Da invisibile e irrilevante a irrinunciabile: come è potuto accadere?

 

Nuove navigazioni attendono Andrew Mitchell - in arte noto come Wasylyk - già all'inizio del 2023, dopo aver da poco concluso una perigliosa serie di concerti con un fido equipaggio di sette elementi al suo fianco. Il suo nuovo album, Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls, ispirato al lavoro del fotografo americano Thomas Joshua Cooper sui disastri ambientali che incombono su alcune meravigliose località bagnate - e in futuro sommerse, c'è da temere - dall'Oceano Atlantico è a detta di alcuni uno dei lasciti più garbati e struggenti del disgraziato anno che ora volge al termine.

Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls sees the Scottish composer and producer reach for new ground, finding quietly sublime imagery in rich and immersive worlds; horizon-less oceans and limitless landscapes. The initial seed of inspiration for this work was conceived as a commissioned response to ‘The World’s Edge’ exhibition, by American contemporary landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper, at the National Galleries of Scotland. Andrew journeyed with Cooper to Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth to learn of the artist’s practice. Specifically, his three decades of travel across five continents, capturing cardinal points and extreme locations surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. Many of which will be under water within 35 years as a result of the impact of our changing climate. From the deep allure of the sea to the symbolism and folklore of flowers, a dreaming to leave or a longing to stay, Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls utilises the ideas behind TJC’s work as a point of departure. Exploring outwardly in search of a better understanding within, themes of longing, self-discovery, new parenthood and premonitions weave through a Wasylyk album of melodic succour.

https://linktr.ee/wasylyk

 

Due album 'minori' di Hugh Hopper che vent'anni fa ebbero poca o pochissima circolazione, in edizioni alquanto spartane e artigianali, torneranno presto disponibili per iniziativa di Cherry Red: si tratta di Jazzloops (2003) e The Stolen Hour (2004), alla cui realizzazione contribuirono a vario titolo Christine Janet, Didier Malherbe, Elton Dean, Frank Van Der Kooij, John Marshall, Kim Weemhoff, Nigel Morris, Patrice Meyer, Pierre-Olivier Govin, Robert Wyatt, Simon Picard, Steve Franklin e Jan Ponsford. The Stolen Hour preserva il lavoro grafico originale di Matt Howarth.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/hugh-hopper-jazzloops-the-stolen-hour

Felice come una Pasqua allora per aver avuto a disposizione sul palco la più grande betoniera immaginabile, felice come una Pasqua ora - a Natale - perché quel concerto viene finalmente reso pubblico. FaUSt dal vivo a Shenzhen (Cina) al Tomorrow Festival il 14 maggio 2016: This Is the Right Path. Ancora se lo ricorda quel concerto, Jean-Hervé Péron, e lo mette tra i dieci migliori di sempre: "The most exciting concert experience. A loooong flight-haul and then, such a warm welcome, such a perfect organization… the most charming, dedicated, competent crew around us… the largest cement mixer I ever used on stage, and an audience so vibrant, so focused. I was and still am in memory, overwhelmed by the endless energy of all the people I met: technicians, promoters, music fans, the so-creative Knitting Ladies, my old-time friend Keiji Haino, and my comrade Maxime. The music we created together had been accurately recorded. As Old Heaven proposed to release this concert, I immediately was enthused by the idea. Even more so when I heard the perfect mix of Liu Ying. Two tracks were beautifully post-produced, edited and mixed by Amaury Cambuzat. I loved the performance and place it in my top ten FaUSt concerts ever and I love this album, I do."

https://oldheavenbooks.bandcamp.com/this-is-the-right-path

 

Concepito e realizzato nei periodi più duri dell'isolamento e della distanza forzata causati dal Covid, vede ora la luce Stone, Stone, Stone, bell'album di Otomo Yoshihide alla guida della sua Special Big Band.

"The recording for this album started in June 2020, during a period when many of our activities were being cancelled due to Covid-19. It had been a while since I last met or played with the members of this band, with whom prior to the pandemic I would regularly get together for gigs at various venues or travel around the country every summer to perform at regional festivals. I also asked friends who lived far away to remotely take part in this project. I called upon everyone, of course, because I wanted to make music with them, but also as a way to just stay in touch. The project began at a time when I desperately missed being around my friends and colleagues. On both a conscious and unconscious level, the compositions, mixing, and the overall album structure reflect on what was happening around us in Japan and in the rest of the world during this time. An underlying theme for this album was, “How can we respond to global events that we see on the news with an urgency as if they were happening nearby?” I wanted the distribution of this album and how its profits were split to also address these same issues, which motivated me to release it on my new label, Little Stone Records.

https://otomoyoshihide.com
https://otomoyoshihidespecialbigband.bandcamp.com

 

Le musiche più recenti degli impareggiabili Negativland - tratte da True False, The World Will Decide e No Brain - poste in primo piano senza voci e senza testi, pronte per esser esse stesse manipolate e riutilizzate: Speech Free.

"What does a Negativland album sound like when it's missing all of those voice samples? It sounds like Speech Free. A release of library music for advertising, this new album by Negativland has had every last trace of language carefully removed from the mix. But what does that really mean? Having become a rock music adjective for their work in mass media collage, where voices are seized from the airwaves and woven into musical conversations more true than anything that normally makes it on the air, Speech Free is a complete re-imagining of the music that was hiding in plain sight beneath the branded 'cultural jamming' on their last two record albums. Entirely composed and performed by the band with an all-star group of guest musicians (including Prairie Prince, Ava Mendoza, Matmos and others), these productions explode out of even the tiniest speakers as some of Negativland's most listenable barrages of pure ear candy yet - all they had to do was remove all of that speech! As marketing research suggests, these catchy tunes will work well as new jingles and musical beds, perfectly suited for voiceovers discussing anything from commercial products to political campaigns."

https://negativland.com

 

An Uncommon Christmas

 

Musica Jazz conclude il 2022 con Steve Reich in copertina e un'articolata intervista con ampi riferimenti ai suoi lavori più recenti - tra cui Runner, Reich/Richter e Traveler's Prayer - e all'ottimo volume Conversations (Hanover Square Press, 2022).

https://stevereich.com
https://tinyurl.com/SR-conversations
https://Conversations_(extract).mp3

Di tutto quello che di suo si può riascoltare tramite Bandcamp, e forse in assoluto, l'album prediletto da Richard 'Dickie' Landry è lo storico 15 Saxophones (Wergo, 1977). Ma certamente meritano attenzione - e ammirazione - anche altri tre lavori pubblicati come titolare negli anni Settanta, ora nuovamente disponibili (anche in vinile) grazie a Unseen Worlds: Solos, Four Cuts Placed in “A First Quarter” e Having Been Built on Sand.

Landry’s music occupies a peculiar, non-idiomatic zone all its own. He grew up on a farm outside Lafayette, Louisiana, in the 1950s and ’60s, playing saxophone from the age of 10 and diving headfirst into the jazz and zydeco that surrounded him. Early on, the multi-reedist saw the strange and thrilling results of cross-cultural exchange, and he carried that spirit with him to New York, where he shepherded many other Louisianans into the thriving avant-garde art and music communities of Lower Manhattan. Throughout the early-to-mid ’70s, as he became a key member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, Landry staked out his own corner at the intersection of free jazz and minimalism, developing a unique style of improvisation that unites the former’s fire-breathing revolutionary spirit and the latter’s dizzying swirl.

A new trio of reissues from Unseen Worlds - Solos, Four Cuts Placed in “A First Quarter” and Having Been Built on Sand - documents the evolution of his style. Each album sprang from Landry’s connections across the avant-garde, but even when the music was recorded in a gallery setting, nothing about it is tidy or inert. Like fellow Glass Ensemble member Joan La Barbara, Landry harnesses the technicality and endurance that Glass’ music requires and puts it to work in far more esoteric - at times anarchic - contexts. As the ’70s progressed, Landry’s music became increasingly fixated on tonality and rhythm, but these three albums present a musician determined to confront and confound, even when he embraces repetition and melody. 

https://www.dickielandry.com

 

Quasi tutto quel che è possibile conoscere musicalmente del 1972 di Frank Zappa - in teoria il suo annus horribilis, in conseguenza dell'incidente al Rainbow Theatre, in verità uno dei suoi più intensi e produttivi - è racchiuso nel box Waka/Wazoo pubblicato or ora a cinquant'anni da quegli eventi e in concomitanza con l'ottantaduesimo compleanno del Nostro. Le avventure dell'orchestra elettrica sono documentate in studio e dal vivo in varie versioni e in differenti occasioni, in gran parte inedite, mentre i due album originali, Waka/Jawaka e The Grand Wazoo, sono riportati integralmente in tre diversi formati audio.

In 1972, following the aftermath of being pushed off stage at the Rainbow Theatre in London by a crazed attendee, Frank Zappa found himself recuperating for months in his home in the hills of Los Angeles. Although he was confined to a wheelchair and in immense pain, his work ethic could not be tamed, and he would end up having one of the most prolific years of his hugely prolific career. During this time, he managed, among other things, to assemble an ensemble that quenched his thirst and desire to work with a large “Electric Orchestra”. Ultimately, he contracted a 20-piece group for recording sessions and an eight-city tour. Shortly thereafter, a scaled down 10-piece configuration, now popularly known as the “Petite Wazoo” toured for almost two months. After all was said and done, Zappa finished the experiment with two albums in the can - Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo - plus two tours and an archive of show masters in his Vault. It was a monumental feat for a guy with a cast on his leg and a conductor’s baton in his hand. Produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the comprehensive 4cd + Blu-Ray Audio set boasts unreleased alternate takes of almost every composition recorded during the album sessions, Vault mix session outtakes and oddities, and also includes the full final show of the 10-piece tour, recorded at the famous Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on December 15, 1972. 

https://www.zappa.com/waka-wazoo

 

Un'enciclopedia di trecento pagine con tutto quel che è lecito sapere sui Residents. In ordine alfabetico. Faceless Forever.

Faceless Forever - A Residents Encyclopaedia is a hardcover encyclopedia about The Residents, by Jim Knipfel and Brian Poole (with contributions from Chris Combs, Paulie Kraynak, Andreas Mathews of the Eyeball Museum, Richard Anderson, and The Residents themselves), released in an edition of one thousand copies, exclusively via mail order, through Cherry Red Records. With 294 pages featuring more than five hundred entries, covering "every release, every tour, key collaborators, lesser-known curiosities, niche trivia and minutiae from the periphery of the group's universe", Faceless Forever is part of a series of 2022 releases by The Residents highlighting their 50th Anniversary, and is officially sanctioned by The Cryptic Corporation.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-residents-faceless-forever
https://meettheresidents.fandom.com/wiki/Faceless_Forever

 

E immancabile di questa stagione arriva - in versione riveduta e aggiornata al 2022 - il superclassico natalizio dei Residents, Santa Dog. A fleeting and a sleeting scene of snowness and of sleeves...

https://residents.com/historical/santadog
https://meettheresidents.fandom.com/wiki/Santa_Dog_2022
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-residents-santa-dog-2022

 

Le proiezioni pubbliche del film in Europa inizieranno a Bourges (Francia) soltanto il mese prossimo - il debutto è stato a Chicago lo scorso luglio - anticipando di qualche settimana l'uscita in dvd e Blu-ray. Nel frattempo ne circola in cd la colonna sonora: è Triple Trouble, la versione riveduta e aggiornata di Vileness Fats, storico progetto dei Residents intrapreso tra il 1972 e il 1976, poi abbandonato e mai portato a termine.

An announcement video was released in the autumn of 2016, describing a film entitled Double Trouble, that would tell the story of Randy's son, Junior, discovering that his life has run parallel to the plot of the abandoned Vileness Fats project. Over the next few years The Residents worked on the film, with tops and starts due to their touring schedule and other unforeseen impediments such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The completed film, now bearing the title Triple Trouble, premiered at the Chicago Underground Film Festival in July of 2022. It follows Junior, a former priest turned plumber, who discovers a mysterious fungus in the pipes of San Francisco. His investigation also leads him to reevaluate his past relationships, including coming to terms with the memory of his father, the Residents' singer Randy Rose. Triple Trouble stars Dustin York as Junior, Gerri Lawlor as Junior's Mom, Isabelle Ellingson as Suzi, and Isabelle Barbier as the voice of Cherry. An accompanying soundtrack album, produced by The Residents and Eric Drew Feldman, consists of collages of new music, film dialogue, and some familiar themes.

https://www.3xtrouble.com

 

Un terzo album i Semantics non lo produssero mai. Ma per un attimo - in una fredda notte di gennaio - provarono a ipotizzarlo: Cache Only.

Semantics was formed in 1985 with a mix of improvisation, punk energy, and the three uniquely individual approaches of their members, Samm Bennett, Ned Rothenberg and Elliott Sharp. Their eponymous first album was released by the Rift label and the second, Bone of Contention, on SST. Semantics toured extensively in Europe as well as to a lesser extent in the US and Canada. The two out-of-print studio albums have been reissued by the Klanggalerie label.

https://semanticsnyc.bandcamp.com/album/cache-only

 

Nuova e preziosa occasione per ascoltare dal vivo le musiche di Jonathan Coe interpretate magnificamente dall'Artchipel Orchestra guidata da Ferdinando Faraò: questa sera a Rho (Mi) al Teatro civico Roberto de Silva, con inizio alle 21.00.

https://www.teatrocivicorho.com/artchipelorchestra

 

E' pronto il secondo episodio della serie Song Talk inaugurata la scorsa primavera da Dave Stewart e Barbara Gaskin allo scopo di ripercorrere e commentare alcune fasi salienti della propria carriera insieme. E nel contempo arriva l'annuncio di nuovi concerti per la prossima primavera: sicuramente a Tokyo, poi a Londra chissà...

https://www.davebarb.com
https://www.youtube.com/@Stewart.Gaskin

 

Un paio di giorni dopo il secondo (e ultimo) Progman Cometh, tenutosi a Seattle (Stati Uniti) a inizio agosto 2003, Phil Miller e Richard Sinclair si unirono amichevolmente al gruppo Glass impegnato in studio nella lavorazione dell'album Illuminations. I risultati di quell'informale incontro - che confluì ufficialmente nel solo brano Gaia, però ebbe il merito, secondo Aymeric Leroy, di spianare la strada alla seconda ricomposizione degli Hatfield and the North, di lì a un anno e mezzo - si possono ora sentire sia al Phil Miller-The Legacy sia alla pagina Bandcamp del gruppo: The Robert Lang Session.

https://therealglass.bandcamp.com/album/the-robert-lang-session
https://philmillerthelegacy.com/music/the-robert-lang-session-2003

 

Crammed Discs rammenta invece l'unico atto dei belgi Des Airs - Bob Vanderbob, Catherine Jauniaux, Fanchon Nuyens, Stephane Karo, con Eric Faes e Alig - consumatosi quarant'anni fa prima dell'alba: Lunga notte. 

http://www.crammed.be/347

 

Altro importante recupero di quest'anno (in digitale, via Bandcamp) è quello di Canaille, e se ne dice orgogliosa la stessa Intakt Records, che nel 1988 produsse l'album quale propria seconda uscita ufficiale in catalogo: "We're proud to present a re-issue of one of our very first releases, Canaille. Recorded live at Rote Fabrik in Zurich in 1986, the Canaille-Festival was intended to give the public a survey of the musical diversity of the current women’s improvising scene in Europe. 13 female musicians (among them some of the central figures of women’s jazz in Europe) can be heard in different group formations. Zurich’s largest daily newspaper called it "one of the most exciting jazz events to happen in Zurich"."

Maggie Nicols, Flora St.Loup, Annemarie Roelofs, Co Streiff, Mariette Rouppe Van der Voort, Maud Sauer, Lindsay Cooper, Maartje Ten Hoorn, Elvira Plenar, Irène Schweizer, Joëlle Léandre, Petra Ilyes, Marilyn Mazur.

https://ireneschweizer.bandcamp.com/album/canaille
https://tinyurl.com/LPcanaille

 

Tra i più importanti recuperi operati quest'anno da Esoteric Recordings c'è naturalmente Sunset Glow di Julie Tippetts, a formare con 1969 e Septober Energy una tripletta rosso ciliegia niente male...

Julie first came to public attention under her maiden name of Julie Driscoll and had enjoyed commercial success with Brian Auger & the Trinity. Eager to break away from the heavy burden of being in the public spotlight, Julie wrote a series of fine compositions and collaborated with her soon-to-be husband Keith Tippett on the album 1969 and also featuring in his band Centipede. In 1975 she recorded the stunning album Sunset Glow, a record of great emotion and beauty that defied classification. The album sessions featured contributions from musicians such as Keith Tippett, Brian Godding, Elton Dean, Louis Moholo, Nick Evans and Mark Charig among others. Featuring outstanding pieces such as ‘Mind Of A Child’, ‘Sunset Glow’, ‘Lilies’ and ‘Shifting Still’, the record is one of the most original works of its time and remains an artistic triumph. Unavailable for many years, this Esoteric Recordings edition has been newly remastered and includes a booklet with essay by Sid Smith and is a most welcome reissue of a true classic.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/julie-tippetts-sunset-glow

 

A raggiungere una nuova generazione di fan punta anche Susan Whitby - cioè Lora Logic - compilando per Hiss and Shake Records un box contenente i suoi due album storici (e da non perdere) Beat Rhythm News (Waddle Ya Play?) e Pedigree Charm, due antologie di inediti (Aerosol Burns & Other Misdemeanours e No More Fiction) e il nuovissimo Land of Kali, disponibile anche singolarmente: Logically Yours.

https://www.essential-logic.co.uk
https://hiss-and-shake-records/essential-logic-logically-yours

 

Quale percorso possa seguire una nuova generazione di fan per giungere alla musica degli XTC lo descrive il più recente episodio in podcast di What Do You Call That Noise?, Young XTC Fan Takeover. Con un che di natalizio...

https://whatdoyoucallthatnoise.transistor.fm

 

A fine anno guardando al futuro del jazz. Non a quello del 2023, ma a quello del ventitreesimo secolo. Jerry King e Dave Newhouse interrogano amici e colleghi in ogni dove, tra loro Geoff Leigh, Henry Kaiser, Elliott Sharp, Amy Denio, Haco, Alfred Harth e Anthony Coleman, ma anche David Moss, Steve Beresford, Brian Woodbury e le Frank Chickens. Le risposte, allusive e parziali ma tutte inedite, sono raccolte in un doppio cd per Discus Music: ZZAJ - Jazz From The 23rd Century.

https://discusmusic.bandcamp.com/zzaj-jazz-from-the-23rd-century

 

Se il precedente Complètement marteau lo aveva ritratto nella paziente costruzione artigianale dell'opera solitaria, il nuovo Au diable vert riporta René Lussier ai più gioiosi vertici della creatività condivisa e collettiva (seppure da remoto, date le circostanze legate al Covid): "Le diable vert is a withdrawn place where Nature has kept or regained its rights; a place where you find yourself lost without really knowing when exactly you lost your bearings. I suppose this definition could also apply to my music. I would add a dimension of freedom: the joy of moving forward blindly and holding on until the end of the journey.”

Scrive Cutler, presente egli stesso in una delle tracce dell'album: "It’s pretty much of a masterpiece: impeccable sound, jaw-dropping compositions, amazing detail and world-class performers. Scored for electric guitars and basses, two drummers, marimba, accordion, tuba, euphonium, clarinet, trombone, singing saw, ondes martenot, various extra percussions and a variety of voices, these pieces offer infectious complexity, unexpected twists, Uncle Meat and Song Cycle moments, respect for the listener, low boredom thresholds and impeccable attention to fine detail. It’s a music you can listen to repeatedly, full of substance and in constant motion."

https://www.circum-disc.com/rene-lussier-au-diable-vert

 

ReR Megacorp ha tra i propri materiali in distribuzione anche Sacrum et Profanum, con i brani di Iancu Dumitrescu e soprattutto Ana-Maria Avram presentati all'omonimo festival a Krakow nel 2017. Ad eseguirli fu l'impeccabile Hyperion Ensemble in formazione internazionale estesa a vari ospiti - inclusi Cutler e Hodgkinson - con la direzione di Ilan Volkov e dello stesso Dumitrescu.

http://www.rermegacorp.com
https://avramdumitrescu.bandcamp.com/album/sacrum-et-profanum

 

Le musiche di Allen Ravenstine proposte in un'inedita veste orchestrale, a cura di Victor Hugo Morales. Cutler le presenta così: "ambiguous, hovering compositions for a small chamber group - air-tinting, incidental, cinematic swatches of sound, ephemeral and unattached, like sonic fire-lanterns drifting into oblivion." Il cd è prodotto e distribuito da ReR Megacorp: Crossing Daylight.

https://allenravenstine22.bandcamp.com/album/crossing-daylight

 

Pere Ubu nella formazione con Chris Cutler e Scott Krauss, Jim Jones e Tony Maimone, Allen Ravenstine e naturalmente David Thomas, ripresi dal vivo a Lubiana il 20 aprile 1988 - epoca The Tenement Year - e ora su Bandcamp nella bella serie di bootleg ufficiali confezionati personalmente da Thomas: "Bootleggers are not the pirates: Pere Ubu are the pirates and they sail the good ship Ubu Projex."

https://pereubu.bandcamp.com/pere-ubu-caligaris-yugo-ljubljana-1988

 

Pieno zeppo di strepitose novità - e di preziosi ritrovamenti - arriva l'atteso aggiornamento di fine anno del catalogo di ReR Megacorp, segnalando nel contempo la ripresa di spedizioni e sottoscrizioni (sperabilmente) senza più disguidi o ritardi: rermegacorp@gmail.com

http://www.rermegacorp.com

 

Per i due ultimi appuntamenti del 2022, e a poche ore da personali festeggiamenti di compleanno, Bob Drake offre in dono ai suoi fedelissimi due esibizioni dal vivo - da casa, a Caudeval (Francia) - con l'aggiunta di tre nuovi video realizzati dall'incredibile Band of Bob(s). Oggi e domani su Twitch, con inizio alle 19.00.

https://www.twitch.tv/bob_drake

 

Trovarlo nella prima edizione, quella di Auditorium del 1994, era difficile già allora. Ora torna con rinnovato splendore, e immutato significato, per Seipersei: You Tourned The Tables On Me, di Roberto Masotti (1947-2022).

Centoquindici musicisti e compositori contemporanei ritratti da Roberto Masotti tra il 1974 e il 1981 con la costante (ma sempre variabile) presenza di un tavolino come attrezzo di scena che viaggia sempre insieme al fotografo. Che scriveva: "È stato trovato e acquistato, in un assolato pomeriggio del maggio 1974, presso un campo di zingari che vivevano, alla periferia di Milano, della compravendita di rottami di ferro. È stato usato, incidentalmente, per la prima volta come attrezzo di scena mentre facevo un ritratto a Juan Hidalgo, artista Fluxus, e nuovamente con Walter Marchetti, che forma, con Hidalgo e Esther Ferrer, il gruppo Zaj. Da qui è nata l'idea di eseguire una serie di ritratti di musicisti in cui fosse presente il tavolino. Ogni personaggio coinvolto, per prima cosa prendeva visione di tutte le immagini precedentemente selezionate, decidendo poi liberamente come agire e di quali altri oggetti eventualmente circondarsi."

https://seipersei.com/products/you-tourned-the-tables-on-me

 

In musica lo si è conosciuto soprattutto per Irma, Words and Music, Intervalles e Six of Hearts - cui si sono accostati in vario modo Gavin Bryars, John Tilbury, Lydia Domancich, Brian Eno, la Scratch Orchestra e gli Amm - ma la sua opera in verità ha preso molte direzioni, dalla pittura figurativa e astratta alla scultura, dalla grafia artistica alla poesia concreta, dall'insegnamento alla produzione diretta di illustrazioni, ritratti, arazzi, mosaici e collage. Uno dei suoi testi più noti è lo straordinario A Humument, lavoro in progress di cui sono state realizzate ben sei versioni diverse: di una ha fornito la lettura l'autore stesso, Tom Phillips, scomparso pochi giorni fa all'età di ottantacinque anni.

https://www.tomphillips.co.uk