L'attesa è finita. 

Domani si inizia. 

Wheee...

Phil Miller - The Legacy

(trailer)

Al Bull and Gate di Londra il 3 settembre 1985 Hugh Hopper, Lol Coxhill, Mark Hewins e Dave Sheen si presentarono come The Mad Axe Quartet. Fu il loro primo e unico concerto insieme: Over There.

https://markhewins.bandcamp.com/album/over-there
https://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/mad-axe-quartet

Varie versioni di Memories e un paio di Moon in June si riascoltano abbastanza piacevolmente - se non fosse per un paio di insensate intrusioni - in un recente episodio di Square Root Radio curato da Praga da Miloš Latislav. E' su Mixcloud: Memories - A collection of songs by Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt plus others.

https://www.mixcloud.com/memories

François Gorin tenta un ritratto di Alfreda Benge ('celle qui peint les pochettes de Robert Wyatt') su Télérama, quinto espisodio della serie estiva Dans l'ombre de...

« Un peu poisson, un peu marsouin, un peu bébé cachalot… » C’était une façon singulière de décrire l’être aimé dans une chanson. Mais Robert Wyatt, qui en 1974 dédiait Sea Song à sa nouvelle compagne, Alfreda Benge, était tout sauf un chanteur pop ordinaire. Et cette ode marine, juste un hommage parmi d’autres sur l’album Rock Bottom, considéré encore aujourd’hui comme le chef-d’œuvre du musicien anglais. Car pour Wyatt, il y a eu un avant et un après « Alfie » — ainsi nommait-on déjà, quand il la remarqua, cette jeune femme fougueuse et créative, qui attirait les regards dans des vêtements conçus de sa main. Près de cinquante ans plus tard, leur couple aussi évident qu’atypique est toujours soudé, rare exception chez les artistes. Et si Alfreda Benge s’est toujours contentée de l’aura discrète de « la femme qui dessine ou peint les pochettes », quiconque s’est intéressé à la vie et à la musique de Robert Wyatt sait qu’il lui doit plus encore.

https://www.telerama.fr/alfreda-benge

Mike Barnes intervista John Greaves per la rivista Prog nel numero di questo mese (luglio 2020). Così introduce: "The bassist joined Henry Cow in the autumn of 1969 and remained a constant in the band until his departure in ’76. He also played with National Health and Soft Heap, and teamed up with Slapp Happy’s Peter Blegvad for 1977’s conceptual Kew. Rhone.. He’s enjoyed a modest solo career, which includes his current album Life Size, and, in 2014, he reunited with his Henry Cow bandmates at London’s Barbican to celebrate bassoonist Lindsay Cooper’s life. Here, he looks back over a varied career that’s taken in performances with Mike Oldfield, Jakko Jakszyk and Robert Wyatt."

https://pocketmags.com/it/prog-magazine

Prima di Freak Show e Gingerbread Man, particolarmente attesi da molti appassionati, la serie pREServed si rivolge al recupero in 'realtà aumentata' di un altro grande classico dei Residents prodotto nelle transizioni di metà carriera, Cube-E - The History Of American Music In 3 E-Z Pieces. Sarà un box di sette cd con rarità e molti inediti, pronto per ottobre presso Cherry Red Records.

In the late 1980s The Residents embarked on what many fans still consider their greatest live project. Cube-E – The History Of American Music In 3 E-Z Pieces spanned almost four years and proposed to do nothing less than its title suggested, telling the story of American popular music, from its birth around the campfires of a non-existent Old West to its death at the hands of Elvis and the British Invasion, all in three easy pieces. Performed on TV and on stage around the world between 1987 and 1990, the show saw The Residents fully embrace their loves of elaborate and imaginative staging, the latest in music technology and, of course, The King - Elvis Aaron Presley. It goes without saying that there was barely a dry seat in the house, and alongside live recordings and contemporaneous studio material this pREServed set includes the previously unreleased demos for the entire King & Eye album, which saw the group tackle twenty-something (you can count ’em!) of Mr. Swivel Hips’ hottest hits. Spread across an inescapably unwieldy 7CDs at the group’s insistence, “Cube-E pREServed” is the final word in Americana cool. Or so it says here!

https://www.residents.com
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-residents-cube-e-preserved-7cd-boxset

L'invito rivolto dai Residents ai propri fan non ha mancato di ottenere risposta, che è stata anzi immediata e travolgente. Sicché Die! Die! Die! è ora anche Dance! Dance! Dance!, grazie al montaggio di John Sanborn: “After working with The Residents on various projects for over 30 years, it’s clear that their proclivity for disruption and picking at the unhealed wounds of pop culture has not diminished one bit. After we collaborated on Bury My Bone they asked me to mash up the spectacularly disturbing video they created for Die! Die! Die! with submissions from their fans. When asking for user generated content there is usually a risk that what is offered will underwhelm, but Residents' fans are truly able and inspired, and passionate as hell. They took to the assignment with a clear purpose, mirroring the dark, brooding nature of the song, while celebrating its message: when something is rotten, it needs to die!”

https://residents.com
https://youtu.be/8W_QerWy65Y
https://youtu.be/mF1aKdtQ8Wg
https://youtu.be/aA1U1xvIpCU

Chi in passato ha dubitato un po' che nel cuore dei Quattro Magnifici potesse davvero trovar posto il blues - quello delle più solide tradizioni della Louisiana, o quello appreso dalle versioni apocrife di Alvin Snow - sarà rassicurato (si fa per dire) dall'album Metal, Meat & Bone-The Songs of Dyin’ Dog, pubblicato or ora da Cherry Red e da Psychofon in tutte le fogge possibili. Con un piccolo irrisolto dilemma, che rimanda però a un antico gioco: sono i Residents che suonano Alvin, o viceversa? O entrambe le cose?

During the recording of their Metal, Meat And Bone album, wherein The Residents produced their own versions of songs originally recorded by Alvin Snow, aka Dyin’ Dog, the group found themselves experiencing a number of peculiar and unexplainable sensations. Call them what you will – impulses, cerebral interferences or just good old vibes – this was nothing new for The Residents, but what was unusual was the group’s developing belief that these sensations may have been spiritual resonances reaching them from whichever plain the long-lost Snow now inhabits.

Intrigued, The Residents began to actively open themselves up to whatever was happening, and slowly but surely ideas for songs, lyrics, melodies and rhythms the group could neither explain nor claim entirely as their own began to appear in their collective thoughts. And so this collection of songs inspired by Alvin Snow and those peculiar vibrations came into being. This isn’t Alvin’s music, but it is music which couldn’t possibly exist without those original Dyin’ Dog recordings, and without the journey they took The Residents on.

So The Residents play Alvin, and somehow Alvin, it seems, plays The Residents. We’ll never know for sure what went on during those recordings sessions, but here is all the evidence we need that some special happened. Equal parts pan-dimensional projection and group exorcism. Or, perhaps, just the collective hallucinations of a bunch of guys who partied too hard in the seventies and could do with getting out more. Either way, The Residents hope you’ll enjoy.

https://www.residents.com

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-residents-metal-meat-bone-deluxe-cd
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-residents-metal-meat-bone-limited-vinyl
https://www.psychofonrecords.com/residents-metal-meat-bone
https://tinyurl.com/y6ohsolo
https://tinyurl.com/yx9x9dpo

Chi in passato ha partecipato al gruppo di discussione animato dai Residents - ebbe durata breve, tra l'estate del 2011 e quella del 2012, e si chiamava The Bog - sa dell'esistenza di una serie di brani inediti, perlopiù incompiuti o provvisori, che lì vennero resi disponibili in download per una cifra simbolica destinata a sostenere le spese di gestione del blog. L'austriaca Klanggalerie ne pubblica ora una selezione in cd: Eyeful.

The Eyeful series of online releases was active from 25th August 2011 to 26h August 2012. It was called "a Bog benefit", with the Bog being The Residents' blog and chat group. Each download cost 79c when originally issued. So far, this series has never been collected and released on a cd. Now, for the first time ever, we present you The Residents' Eyeful as an album. Liner notes by Brian Poole of Renaldo and The Loaf.

https://residents.com
http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg336
https://meettheresidents.fandom.com/wiki/Eyeful

Chi in passato ha seguito almeno qualcuno degli episodi di RandyLand - proposti sul web in tre diverse stagioni tra il 2013 e il 2016 - non può non rammentare l'immancabile benvenuto al pubblico da parte del protagonista Randy Rose (ora Warthog): 'Hey everybody! It's me, Randy, singer for The Residents!'. Oggi l'intera serie è condensata in un video di una dozzina di minuti, dove quel saluto risuona più che mai chiaro e forte: quarantaquattro volte, in sincronia!

https://youtu.be/9rDC2a4KE28

Anche i Residents vedono in questi giorni una loro misteriosa (beh!) storia illustrata da un appassionato e competente conoscitore: The Teds, progetto rimasto incompiuto nei primi anni Novanta, interpretato da Sergio Ponchione sull'ultimo numero della rivista di fumetti Capek.

The legendary Residents story about The Teds is finally available. Originally written in the 1990s as a potential film project in collaboration with David Lynch, the story languished in The Residents archive until Cryptic was approached by the Italian comic magazine Capek. After revising and submitted the story, amazing artwork was added by the incredible Sergio Ponchione. Now... Finally... The story can be sold!

https://residents.com
https://youtu.be/IrWbFagICd4
https://www.facebook.com/sergio.ponchione
https://www.capekmagazine.org/p/capek.html
https://www.lospaziobianco.it/capek-2-the-residents-e-sergio-ponchione

Il lato B di Ruth is Stranger than Richard nella sua intera sequenza è stato meravigliosamente interpretato visivamente da Shlomo 'Shin Pey' Polonsky - già autore del fantastico Little Red Concert - basandosi sulla storica performance degli Henry Cow con Robert Wyatt al New London Theatre del 21 maggio 1975. La paziente ricerca iconografica, l'intima conoscenza del materiale e l'astuta elaborazione narrativa sono la cifra distintiva di un nuovo omaggio rispettoso e creativo di grandissimo pregio: Henry and Robert play Richard. Bravo Shlomo!

Henry and Robert play Richard

Yumi Hara Cawkwell termina domani un breve giro di concerti in Giappone con uno speciale evento a porte chiuse trasmesso in streaming per celebrare insieme i ventiquattro anni di attività del celebre Club Goodman a Tokyo e soprattutto il proprio compleanno. Al suo fianco ci saranno Tatsuya Yoshida, Natsuki Kido, Toshiaki Sudoh, Miwazow, Wataru Ohkuma, Itoken e Rie Takeuchi. In scaletta brani tratti dagli album da titolare - il secondo dei quali ancora in via di pubblicazione - e dal repertorio del Lindsay Cooper Songbook, diversi omaggi alla cosiddetta scuola di Canterbury, un medley dedicato agli Yes (probabilmente sulla falsariga di quelli in cui erano fortissimi i Ruins) e l'intero lato B del wyattiano Ruth is Stranger than Richard. Si potrà seguire il tutto su YT a partire dalle 13.00, ora italiana.

http://www.yumiharacawkwell.co.uk/HTML/gigdates2020.html
https://youtu.be/ryGNiDzDsv8

Sta facendo giustamente furore in rete il video creato collettivamente dalla tenace base di amici colleghi e seguaci dei Gentle Giant, con loro stessi protagonisti e virtualmente insieme per la prima volta dopo quarant'anni. Il brano è Proclamation, da The Power and the Glory (1974): ottima la scelta, ottima l'esecuzione - pur da disparate e remote distanze - ed eccellente la realizzazione tecnica, tutta firmata Shulman. Da non perdere!

Fans from around the world celebrate their love of music and Gentle Giant with their renditions of Proclamation from the album The Power & The Glory. This video also marks the first time in 40 years that all members of Gentle Giant appear on screen and play together in a ‘virtual reunion’. Some notable contributors also make an appearance such as Jakko Jakszyk of King Crimson, Billy Sherwood of Yes, E.L.O. bassist Lee Pomeroy, Dan Reed of the Dan Reed Network, Richard Hilton of Chic and Mikey Heppner of Priestess. Directed and Edited by Noah Shulman. Sound Mixing by Ray Shulman. "Music is a universal language that brings people together. Thank you to all the fans around the world for helping to make this happen" (The Boys in the Band).

www.gentlegiantband.com
https://youtu.be/NYjFP8gildU

Altra anticipazione su un nuovo album entro l'anno - dovrebbe intitolarsi Inside the Head of Steven Saint, salvo ripensamenti - viene da Bing Selfish, in pieno tormento nostalgico (vero o supposto) di una certa Monaco tipo Attenti a quei due: Olde Monaco.

https://youtu.be/vxPNVjbclpw

La brutta e difficile esperienza personale con il Covid-19 l'ha portata a rileggere in altro modo testo e musica del Rocket Man di Elton John, di cui peraltro voleva dare una propria versione già un paio d'anni fa: il ritmo ora è dato dalla tosse e dall'affanno del respiro corto, registrati sul cellulare nei momenti più critici della quarantena, mentre l'ossessionante ritornello assume il tono di una malvagia profezia ('And I think it's gonna be a long, long time'). Cat Rees di Bad Dream Fancy Dress - con Jeff Forehead - presenta il nuovo singolo in attesa del nuovo album Bionic, con la promessa di destinarne i proventi a Croce Rossa, Unicef e altre associazioni impegnate in ambito umanitario: Rocket Man Heroes.

https://www.baddreamfancydress.com
https://youtu.be/fSnp6tu7Mgc

Una perdita che addolora molto chi ne conosceva l'umanità e il talento è quella di Ken Brake, figura chiave nella realizzazione degli album di Louis Philippe lungo il corso dell'intera carriera e in gran parte responsabile della riuscita acustica ed estetica dei lavori discografici di Jonathan Coe, Stuart Moxham, Louise Le May, con ruolo importante in alcune prove di Big Big Train e The Clientele, e l'apporto fondamentale a un capolavoro quale The Ocean Tango.

Ne è profondamente colpito Louis Philippe: "I can barely bring myself to write this. Ken Brake, my brother in music and so much else for more than twenty-five years, died the other day. When I think of him, the first word which comes to my mind is 'exquisite', in his tastes as in the way he sculpted sounds and, more importantly than anything else, in the way he treated others. The second is 'funny', as in split-your-sides funny. Oh, Ken, you devil... We worked on hundreds of songs, on my own projects, but also with Louise Le May, Jonathan Coe, The Clientele, and our other soul brother, Stuart Moxham. The last album we did together, The Devil Laughs, was also the first on which Ken contributed a tune of his own. He also sang the lead vocal on that song, Fighting To Lose, with Stuart and I providing the harmonies, the three of us united in music as we were and always will be in the kind of friendship which makes life worth living. I miss you so much, Ken, as much as I loved you. Goodbye, my beautiful friend."

https://www.discogs.com/artist/781744-Ken-Brake
https://www.discogs.com/artist/31838-Ken-Brake
https://twitter.com/PhilippeAuclair

Con Lol Coxhill ebbe contatti anche Judy Dyble (1949-2020), precisamente nel quartetto DC & The MBs formato con i fratelli Miller, Phil e Steve, attivo per qualche mese tra la primavera e l'estate del 1971 senza lasciare (purtroppo) alcun documento audio ufficiale. Ne ricorda le vicende Aymeric Leroy divulgando un dialogo tenuto di recente con la cantante, associandosi ai numerosi omaggi che in questi giorni ne accompagnano la scomparsa. Jon Pareles sul New York Times ricorda gli esordi con Fairport Convention e Trader Horne, Sid Smith per Discipline Global Mobile sottolinea invece il suo contributo a Giles, Giles & Fripp, in particolare nella prima versione di I Talk To The Wind. David Longdon, che con lei stava ultimando l'album Between A Breath And A Breath previsto in uscita a settembre, scrive: "Judy and I became friends during the writing and making of this album. Along the way, there was much laughter and joy - but also challenging moments. She was a woman of a certain age and she wrote articulately and unflinchingly about the autumn phase of her life. She dealt with her illness with incredible courage and fortitude. She suspected this album was her swan song and she gave it her all. Judy reassured me that she’d had a great life. Which indeed she did. And I will miss her greatly."

http://www.judydyble.com
https://www.facebook.com/judydybleofficial
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4299603103
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/arts/music/judy-dyble-dead.html
https://www.dgmlive.com/news/Judy-Dyble
https://www.facebook.com/david.longdon.90

Tra i molti segni di affettuoso ricordo di Lol Coxhill apparsi in rete nei giorni scorsi in occasione dell'anniversario - l'ottavo - della scomparsa, spicca la promessa di Walter Robotka di Klanggalerie: la ristampa di French Gigs (AAA, 1983), album tratto da alcuni concerti effettuati in Francia con Fred Frith tra il 1978 (Limoges, Poitiers) e il 1981 (Reims).

https://www.klanggalerie.com/gg353

Se pochi si sono cimentati con una versione di Living in the Heart of the Beast, finora mai nessuno come Peter A Thompson. Che infatti riceve prontamente i complimenti dall'autore, Tim Hodgkinson.

https://www.facebook.com/pete.thompson.5/videos/10219703693716435

Peek-A-Boo pubblica una bella intervista recente di Danil Volohov a Chris Cutler, con molti spunti di riflessione sulle attività passate e alcune importanti anticipazioni sulle future iniziative, tra cui una raccolta di interviste - a cura di Alessandro Monti - e un nuovo ciclo di canzoni in via di lenta elaborazione ('my Universe Symphony').

Molto esplicativo - ed esplicito - il paragrafo sul Rock in Opposition: "Rock in Opposition was a mutual support network that Henry Cow put together in the last months of its existence - after we had decided to break up - in order to try to sidestep the monopoly of the music business and demonstrate to our fellow countrymen that the most interesting music in Europe was no longer being made in Britain. Non-anglophone bands were more or less completely ignored here – as they were more or less everywhere outside their own territories. RIO organized festivals and we distributed each other’s records. We were effective and the idea caught on. Again, there was no unifying musical style – Univers Zero could hardly have been more different from Stormy Six, for example, but we all shared a common concern with extending the vocabulary of rock, looking for musical inspirations in our own musical cultures and not giving much thought to commercial success. All the RIO groups sang in their own languages when it was ‘normal’ to sing in English; they were thinking about their music and where it fitted into the narrative of European culture – as well as into the vocabulary of popular music. RIO ran for about a year and then quietly folded – in part because there wasn’t anywhere else to take it and in part because we couldn’t agree on criteria for taking on new members or managing the bureaucratic side of running an expanding organization. It didn’t matter. By then the idea was out there and had done its work. I certainly haven’t changed my mind about it. However, the people who adopted the term in the last decades and now use it, have a very different idea about what it means. For them it’s about a style of music – a style that equates to what in the ‘70s was called ‘prog’ rock (additive rhythms, long-form pieces, C19 classical influences, mellotrons). For us it had been about looking forward – all the bands were pushing into new, unoccupied, musical territories; while today, what’s called RIO is looking backward, far backwards - 50 years or more into the past. That would be like Henry Cow playing the music of the 1920s."

http://www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be/en/interviews/chris-cutler

Un brano di Crossfade Estate - così come uno dal recentissimo Tubspin - figura nel ritratto in due tempi che a Charles Hayward riserva Nico Bogaerts per Moacrealsloar su Radio Panik. Lo si ascolta presso gli archivi dell'emittente, dove tra gli episodi delle ultime settimane sono conservati anche quelli dedicati a Amy Denio e Jean-Hervé Peron.

https://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/moacrealsloa

Sean O'Hagan è ampiamente coinvolto anche in Crossfade Estate, lavoro fin qui inedito prodotto nel 2005 da Charles Hayward in combutta con lo staff tecnico dell'Albany di Deptford a Londra. Vi presero parte all'epoca anche Ashleigh Marsh, Nick Doyne-Ditmas, Rob Mills, Orphy Robinson, Sharon Gal, Chris Cornetto e il compianto Simon King. Oggi lo pubblica Klanggalerie.

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg340

Ambientazione domestica - nel titolo e negli splendidi video di accompagnamento - anche per il sospirato (e romanticissimo) primo album dei belgi Cabane, Grande est la maison. Il progetto porta la firma di Thomas Jean Henri, si avvale degli interventi di Bonnie 'Prince' Billy e Kate Stables e dell'inconfondibile tocco di Sean O'Hagan.

https://cabanemusic.bandcamp.com/album/grande-est-la-maison
https://www.discogs.com/Cabane-Grande-Est-La-Maison/release/15042964
https://tinyurl.com/y7fzk9qy

Venti minuti in compagnia del grande Sean O'Hagan, con una breve selezione dal delizioso Radum Calls, Radum Calls. Ambientazione rigorosamente domestica e solitaria, con qualche garbato intervento della figlia Livvy: Alive & At Home.

https://youtu.be/uUX1j-Famtk

In omaggio a Simon H. Fell (1959-2020), contrabbassista e compositore di primissimo piano sulla scena britannica dell'improvvisazione scomparso la scorsa settimana, Mark Wastell pubblica oggi per Confront Recordings, in coincidenza con il funerale in Francia, un concerto inedito - il loro secondo in assoluto, At The Club Room - del trio fondato insieme a Rhodri Davies venticinque anni fa, IST. Wastell e Davies ricordano l'amico e mentore prematuramente scomparso con parole di grande stima e affetto, oltre che con musiche appositamente dedicate:
https://tinyurl.com/y8xppm6a
https://tinyurl.com/y8hq3ld8 
https://jazzjournal.co.uk/obituary-simon-fell
https://confrontrecordings.bandcamp.com

Estese notizie biografiche, discografiche e varie altre fonti informative sono raccolte presso Bruce's Fingers, l'etichetta indipendente che Fell creò nel 1983. La sua tesi di dottorato (2017) su composizione, improvvisazione e pratiche musicali sperimentali nel cuore degli anni Sessanta e Settanta in Gran Bretagna ('A more attractive ‘way of getting things done’ freedom, collaboration and compositional paradox in British improvised and experimental music 1965-75') è disponibile in .pdf negli archivi dell'University of Huddersfield.

http://www.brucesfingers.co.uk
https://brucesfingers.bandcamp.com
https://www.discogs.com/label/42256-Bruces-Fingers
http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/34533

Ci sarà anche una speciale edizione a tiratura limitata del libro di Robert Wyatt e Alfie Benge Side by Side, atteso a settembre per Faber & Faber: duecento copie in cofanetto, numerate, firmate e corredate di quattro stampe d'arte. Nella sua intorduzione scrive Jarvis Cocker: "Taken together Alfie & Robert’s lyrics combine to create a humanist world-view that is at once global & particular. Take it from me: that’s no mean feat."

https://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/side-by-side

Un po' della vita e dell'opera di Joni Mitchell - grosso modo fino a Mingus - condensate in fiaba edificante e propedeutica per lettori tra i quattro e gli otto anni: Joni-The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell, con testo e illustrazioni di Selina Alko per Quill and Quire.

https://quillandquire.com/review/joni-the-lyrical-life-of-joni-mitchell

E' un piccolo capolavoro d'immaginazione narrativa e d'arte grafica il libro bifronte che Jerry Joyner e Peter Blegvad hanno prodotto per Amateur Enterprises sotto lo pseudonimo Björn d’Algevy, portando a compimento due storie distinte ma finemente intrecciate - Milano Eagles e The Marvelous Moo - concepite tra New York, London e Nashville e proseguite a botta e risposta nell'arco di quarant'anni. Ne esistono poche preziose copie artigianali, alcune disponibili presso ReR.

Amateur Enterprises is pleased to announce the publication of Milano Eagles/The Marvelous Moo, by Björn d’Algevey. Two stories in one full colour 48 page hardback, Eagles/ Moo is the work of two illustrator/authors, Jerry Joyner and Peter Blegvad. They began work on these stories forty years ago, meeting on rare occasions in New York, London and Nashville to assume the rôle of Björn d’Algevy and produce another page or two. The result of their patient labour is a picture book that gleefully subverts genre conventions and reader expectations.

The two stories are presented back to back with an introductory essay in the middle that explains how they were composed. As for why, the essay floats both celebration and revenge as possible motives. Joyner and Blegvad were free-lance professionals, accustomed to the tyranny of deadlines and the constraints of the marketplace. As Björn d’Algevey they could be amateurs again, free to express their love of illustrated narrative without commercial, editorial or temporal concerns.

When the two men met in the 70s, Joyner had been part of Push Pin studios, the celebrated graphic design team, and had collaborated with Remy Charlip on Thirteen a structurally experimental picture book which “pays homage to - and exemplifies - the art of the page turn” (Publishers Weekly). Blegvad was a singer/songwriter who’d been affiliated with experimental bands in the UK but was now drawing occasional illustrations for the New York Times and other clients. They were both bibliophiles with a fondness for odd, absurd and obscure material and a particular interest in the synergy between words and pictures. The pages of Milano Eagles/The Marvelous Moo are a testament to all that.

https://tinyurl.com/y7xrqnb2

Elevare a canto cosmico le routine domestiche del vivere quotidiano in tempi di isolamento, contando i dì della settimana al cospetto di un imperturbabile pony Shetland e di qualche altra bestiola affamata che gira per casa. E' la nuova brillante trovata di Billie Bottle, Cantus (of the Temple of Shibboleth): Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Sun...

https://youtu.be/1mhueaw6OmA

Esce ufficialmente a fine luglio ma lo si può prenotare già da oggi: Earth Felt The Wound è il secondo album che Kate Westbrook produce con la sua Granite Band nel giro di pochi mesi, ed è una meraviglia. Con Kate, autrice di tutti i testi che qui intessono un ciclo tematico a sé stante pur con numerosi riferimenti a precedenti capitoli, ci sono Roz Harding, Jesse Molins, Matthew North, Billie Bottle, Mike Westbrook - autore delle musiche - e Coach York.

Earth Felt the Wound - its title a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost - is an album of extremes, from the intimate to the epic, from the tenderness of the Rossini ballad Once Upon a Time to the rock histrionics of Drowned in the Flood. It opens with with one of Westbrooks’ most lyrical songs The Streams of Lovely Lucienne and closes with the exuberant comedy of Rooster Rabelais. Elsewhere Kate’s lyrics examine the contemporary issues of climate change and threats to the planet. The song at the heart of the album, Storm Petrel takes its title from the tiny seabird that spends its life on the ocean, while beneath its dancing feet sea levels are rising.

https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook/eftw_1.shtml

https://mikewestbrook.bandcamp.com/album/earth-felt-the-wound
https://www.facebook.com/groups/westbrookgroup