Con un piccolo strappo alla regola si è deciso di rendere visibile a tutti tramite YT l'episodio dello scorso 22 agosto del Soup Show di David Thomas (con Kiersty Boon) senza riservarlo ai soli abbbonati alla serie ospitata da Patreon. Perché? "We liked this show so much we decided that we'd put it out for public viewing. There's an exclusive new video for White Room (David Thomas and Foreigners), cover songs from Joseph Holc and Alex Ward, lyric library and archive live performances from David Thomas and the pale boys, The Holy Soul plus David Thomas with Jackie Leven as an incredible finale."

https://youtu.be/fPzAZ4Uu0RE

 

Con uno speciale dedicato a ghiaccio, fuoco, vento, acqua, vetro e polistirolo ha raggiunto la ragguardevole cifra di trenta episodi l'impareggiabile serie Probes curata e condotta da Chris Cutler per il Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Barcellona. Sta tutta negli archivi di Ràdio Web MACBA.

In the late nineteenth century two facts conspired to change the face of music: the collapse of common practice tonality (which overturned the certainties underpinning the world of art music), and the invention of a revolutionary new form of memory, sound recording (which redefined and greatly empowered the world of popular music). A tidal wave of probes and experiments into new musical resources and new organisational practices ploughed through both disciplines, bringing parts of each onto shared terrain before rolling on to underpin a new aesthetics able to follow sound and its manipulations beyond the narrow confines of ‘music’. This series tries analytically to trace and explain these developments, and to show how, and why, both musical and post-musical genres take the forms they do. In Probes #30 artists, composers and performers make water, ice, glass, fire, wind and Styrofoam their soloists in installations, recordings and events designed for concert halls, galleries, the Phillips pavilion, TV series' and open air gatherings.

https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/probes-30

 

Steve Beresford e Otomo Yoshihide insieme in un paio di occasioni a Londra nel maggio 1996: su Scatter.

https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/london-1996

 

Roger Turner ricorda con piacere la collaborazione e il dialogo artistico con Kazuhisa Uchihashi, iniziata negli anni Novanta: "I am very fortunate to be able to play with a guitarist who has such an openness and freedom to his playing. Collaborations like ours reflect a continuity of change, but we can perhaps live with improvised music in a constant and integrated way, recognising its push and pull in direct tandem with our lives." Scatter propone un loro concerto in duo del 2006 a Tokyo: The Lincoln Stretch Bike Carrier.

https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/the-lincoln-stretch-bike-carrier

 

Scatter pubblica una bella registrazione dei Recedents - Mike Cooper, Lol Coxhill, Roger Turner - dal vivo a Londra nel settembre 1993, stuzzicando i commenti e i ricordi dei diretti protagonisti: "There are some wonderfully absurd moments and some texturally rich musical moments combined together with great dynamics here - scrive Cooper - I don't think many other people at the time were doing anything as musically diverse as we were. I still miss The Recedents versatility and humour. We never talked about our music before or after concerts. No intellectual or academic analysis - we just played and we had a lot of fun doing it." E Turner aggiunge: "I listen and look back and feel the Recedents were musical shape-shifters, way ahead on that road down the urban jungle, having lots of fun, lots of humour on the journey, lots of struggles too..."

https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/london-1993

 

La London Improvisers Orchestra segnala con un tweet la scomparsa di uno dei suoi più affezionati aderenti, il sassofonista e clarinettista John Rangecroft, che proprio di recente era tornato a esser presente a concerti e iniziative dopo un periodo di inattività. Molte le sue partecipazioni in passato alle rassegne londinesi di Freedom of the City e agli appuntamenti di Mopomoso, e ben documentate anche su disco sono le sue collaborazioni con Ken Hyder in Talisker e con Evan Parker.

https://www.discogs.com/John-Rangecroft

 

Pochi a Londra han saputo tenere viva l'attenzione per le musiche di improvvisazione e promuoverne la diffusione durante i periodi più bui dei diversi lockdown al pari della London Improvisers Orchestra e dei musicisti che vi gravitano attorno - grazie in particolare al grande lavoro di coordinamento svolto da Caroline Kraabel - disseminando il web di contributi e collaborazioni e riuscendo nonostante tutto a tener fede al tradizionale impegno di un concerto collettivo a inizio di ciascun mese. Ora che, con cautela, son tornati ad aprire i battenti i vari Cafe Oto, Iklectik, Vortex e Hundred Years Gallery e si ripresenta l'opportunità di piccoli concerti in presenza anche all'interno dei locali, si segnala un'interessante iniziativa online facente capo al Lonely Impulse Collective, guidato da Emily Suzanne Shapiro, che dalla precarietà dell'isolamento e dalla provvisorietà intende comunque trarre vantaggio: "We are a collective of improvising musicians creating work inspired by the current conditions in the world. Normally, we would be out working together in real time but now, confined alone to our own spaces, we turn inwards and redirect our attention to solo work. Every 24 hours, a solo track of improvised music by one of the collective will be available online for free streaming or to be purchased for download. At the end of that period, the track will be removed from the platform and replaced with a new track so that at any point in time only one will be available. This model reflects the ephemeral nature of real-world improvised music performances."

https://twitter.com/LondonImprOrch
https://www.instagram.com/lonely_impulse_collective

 

E la scena londinese attuale? John Edwards e Colin Webster, per esempio, insieme l'altro giorno al Waterintobeer di Brockley.

https://twitter.com/waterintobeer

 

Guarda alla scena storica del jazz britannico a cavallo degli anni Sessanta e Settanta una bella antologia della Decca che recupera brani esemplari di Westbrook, Wheeler, Garrick, Surman, Ardley, Skidmore e Gibbs da varie e disparate fonti, quale preludio a una serie di riedizioni integrali di titoli preziosi e rari: Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972).

Originally recorded by a selection of iconic labels such as Deram, Argo, EMI, Columbia, Fontana, Mercury and Philips, Decca have done a long overdue favour to fans of British jazz by releasing this sumptuous package of rare cuts. Many LP copies from this period fetch astronomical sums on the collectors market and many have been hard, or impossible, to find on CD. Their collectibility may be due to their scarcity but, now these choice tracks have been reissued and superbly remastered, this hugely important generation of legendary British jazz artists can now be re-confirmed as the maverick pioneers they truly are.

https://journeys-in-modern-jazz-britain-1965-1972

 

La scena del neocanterburismo illustrata così così da Jim Allen per una serie giornaliera di mini spot su Bandcamp: You Can't Bury Canterbury. Mah.

https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/canterbury-prog-rock-list

 

Sulla scena newyorkese a partire dagli anni Novanta era piuttosto conosciuto e apprezzato sia come percussionista che successivamente come esperto di theremin, ha registrato e fatto concerti con Ikue Mori, Samm Bennett, Elliott Sharp, God Is My Co-Pilot, John Zorn e LaDonna Smith, con una lunga vicinanza musicale e personale a Karen Mantler con la quale comparve tra l'altro nel wyattiano Cuckooland. Michael Evans è scomparso pochi giorni fa: "I’ve known Michael Evans for nearly three decades: a fine drummer, instrument-maker and all ‘round nice guy - così lo ricorda Bruce Lee Gallanter di Downtown Music Gallery - and I had caught him in several bands throughout the many years: God is My Co-Pilot, EasSidePercussion, Fulminate Trio with Anders Nilsson and duos with LaDonna Smith and Jeff Arnal. I know that Michael lived with composer Karen Mantler for many years and they worked on her album together Karen Mantler’s Pet Project. What I remember the most about Michael Evans was this: after a set in the store several years ago, I had heard that he was a big fan of the South African Avant jazz scene and I asked if it was true. He said that the Blue Notes, Brotherhood of Breath and their offshoots were some of his favorite music of all. I felt the same way about this music so we talked about that music for several hours afterwords, listening and commenting on what we knew or wanted to know more about. He said he had a band that played this music but they only played on rare occasions. Jeez, I wish I had heard them live."

http://www.michaelevanssounds.com

 

Le relazioni tra le persone, il suono e l'ambiente sono sempre state al centro delle indagini e delle riflessioni di Raymond Murray Schafer, uno dei pionieri e massimi studiosi di ecologia acustica, scomparso pochi giorni fa all'età di 88 anni: si può trarne insegnamento direttamente dalla sua viva voce, oltre che dai suoi celebri scritti, per esempio recuperando su YT una bella conferenza tenuta a Boulogne-Billancourt nei pressi di Parigi quasi vent'anni fa.

https://youtu.be/1Xk9dRS3ugA

Fred Frith conversa amabilmente per un paio d'ore con Gregg Bendian, musicista anch'egli, produttore e competente archivista: è l'episodio numero 30 di una bella serie di podcast che finora ha avuto tra gli ospiti Zoot Horn Rollo, Don Preston, Gary Husband, Mike Keneally, Malcolm Mortimore, Sheila Jordan, Anne LeBaron, Andy Partridge e diversi altri del giro XTC.

https://www.youtube.com/TheProgCast

 

Robert Wyatt e Fred Frith chiamati in causa assieme da Mike Godette per una rilettura chitarristica delll'indimenticabile tema che un tempo dischiuse a migliaia di ascoltatori un magnifico e stranissimo mondo (cui peraltro ne seguì uno ancor più strano): Muddy Mouth.

https://www.youtube.com/MuddyMouth

 

Anche il nuovo album autoprodotto di Dave Sinclair raccoglie brani di epoche molto diverse e si pregia di diversi interventi esterni registrati via via nel tempo, dal 1981 al 2019, tra cui quelli di Pye Hastings, Robert Wyatt, Richard Sinclair, Jimmy Hastings, Doug Boyle, Richard Coughlan, Mel Collins e anche Billie Bottle. Il titolo è Hook-Line & Sinclair e lo si può richiedere direttamente al musicista, da anni felicemente residente in Giappone.

https://www.dsincs-music.com

 

Nuova collezione ricca e abbondante per R. Stevie Moore, con brani di ogni epoca pescati nella sua sterminata produzione di audiocassette e in gran parte sfuggiti alle molte precedenti antologie: Freedom vs. Fate, proposta da O genesis in tre vinili verde oliva appena in tempo per il Record Store Day del mese scorso.

If aliens landed and asked about 'music' we would head off to find R Stevie Moore to present to them as a gift. Since the early 70's until late yesterday afternoon RSM has been creating albums, songs, spoken word and gonzo masterpieces that would seem more like the output of a prolific record label or that of a small country rather than just one person. This triple album Freedom vs Fate showcases the man and his many talents. An influence on so many and still awaiting the deserved worldwide acclaim that has often seemed somewhere around the next corner. O Genesis are proud to be releasing such a brilliant collection with many of the songs never having been available before. If you're a fan of R Stevie Moore I am guessing you'll be stoked by this info, if you've not come across the great man yet then clear an upcoming afternoon or evening, gather snacks and drinks and be prepared for amazement.

http://www.rsteviemoore.com/cd/freedom.html
https://rsteviemoore.bandcamp.com/freedom-vs-fate

 

Si ritrova un po' di Lindsay Cooper - epoca More Places Forever - anche nell'album antologico che David Thomas propone in questi giorni tramite Bandcamp: Hacked.

This is a digital sampler of the extensive collection of David Thomas' solo albums, incorporating The Wooden Birds and The Pedestrians. Credits on this album are like a who's who of legends from inside and outside of the Ubu world including Ralph Carney, Lindsay Cooper, Chris Cutler, Daved Hild, Garo Yellin, some of the more familiar faces from Pere Ubu past and present and legendary Suma engineer, Paul Hamann on bass. Most of these albums are since out of print... but we plan to change that eventually.

http://www.crocusbehemoth.com
https://pereubu.bandcamp.com/album/hacked

 

Mentre si avvia ormai a conclusione la fantastica serie del Westbrook Jazz Moving Picture Show curata con i Westbrook da Chris Topley c'è ancora tempo entro fine agosto per l'ultima terna di estratti da Cuff Clout: oggi è il turno di Even/Uneven - brano di apertura dell'album, registrato nel 2001, con testo di Kate Westbrook e musica dall'inconfondibile firma di Lindsay Cooper - in un film di Martha Shepherd che si avvale dell'interpretazione aggiornatissima di Kate e John Winfield.

https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/pictureshow

 

E per altra musica pochissimo leggera ci si può dedicare a due perle di Annette Peacock appena ritrovate e portate a nuova luce da Sundazed: X-Dreams e The Perfect Release.

Arriving in 1978, X-Dreams is an infatuating and resolutely feminine free-form exploration of the politics and dynamics of sex. In the pursuit to reconcile the duality of attraction & repulsion and love & cruelty, the album oscillates between an assertive opening side A and a sweeter side B. Assembling a crew of 22 musicians (including Mick Ronson on guitar and Bill Bruford on drums), Peacock delivers impassioned vocal performances alongside an improvisational jazz-rock fusion masterpiece of musicianship, almost all of which was recorded in one take.

Released in 1979, The Perfect Release was wildly ahead of its time and is still salient today. Her unflinching examinations of capitalism, sex, religion, et al. are underscored by lengthy, gorgeous grooves. Peacock wields her voice with wild abandon, at times delivering a melody like a Beat poet while other times wailing out of her throat like a saxophone, hitting blue notes as she pleases. Where most musicians riff, she creates sonic space. Perhaps too esoteric to garner commercial praise at the time, this reissue encourages the discovery and praise that this prophetic stew of spoken word, jazz and funk deserves.

https://sundazed.com/annette-peacock.aspx

 

Quand'anche fosse musica leggera la sua, American Dreamer offre l'occasione per (ri)scoprirne i meriti e i pregi. Lo scrive Richard Williams: "Whatever role Laura Nyro chose to play – earth mother, soul sister, angel of the Bronx subways – she committed to it. With a soaring, open-hearted voice and ingeniously crafted compositions, Nyro transformed a range of influences into her own kind of art song. She made vertiginous shifts from hushed reveries to ecstatic gospel-driven shout-ups with an intensity and a courage that, as Elton John would point out, left its mark on many contemporaries who achieved greater commercial success. As the music of the 1960s reached a climax, no one else merged the new songwriting freedoms pioneered by Bob Dylan with the pop sensibility of the Brill Building tunesmiths to such intriguing effect. As a teenager, she wrote And When I Die and Stoney End, songs that became hits for other artists. Her own enigmatically titled albums – Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, New York Tendaberry, Christmas and the Beads of Sweat – showed a precociously sophisticated sensibility. Later, rejecting commercial pressures, she would help push the boundaries of popular music by writing songs celebrating motherhood, female sexuality and her menstrual cycle. In the hearts of admirers, she kindled a loyalty fierce enough to withstand the semi-obscurity into which she had fallen by the time of her death from ovarian cancer in 1997, at 49. But a new generation will this month get to hear Nyro’s music, as American Dreamer, a box set containing her first seven albums and an eighth disc of rarities and live tracks, is released."

https://madfish/laura-nyro_american-dreamer_vinyl-boxset
https://laura-nyro-the-phenomenal-singers-singer-the-60s-overlooked

 

Non è musica leggera, OK, ma guai a privarsene nelle proprie letture. Nemmeno questa estate, poco leggera già di suo...

https://www.jacabook.org/non-è-musica-leggera

 

Lettura istruttiva assai è anche Beeswing, ovvero le memorie di Richard Thompson riferite agli anni cruciali della sua formazione e della sua carriera, tra il 1967 e il 1975, raccontate in prima persona con l'aiuto di Scott Timberg. Per Faber & Faber oppure Algonquin.

Guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson came of age during an extraordinary moment in British culture: it was 1967 and popular music was reflecting a great cultural awakening. In the midst of this, eighteen-year-old Thompson co-founded Fairport Convention and helped invent a new genre of music.

Thompson packed more than a lifetime of experiences into his late teens and twenties. From the pivotal years of 1967 to 1975, he matured into a major musician, survived a devasting car crash and departed Fairport Convention for a duo act with his wife, Linda, at the height of the band's popularity. His discovery and ultimate embrace of Sufism profoundly reshaped his approach to everything in his life and, of course, the music he wrote thereafter.

In Beeswing, Thompson goes back to his childhood, recreates the spirit of the sixties and takes us inside life on the road in the UK and the US, crossing paths – and occasionally sharing the stage – with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Jimi Hendrix and more.

https://www.richardthompson-music.com
https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571348169-beeswing.html
https://beeswing-excerpt.pdf

 

Lettura istruttiva promette di essere anche Unstrung: Rants and Stories of a Noise Guitarist, il libro di Marc Ribot appena pubblicato da Akashic Books. Lo sta presentando in questi giorni il chitarrista stesso con una serie di interviste diffuse in rete in varie modalità: sabato scorso, per esempio, conversando con Elliott Sharp via Zoom per City Lights di San Francisco.

Throughout his genre-defying career as one of the most innovative musicians of our time, iconoclastic guitar player Marc Ribot has consistently defied expectation at every turn. Here, in his first collection of writing, we see that same uncompromising sensibility at work as he playfully interrogates our assumptions about music, life, and death. Through essays, short stories, and the occasional unfilmable film "mistreatment" that showcase the sheer range of his voice, Unstrung captures an artist whose versatility on the page rivals his dexterity onstage.

http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/unstrung

 

Lettura istruttiva, con le acute considerazioni di Philippe Auclair - uno che se ne intende - sulla finale di Euro 2020: England? Which England?

https://bylinetimes.com/england-which-england-who-won-who-lost

 

Chi non può o non vuole aspettare il 27 agosto già sa come e dove prenotare per Bordeaux, Toulouse e Perpignan: Eskähl 2020.

Chi non può o non vuole aspettare il 24 settembre già sa come e dove procurarsi una (modica) dose di 10 10 10.

 

Cuneiform Records ripristina in digitale gli album dei No Safety usciti per Knitting Factory Works a inizio anni Novanta - Spill e Live at the Knitting Factory - e a quelli aggiunge l'inedito Live in Italy 1994 tratto dall'infuocato concerto tenuto al Vorax/Ottomat di Alte Montecchio (Vi) il 30 gennaio 1994. Tutto disponibile via Bandcamp, libretti inclusi.

Live in Italy catches the band - Chris Cochrane, Kato Hideki, Zeena Parkins, Ann Rupel and Tim Spelios - in all its fury, going out in a blaze at the end of their final tour. Threats to personal safety cast a long shadow over present times. Police violence and a deadly virus occupy the headlines. It’s easy these days to feel unsafe. Thirty years ago, there was a different virus in the headlines, and police violence barely made the news. It was different, unsafe times that produced No Safety. But we might need them now more than ever. No Safety only released three albums during their half dozen years as one of the most vibrant bands in the maelstrom of Downtown experimentalism. They were, they’ll say today, always at their best live. The last album they released during their short life - Live at the Knitting Factory - made the case. The new Live in Italy 1994 seals the deal.

https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/live-in-italy-1994

https://www.facebook.com/cuneiformrecords

https://youtu.be/kV5eorIJpyU

 

Dell'eccezionale concerto dell'Artchipel con Jonathan Coe tenuto a Milano lo scorso 19 luglio iniziano a circolare - anche a beneficio di chi quella sera non c'era - le ottime riprese audio e video di Paolo Zanotti, rese disponibili presso il canale YT dell'Orchestra. Tre finora gli estratti: Suspended Moment, I Would If I Could e Looking for Cicely, negli arrangiamenti rispettivamente di Ferdinando Faraò, Francesco Forges e Andrea Serino.

https://www.youtube.com/Artchipel-Orchestra

 

Massimo Giuntoli si dedica nuovamente a un importante film muto del secolo scorso, The Freshman (1925) - noto da noi come Viva lo sport - diretto da Sam Taylor e Fred C. Newmeyer con protagonista Harold Lloyd. Ne accompagna dal vivo la proiezione questa sera alle 21.30 a Riva del Garda (Tn), per iniziativa del centro culturale La Firma.

http://www.lafirmariva.it
https://The_Freshman

 

Andy Partridge riprende possesso di alcune sue canzoni scritte nel corso degli anni post-XTC per altri interpreti - e non sono poche - dando il via a una serie potenzialmente ricchissima eppure intitolata al fallimento: My Failed Songwriting Career. Non è così, naturalmente, e le quattro pubblicate nel primo volume sono una più degna dell'altra, a cominciare dalla travolgente Ghost Train. Di queste e delle prossime scelte parla direttamente l'autore nell'intervista in podcast appena realizzata per What Do You Call That Noise?.

When XTC finally downed guitars after the recording and release of Wasp Star, their last album to date, one of Andy’s ideas about what to do next, was to become a songwriter in the traditional sense, writing songs for others… It was something he had been asked to do throughout the XTC years, but never had the time. Songs were written. Songs were sent. Sometimes speculatively, often specifically requested, many tailor-made for an artist's requirements, but then choppy waters could still lay ahead. Even where everyone seemed to think that newly written song A would be wonderful if recorded by singer B, whose manager C had initiated the request via music publisher D for album E on record label F… Well, you begin to see the potential problems of such an approach – almost a quarter of the way through the alphabet and not a note recorded beyond Andy's original demo. That’s without detailing the sort of horrendous politics that makes a fresh batch of alphabet spaghetti of any of the above as they interact.  

Still, songs are like children. A songwriter gives birth to them, feeds them, watches them grow before sending them out into the world. So it’s unfair to abandon them as orphans just because their first experience outdoors might be a traumatic one of being cold shouldered. As a loving parent, Andy brought them all back together, re-Andy-fied them and buffed them up in his home studio, et voila! Here is the first selection of song siblings that resulted from all of this work, four brothers and sisters, happily reunited and presented as a family group aural snapshot for your entertainment and delight. 

 

https://burningshed.com/andy-partridge_my-failed-songwriting-career

 

Un primo sguardo al nuovo album di Bing Selfish Inside the Head of Steven Saint attraverso il desolante racconto delle precoci esperienze lavorative del protagonista: What He Did To Get A Few Quid When He Was A Kid.

https://www.bingselfish.com
https://youtu.be/oCdZEj3qBRs