apparso nel mirabolante pezzo elettronico scivolato verso la conclusione del lungo set, festoso e fugace come un bagliore di Luna Rosa. In piena coincidenza.

http://terryriley.net
http://gyanriley.com

Puntuale a ogni luna piena arriva un nuovo episodio di Canterbury Sans Frontières, e siamo già al numero settanta da quando è avvenuto il passaggio di testimone dalla precedente serie Canterbury Soundwaves. Scrive Matthew Watkins: "Matching Mole contemplate Britain's role in Europe, Egg loosely wring out the ground (with the help of their old friend Steve Hillage), Gong contribute to the soundtrack of a motorcycle racing film, Soft Machine display their "Teeth" and Hatfield and the North get an extended case of "Mumps". Also, a 1973 John Peel session track from Henry Cow, a lullaby from Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt and friends singing Harold Pinter, and a selection from Robert himself -- a slab of Turkmenistani spiritual jazz fusion from '79! Sun Ra solo in 1980, Jon Hassell live in '82, NYC's Sunwatchers covering Alice Coltrane, Terry Riley remixed and a gentle gem from early 70s Floyd. From the Canterbury of recent times, the only 4/4 track on the last Lapis Lazuli album and some deep melancholia from Anthony "Stray Ghost" Saggers."

https://canterburywithoutborders.blogspot.com/2019/04/episode-70.html

Si inaugura questa settimana a Bourges (Francia) e rimane aperta fino al 2 giugno prossimo per iniziativa del collettivo Bandits-Mages la prima esposizione al mondo dedicata ai Residents, con l'arduo compito di offrire uno sguardo organico alle molteplici attività manifeste e segrete del gruppo, attraverso le opere musicali, grafiche, audiovisive e multimediali via via prodotte in quasi cinquant'anni di storia. Ci saranno proiezioni, ascolti guidati, interviste e conferenze con la partecipazione di Leigh Barber e Homer Flynn, una presentazione dal vivo di God in Three Persons, incontri a sorpresa e altre apparizioni, ovviamente avvolte nel mistero, e perfino una ricostruzione della stanza maledetta di Bunny Boy. Chissà se basteranno i tre piani del centro d'arte contemporanea Transpalette scelto come sede; un primo assaggio è in programma stasera, con l'intervento radiofonico pubblico di Cosmogol 999 per la Jet FM di Nantes.

This first retrospective exhibition of The Residents, produced by Bandits-Mages, covers the three floors of the Transpalette in Bourges. Within these walls The Bunny Boy Secret Room will physically reappear after its creation in 2008 on youtube. A deep trip into the visual and audio aesthetics of the collective, the exhibition puts rare documents and archives into perspective through performances, screenings and meetings with thinkers and contemporary artists.

http://www.bandits-mages.com/en/blog/2019/04/02/bandits-mages-presente-the-residents

Uno degli ultimi concerti di This Is Not This Heat - quello dell'1 marzo all'EartH di Hackney a Londra, in parte trasmesso da Late Junction per la BBC - è nelle emozionanti immagini di Fabio Lugaro, prima durante e dopo:
https://www.fabiolugaro.com/blog/a-day-with-this-is-not-this-heat

E il ricordo degli Henry Cow ritorna, liberamente ma intenzionalmente, anche nel lavoro del flautista Michel Edelin realizzato lo scorso settembre assieme a Sophia Domancich, Sylvain Kassap, Stéphane Kerecki e Simon Goubert, con ospite John Greaves: Echoes of Henry Cow, in uscita a giorni per RogueArt. Scrive Aymeric Leroy nelle note di copertina: "This album should in no way be mistaken for a "tribute" to Henry Cow, let alone a faithful recreation, in spirit and/or letter, of their music, rather – and this is how the title chose by Michel Édelin should be understood - its echoes (much transformed during its long journey through time, space, memory and the mysterious twists and turns of the creative process) in his own musical inner world."

https://roguart.com/product/echoes-of-henry-cow/132
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rWq5s1OnMU

La data di pubblicazione del libro di Benjamin Piekut Henry Cow-The World is a Problem è ormai vicina, a settembre secondo la Duke University Press. Per ora ne hanno copia provvisoria correttori di bozze e lettori di fiducia.

In September 2019, Duke University Press will be publishing a new book on the experimental band Henry Cow, Henry Cow: The World is a Problem. The avant-rock/jazz band featured a rotating cast of members and continuously challenged genre and other conventions. Active in the UK and Europe, but never quite popular due to their uncomprising committment to experimentation and their radical politics, Henry Cow performed and recorded from 1968 until 1978. Drawing on ninety interviews with Henry Cow musicians and crew, letters, notebooks, scores, journals, and meeting notes, music scholar Benjamin Piekut offers the definitive history of the band. He traces the group's pursuit of a political and musical collectivism, offering up their history as but one example of the vernacular avant-garde that emerged in the decades after World War II.

Benjamin Piekut is a historian of experimental music, jazz, and rock after 1960. His first monograph, Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and its Limits, was published in 2011 by the University of California Press. He is also the editor of Tomorrow Is the Question: New Directions in Experimental Music Studies (Michigan, 2014) and co-editor (with George E. Lewis) of the Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2 volumes, 2016). His second monograph, The World Is a Problem: Henry Cow and the Vernacular Avantgarde, is under contract with Duke University Press. His essay in The Drama Review, “Deadness,” co-authored with Jason Stanyek, received the “Outstanding Article Award” in 2011 from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Previously a lecturer at the University of Southampton.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/henry-cow

https://twitter.com/DukePress
http://liminalities.net/14-1/enigmas.pdf
https://twitter.com/blackfaurest

The Peter Blegvad Quintet

“Peter Blegvad is joined by longtime comperes John Greaves and Chris Cutler, on bass and drums respectively, and of course they are maestros… he fills out the band with Bob Drake on guitar and Karen Mantler, who plays keyboards, chromatic harmonica and provides backup vocals. Greaves and Cutler comprise one of the most innovative and intricate rhythm sections in modern music... Drake and Mantler fill out the band's sound beautifully; the result is some of the warmest, most humane music Blegvad has ever produced.” (Glenn Kenny)

Stasera! Al Cafe Oto! Sì!

Il libro che racconta i trenta incredibili giorni di Radio Revolten - festival di arte radiofonica tenutosi per tutto il mese di ottobre 2016 ad Halle (Germania) - è finalmente pronto, ed è anch'esso abbastanza incredibile: lo pubblica a Leipzig Spector Books.

Leading art institutions such as Tate Modern, the São Paulo Biennial, and Documenta have now recognized that an ongoing artistic use of the airwaves has generated an autonomous genre called radio art. Over the last few decades independent radio stations in North America and Europe have provided crucial support for this art form to develop and flourish. In October 2016 the International Radio Art Festival Radio Revolten, organized by community radio station Corax, brought together today’s radio artists in Halle (Saale) in Germany. Radio Revolten featured a dedicated radio art station, installations, live performances, conferences, workshops, and public interventions. This book documents the world’s most extensive radio art festival, which presented community radio as an open-access medium for cultural use.

Texts by: Knut Aufermann, Helen Hahmann, Sarah Washington, Ralf Wendt. With additional contributions by: Xentos Fray Bentos, Anna Friz, Hartmut Geerken, Lucinda Guy, Martin Hartung, Lukas Holfeld, Udo Israel, Tina Klatte, Jan Langhammer, Sophea Lerner, Michael Nicolai, Gabi Schaffner, Helen Thein, Nina Westermann, Gregory Whitehead, Florian Wüst and Elisabeth Zimmermann.

https://radiorevolten.net/30-days-of-radio-art
https://radiocorax.de/produkt/radio-revolten-30-days-of-radio-art
http://spectorbooks.com/radio-revolten
https://www.hibou-anemone-bear.com/revolten

Storie antiche e recenti di Kevin Ayers raccontate su YT da uno dei suoi più amorevoli conoscitori: RR1234Tube.

http://www.kevinayers.org

Il cd è marchiato 2019 ma in sostanza proviene dalla raccolta che Charly Acqusitions mise insieme nel 2015 per raccontare la Trilogia (a dispetto del gruppo). Ne ha qualche copia a modico prezzo Burning Shed: è Flying Teapot, con i Pot Head Pixies a tutto vapore. In attesa del vero omaggio ai Gong, tra qualche mese.

"The music? It’s a delightful, beaming burble of left-turning, cosmic-funk riffs (‘Radio Gnome Invisible’), cackling, erotic whispers (‘Witch’s Song/I Am Your Pussy’), shimmering nebulas of glissando guitar (the title track) and contrails of electronica (‘The Octave Doctors And The Crystal Machine’). Well, what else could it be?"

https://burningshed.com/gong_flying-teapot_cd

Altro titolo tra i primi a beneficiare dell'iniziativa di recupero del proprio glorioso catalogo da parte della Topic è The Sweet Primeroses di Shirley Collins (1967), qui affiancato dai brani del singolo Heroes Of Love: "Topic Records are proud to present the Shirley Collins album The Sweet Primeroses plus bonus material by way of the Heroes Of Love Topic EP with sleeve notes by Colin Irwin and photos by Brian Shuel and packaged with the original album artwork. During the 1960s and 70s Shirley Collins was regarded by many as the first lady of folk music, the subsequent decades have only served to enhance that reputation. Between 1955 and 1978 she recorded for the Folkways, Argo, Harvest and Topic labels. After the release of For As Many As Will in 1978 she withdrew from performing and the music world after developing dysphonia. Shirley recently returned to recording after a very long hiatus and is still widely acknowledged as one of the finest singers and ambassadors to have emerged during the Folksong Revival of the 1960s."

http://www.topicrecords.co.uk
https://www.propermusic.com/TopicRecords/shirley-collins-the-sweet-primeroses

Con il recupero del primo bellissimo album di Anne Briggs (1971) prende il via la serie di ristampe di lusso di alcune perle del catalogo storico della Topic, giusto nell'anno del suo ottantesimo compleanno.

Anne Briggs began singing in local folk clubs in her teens. In 1962 she became part of the Centre 42 tour which was a leftist group of artists, writers, actors and musicians whose aim was to make arts and culture accessible to the masses. Ewan MacColl first heard Briggs’ remarkable voice and persuaded her to join the group and tour. There Briggs met MacColl’s comrade A. L. ‘Bert’ Lloyd who became her mentor. Briggs' debut EP, The Hazards Of Love, was produced by Lloyd. Lloyd also recorded Briggs for Topic released albums The Iron Muse and The Bird In The Bush.
In 1971 Anne Briggs recorded this, her debut full length album simply named Anne Briggs with Johnny Moynihan of Sweeny’s Men appearing on one track. Tracks include ‘Blackwater Side’, ‘The Snow It melts The Soonest’ and ‘Go Your Way (My Love)’. Famously, Briggs taught Bert Jansch the song ‘Blackwater Side’, which he recorded on his classic 1965 debut album; the next year his pivotal traditional album Jack Orion largely comprised songs he learnt from Briggs who helped him understand the structure of folk song. Briggs and Jansch also wrote a handful of songs together. ‘Go Your Way’ being one of them.

http://www.topicrecords.co.uk
https://www.propermusic.com/TopicRecords/262802-anne-briggs

A circa quarant'anni dalla sua prima pubblicazione ufficiale - Zappa in New York, doppio album uscito nel 1978 - vede la luce in modo esteso e completo il documento dei quattro storici concerti tenuti da Frank Zappa al Palladium di New York tra Natale e Capodanno del 1976, con una messe di informazioni aggiuntive e oltre tre ore di materiale inedito nella versione in scatola con cinque cd: “We are excited to bring you this new deluxe version of Zappa in New York," the Zappa Family Trust write in the album notes. "It's an opportunity to re-examine and celebrate the source material of a great album while exploring the events of Frank’s life in late December 1976. Collections like these really show of the work ethic of a musical genius."

https://www.zappa.com/news/frank-zappas-beloved-live-double-album-zappa-new-york-celebrated-suite-40th-anniversary
https://youtu.be/m58BKH2dOPg

Gli album di Ian Carr e Nucleus da Elastic Rock a Alleycat, già oggetto in passato di ristampe e ripubblicazioni varie, sono ora raggruppati - ma un po' scomposti rispetto alle edizioni originali - da Esoteric Recordings in un box antologico dal titolo Torrid Zone-The Vertigo Recordings 1970-1975. Dalle note di copertina del celebre album d'esordio viene riportata la dichiarazione d'intenti di Carr: "Nucleus is just what the word implies - a small, tightly knit group of musicians. We’re all closely involved with each other musically, and some of us have played together in different contexts before, but this is the first time we’ve met to try and realise our common musical ideals. We see music as a continuous process and have tried to express this on the album. We mean continuous not simply in the physical sense of non-stop sets, but in the general sense that we don’t recognise rigid boundaries, but try to use our total musical experience, whatever it may be".

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/nucleus-ian-carr-torrid-zone
https://www.facebook.com/EsotericRecordings
https://iancarrsnucleus.webs.com

E poiché non c'è due senza tre ecco I Remain, da Split Seconds (1989). Grazie Billie! Grazie Miller!

Here is the third part in celebrating 70 years of the late, great, guitarist / composer and all round inspiration, Phil Miller. Phil’s 1989 album, Split Seconds, features the track Truly Yours which he dedicated to his wife, Herm. It is a feat of contrapuntal writing where the lines interweave with beautiful intrigue. The album also features a version arranged by Dave Stewart with Barbara Gaskin entitled I Remain, and this was the starting point for my version. Lyrically, I was inspired by Daevid Allen’s statement to fans in the weeks leading up to his own demise - thank you Daevid. I dedicate this version to all who are grieving, most especially Herm. Yet again, I hope this recording is some kind of tribute to a phenomenal presence in many of our musical lives. (Billie Bottle)

https://billiebottle.bandcamp.com/album/grazie-miller

Non ci sarà più alcuna ristampa invece per Bar Torque, l'album di Elton Dean e Mark Hewins che nel 2001 inaugurò le pubblicazioni di MoonJune Records. Lo annuncia lo stesso Leonardo Pavkovic, invitando a procurarsene una copia prima che sia tardi: "This CD presents an improvised duo setting with guitarist Mark Hewins, a longtime partner with a remarkable talent for atmospheric accompaniment. The music on this release focuses on the most lyrical dimension of Dean's saxophone playing, with melodic outbursts inspired by and buoyed upon Hewins' delicate, dreamy, harmonic foundation. The aural path treaded by this uncanny pair of musicians is playful, unpredictable, and thoroughly original. Abstract but not amorphous, Bar Torque is improvisation at its most touching and universal. This will appeal to fans of alternative rock/pop, electronica, experimental and otherwise esoteric styles, and, of course, jazz and progressive rock."

https://moonjunerecords.bandcamp.com/merch/elton-dean-mark-hewins-bar-torque-cd

Torna in circolazione un raro documento dell'attività dal vivo a metà anni Novanta del Kenny Process Team, in formazione a quattro con l'avvento del compianto Simon King poco dopo l'esordio discografico (Surfin' With..., 1994) dei soli Kevin Plummer, Matt Armstrong e Dave Ross: Trav’lin’ light With…, allora uscito solo in musicassetta, ora ripubblicato in vinile da Vacilando '68.

https://www.facebook.com/KennyProcessTeam
https://www.clubintegral.com
http://www.kevinplummer.com

Biota, Steve MacLean, Ake Hodell, Bing Selfish, John Greaves, Phil Minton e Veryan Weston, Alan Jenkins, Mister Lear & The Nervous Family (con Joseph Racaille!) e qualche copia ancora dell'Art Box: è l'aggiornamento del mese per ReR Megacorp.

http://www.rermegacorp.com

Dopo molti rinvii e lunghe fasi transitorie ha finalmente assunto una forma più definita il progetto intermediale KiTsuNe / Brian The Fox, ideato diversi anni fa dal giapponese The Future Eve a partire da un contributo di Robert Wyatt: una dozzina di tracce sonore - una in più nell'edizione in vinile - pubblicate a Tokyo dall'etichetta Flau, e un sito web fotografico ricco di riferimenti mutevoli e sfuggenti, di grande fascino.

Prova a descrivere l'album Darren McClure, per Toneshift: "Japanese composer The Future Eve arrives on the Flau label with an exquisite album featuring vocals and keyboards by the legendary Robert Wyatt. Wyatt had a musical idea named “Brian The Fox”, an idea untethered to tempo, and this looseness permeates through the twelve tracks here. Stark drones morph into bubbling electronics and vocals are smudged into spectral after-images.
The album is made up of differing versions of Wyatt’s singular idea. The first four tracks employ washes of synths and processed samples, sounding at once playful and experimental. There’s a hauntological presence going on at times, the way the vocals are treated with reverb and delay.
The second suite of tracks are all variations of the title “kitsune ring version” and offer, for my money, a more satisfying sound. “Kitsune” is Japanese for fox, so these literally translate into the title track. These eight tracks are more subdued and melancholy, their production warmer and richer than the preceding four. Wyatt’s vocals are pushed more to the fore here, using less effects processing which lends them a shinier tone. The penultimate track here is particularly minimal, and my favourite piece on the album. Lowercase ambient sounds lay an ominous foundation upon which various rumbling tones come and go. Restrained yet evocative, it’s an interesting contrast to the final track that puts the focus back on Wyatt’s voice."

http://ki-tsu-ne.com
https://flau.bandcamp.com/album/kitsune-brian-the-fox
https://toneshift.net/2019/03/27/the-future-eve-feat-robert-wyatt
https://coldexperiment.com/en/interview/the-future-eve

https://www.hibou-anemone-bear.com/search?q=kitsune

Chi mai avrebbe potuto pubblicare il proprio album d'esordio il primo di aprile, se non i Residents? Quarantacinque anni fa, esatti.

What kind of fools would release their debut album on April 1st? Well, we figured nobody else would, so forty-five years ago to the day Meet The Residents was introduced to an unprepared public. It took a while to catch on – rumours of the album selling a total of forty copies in its first year may or may not be true – but nowadays people seem to like it. And John Lennon supposedly kept a copy on his mantelpiece, which presumably can’t be said of many other records. So let’s hear it for debut albums, for April Fools and for those forty individuals who got it from day one back in 1974.

https://residents.com/historical/?page=meettheresidents