Due audiocassette ora pressoché introvabili, uscite in Francia nei primi anni Ottanta per AAA (8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs, 1983) e Ayaa (Cough, 1985), riunite per la prima volta in cd con il titolo Earlier Music: ottimo contributo alla conoscenza storica del progetto Officer! guidato da Mick Hobbs, per lodevolissima iniziativa di Walter Robotka e Klanggalerie.

Officer! was founded by Londoner Mick Hobbs. His roots were in the Rock In Opposition scene of the late 70s and early 80s. Initially he worked as guitarist in The Work, subsequently he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage Studio in Brixton, working with artists like Family Fodder, Catherine Jauniaux and Zeena Parkins. The band's first album 8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs came out in 1982 on cassette only. It forms the first half of this CD re-issue. With the exception of two songs that came out on 7" on Blackest Ever Black in 2014, the album has never been re-issued in any form, the cassette is nearly impossible to get. It marked the birth of a unique songwriter and improviser with a gift for melodies, difficult arrangements and poignant lyrics. The second album, Ossification, arrived a year later and has been made available on CD. The third album, Cough was recorded and released in France in 1985. It is often overlooked in the band's discography, a fate that many cassette releases share. Again, this is the first time that these songs are being made available. Both tapes have been remastered in 2018 and are presented here for the first time ever in digital quality. Officer! are one of the most important bands in the British art-rock scene. Don't miss this rare chance to get hold of two long lost albums.

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg265
https://www.discogs.com/artist/722910-Officer!

C'è un nuovo interessante progetto di Mick Hobbs in fase di realizzazione, interamente dedicato a Cornelius Cardew: si chiama Paragraphs and Principles e riporta in primo piano la gloriosa sigla Officer! Per ora lo anticipa un brano, Para 2, che fa da lato B al singolo dall'assai appropriato titolo Brexit Means Toxic. Si trova tramite Bandcamp.

With Boris Johnson floundering and hopefully soon to be found “dead in a ditch”, and with still no sign of imminent resolution – whoever ends up in charge – to the UK’s ongoing political fuck-shambles, Mick Hobbs' Brexit Means Toxic 7” is well-timed, even if, like many a protest song before it, it’s preaching to the converted. Anyway look, if it takes a constitutional crisis to bring Officer! out of hiding – it’s a price worth paying.
Hobbs has always been an old folkie at heart, it’s the tension between that and his more disruptive, surrealist impulses that animate the best of his key '80s work, and make him such a brilliant and peculiar songwriter. Joey Stack handles vocals here, sounding wonderful as ever, her breezy Raincoats-y delivery inevitably recalling the stellar heights of The Lo Yo Yo. But for us, the B-side is where it’s at… whatever “it” might be… a tribute to Cornelius Cardew, and a trailer the forthcoming Officer! album Paragraphs and Principles, which is made up entirely of Cardew pieces performed/reimagined by by Hobbs and his cohorts. Para 2 finds Hobbs narrating the essence of Cardew’s epic The Great Learning, “to illustrate illustrious virtue / to renovate the people / and to rest in the highest excellence.” The music harks back to the RIO of Biota, Henry Cow, Art Bears et al, as plumes of reverberant ambience build to a maelstrom of piano, reeds and massed voices – bonkers, and exhilarating. Say what you will about Europe… there’s a certain kind of madness that will always find its fullest expression in England.

https://mickhobbs.com
https://officer-official.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/11th-september-2019
https://youtu.be/5vGl3ubtQDs

La sessione dal vivo che Jad Fair, Mick Hobbs e Gilles Rieder hanno registrato lo scorso 3 dicembre per Hello GoodBye, programma di Resonance FM, è disponibile in podcast negli archivi dell'emittente londinese: http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/8071.
Alcune immagini sono su Flickr.

Performing live in session on this week’s Hello GoodBye we had the lo-fi, living legend Jad Fair. Jad was joined by regular collaborators Mick Hobbs on guitar and Gilles Rieder on percussion. Jad Fair embarked upon a musical career when he formed the group Half Japanese with his brother David back in the late 1970's. Jad has since gone on to carve out an incredibly impressive and mind-bogglingly productive career, with over 50 albums to his name (including a multitude of collaborative projects with the likes of Mo Tucker, Daniel Johnston, Yo La Tengo, Teenage Fanclub and many many more.) Jad’s childlike enthusiasm and creativity remain entirely undiminished and he is nowadays almost as well known for his striking and poetic ‘paper-cuts’ artwork as he is for his music.
A collection 109 songs from Jad's gargantuan back-catalogue are currently available on the triple CD Beautiful Songs through Fire Records.

http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/8071
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellogoodbyeshow/archives/date-taken/2011/12/03

E ritorna anche Spiralling, formidabile exploit nel 1989 di Tim Hodgkinson, Mick Hobbs e Andy Wake con sigla The Momes. Lo recupera in vinile la catalana Guerssen Records in una sua sezione Mental Experience (!), allegando un grazioso bonus - un paio di brani su singolo anch'esso in vinile, non ignoti a chi già conosceva l'edizione in cd, più un inedito di grande interesse (Wall is Down) nella versione digitale - e un nuovo inserto con note e immagini: "They mix a kind of driving post-punk rock-lurch with beautiful lyrics, lovely Trout Mask guitar moments and plenty of twisted art-rock details", vi scrive Byron Coley.

The Momes fueron un efímero y curioso power–trio británico formado por Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow, The Work) a la guitarra laptop electrificada–noise / teclados, Mick Hobbs (Family Fodder, The Work, Officer!) en el bajo y Andy Wake (Unrest, Work & Play) a la batería. Poseían un abrasador pero al mismo tiempo melódico sonido que mezclaba de forma única post–punk, psych–prog y avant–rock. Spiralling fue su único álbum, grabado en los estudios Cold Storage de This Heat con el propio Charles Bullen (This Heat, Lifetones) como ingeniero de sonido. Se editó en 1989 – envuelto en una curiosa portada con guiño a los Beatles – en el sello Woof, creado por Tim Hodgkinson y Bill Gilonis. Por primera vez reeditada esta pequeña joya injustamente olvidada, incluye un single de 7" con dos fantásticos bonus tracks extraídos de las sesiones de grabación del disco, hasta ahora solo disponibles en CD. Cupón de descarga digital con el álbum más los bonus tracks, incluyendo además otro bonus track excusivo nunca editado hasta ahora.

https://guerssenrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spiralling
http://www.bandtoband.com/band/the-momes/spiralling

Continuo rievoca le vicende dei britannici The Lo Yo Yo, collettivo mutante attivo a metà degli anni ottanta in contiguità ed alternanza alle esperienze Family Fodder, Officer!, This Heat e The Work, proponendo l'ascolto dell'unico album realizzato interamente a proprio nome, Extra Weapons. A quelle registrazioni, effettuate a Brixton nell'inverno del 1985, presero parte Alig (uno degli alias di John Pearce, in seguito noto anche come Frank Sumatra o Johnny Human), Annie Hunt, Carrie Brooks, Joey Stack e Mick Hobbs, aiutati da Steve Wright, Leo Kelly, Bob Vanderbob, Rick Wilson e da Charles Bullen per la produzione.

British band The Lo Yo Yo was founded by Family Fodder frontman John Pearce, aka Alig, in 1984. The Lo Yo Yo was active for 2 years and released one cassette, one split cassette with Look De Book, one full-length LP and appeared on the Local International 15-26 compilation cassette on Recommended. The band’s name comes from a Captain Beefheart song titled Low Yo Yo Stuff on the 1972 Clear Spot LP. In an interview with Ed Pinsent, John Pearce simplistically described The Lo Yo Yo as “a sort of cooperative group with two girls and two guys, [...] touring around Europe a lot until about 1986.” (The Sound Projector issue #1, 1996). The Lo Yo Yo’s line-up was actually more varied and included, along 10 or so other musicians, various Family Fodder members like Mick Hobbs, Felix Fiedorowicz and Rick Wilson. All three also played in The Work and Officer!, sometimes with Pearce himself. Charles Bullen of This Heat occasionally played drums with Family Fodder and co-produced The Lo Yo Yo’s unique LP, Extra Weapons, in 1985.

http://continuo.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/the-lo-yo-yo-extra-weapons
http://www.discogs.com/Lo-Yo-Yo-Extra-Weapons/release/1073465

Ricompare in vinile Slow Crimes, storico primo album del quartetto The Work - Tim Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis, Mick Hobbs e Rick Wilson - uscito nel 1982 qualche mese dopo il fulminante esordio di I Hate America. Si incarica della riedizione l'americana Knock 'Em Dead, che per l'occasione allega all'album originale Anxious (About Meaning) e One Swallow in forma di singolo. La tiratura è limitata a 100 copie.

Slow Crimes is a little-known treasure of transformative magnitude. The Work were formed in 1979 by saxophonist Tim Hodgkinson (following the dissolution of Henry Cow), guitarist Bill Gilonis, bassist Mick Hobbs, and drummer Rick Wilson, although Slow Crimes showcases each member on a variety of instruments. Also featured is Catherine Jauniaux on guest vocals throughout the album. The Work's inaugural LP release, Slow Crimes is so rabidly articulate that it presides over and resides in a world very much unto itself. While falling within the loosest guidelines of "post-punk", the term is a misnomer, for the textural intricacies and distinct deliberacy throughout Slow Crimes bespeak both an utterly unique collective identity and a startling fluency with its own language. It takes the vibrant urgency of punk rock and catalyzes it into a continually fascinating mosaic. This reissue includes a bonus 7" with concurrent compilation tracks Anxious (About Meaning) and One Swallow.

https://www.knockemdeadrecords.com/the-work-slow-crimes

Ossification torna in circolazione trent'anni dopo la sua prima uscita - per Ayaa, nel 1984 - in un'edizione in vinile a tiratura limitata curata dalla statunitense Knock'em Dead Records, che con malcelato orgoglio lo annuncia come 'a timeless anomaly in the history of recorded music'. Con Mick Hobbs, responsabile del progetto Officer! nelle sue varie e intermittenti incarnazioni tra il 1983 e il 1988, c'erano per l'occasione Tim Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis, Rick Wilson, Catherine Jauniaux, Tom Cora, Georgie Born, Zeena Parkins, Andy Bole e Felix Fiedorowicz tra gli altri.

Per completare ascolto e conoscenza si può utilmente attingere a un post ancora accessibile presso l'ahimé defunto blog di Continuo.

http://www.discogs.com/artist/722910-Officer!
http://www.knockemdeadrecords.com/shop-officer-ossification.html
http://continuo.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/officer-8-new-songs-by-mick-hobbs
http://tinyurl.com/obdpp82

Vedrà la luce tra poche settimane l'album che Mick Hobbs aveva iniziato a mettere a punto a metà degli anni novanta - inteso a riaprire l'antico capitolo Officer! assieme agli attuali compagni di Half Japanese e Strobe Talbot - ma mai portato a termine. Si chiama Dead Unique, e lo pubblica in vari formati l'etichetta Blackest Ever Black.

A complex but thrillingly immediate avant-pop song cycle that charms and confounds at every turn, Dead Unique will give immense pleasure not only to Officer!’s existing cult following, but to anyone with an appreciation of piquant, idiosyncratic songcraft – fans of Kevin Ayers, Flaming Tunes, Art Bears, Woo, Dislocation Dance, R. Stevie Moore, Robert Wyatt, Cleaners From Venus, Lol Coxhill or The Monochrome Set should especially pay attention. It touches upon ragged-raw rock ‘n roll, sumptuous chamber music, pastoral folk, blowsy prog-jazz and paranoid dub-space, effortlessly shifting from skronking abstraction to rousing harmonic refrain and back again.
Dead Unique is also the culmination of Hobbs’ lifelong collaborative impulse: his visionary ability to bring musicians together, galvanise them and wrestle coherence out of the collective free play of ideas, arriving at something far more than the sum of its parts. The tension between composition and improvisation is key to the LP’s power, with Hobbs abetted by an extraordinary supporting cast that includes Tim Hodgkinson (bass clarinet), Fred Collins (vocals), Patrick Q (violin), Martha Colburn (vocal), Gilles Rieder (drums), Jad Fair (vocals) and Jason Willett (bass, keyboards, trumpet). Special mention must go to John Dierker, whose superbly expressive clarinet and saxophone parts are a fixture throughout, and to Joey Stack, who takes lead vocals on ‘Good’ and the show-stopping ‘Elephant Flowers’. Nonetheless it is the voice of Hobbs – as principal writer, performer and protagonist of these songs – that resonates most powerfully. Blurring the roles of storyteller, poet and prankster, he turns memorable line after memorable line, booby-trapping them with mischievous puns, fleet-footed literary allusions, sudden digressions and shifts of register, nonsense rhymes and other wordplay. But his acute wit and flair for the absurd is moored by a deep romantic sensibility, and though it delights in the minutiae of the human comedy, Dead Unique ultimately addresses its biggest themes: love, loss, commitment, independence, the mutability and inconstancy of all things. “You lose, you learn, you advance… but you always go back.”

http://blackesteverblack.bigcartel.com/product/officer-i-dead-unique-i-blackestcd006-cd

La decisione di Mick Hobbs di rimettere in circolazione la gloriosa sigla Officer! - in una formazione ovviamente diversa da quella degli esordi, più o meno trentacinque anni fa - ha fruttato negli ultimi tempi un album inedito, Dead Unique, e alcune sparse occasioni per seguirne dal vivo le nuove vicende. Una di queste, il concerto del 26 settembre 2015 all'ICA londinese, è documentata da un album in vinile a tiratura limitata pubblicato congiuntamente da Life & Living Records - l'etichetta di Hobbs - e la berlinese Blackest Ever Black, che lo rende disponibile anche in digitale tramite Bandcamp. Si intitola Never Mind The Bucket e vede coinvolti oltre a Hobbs Joey Stack, Tilly Bean, Ed Bernez, Mary Currie e Lydia Fischer, con lo zampino ex post di Jeroen Visser e Bill Gilonis.

https://blackesteverblack.bandcamp.com/album/never-mind-the-bucket

Ottimo ripescaggio in mp3 per Mick Hobbs e Officer! in Continuo's Weblog: due nastri del 1984 e 1985, rari già allora, pubblicati da Ayaa a lato delle uscite ufficiali su vinile, l'omonimo Officer! e Ossification. Dopo Family Fodder, The Work, The Momes, Kalahari Surfers (e qualche puntata anche in Orchestre Murphy), Hobbs è stato in tempi più recenti a fianco di Jad Fair (Half Japanese), con il quale ancora condivide l'esperienza Strobe Talbot.

http://continuo.wordpress.com

Amici, colleghi, conoscenti e ammiratori si ritrovano oggi a Londra per ricordare il compianto Mick Hobbs, a sei mesi dall'improvvisa scomparsa: tra omaggi e commemorazioni ci sarà anche musica dal vivo, con la partecipazione di Tim Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis, Rick Wilson, Andy Channing - Hobbs fu al loro fianco nei gruppi The Work e The Momes - e inoltre Atsuko Kamura e Dom Weeks. L'appuntamento è dalle 17.00 alle 23.00, presso The Ivy House.

https://tinyurl.com/MickHobbs

In cd lo pubblica l'austriaca Klanggalerie, in vinile (doppio) lo producono le francesi Jelodanti e InPolySons, in completo accordo e reciproco sostegno quale segno di condiviso omaggio al compianto Mick Hobbs, scomparso lo scorso gennaio: Dead Right, lavoro di forte taglio politico contro le destre conservatrici internazionali che Hobbs ha fatto appena in tempo a ultimare con sigla Officer! a fianco di Felix Fiedorowicz, con l'apporto di una ventina di amici e collaboratori sparsi in mezzo mondo.

http://www.klanggalerie.com
https://jelodanti.com
http://inpolysons.free.fr

Cercando in rete si trovano tracce audio e video dei concerti tenuti dagli Half Japanese a Barcelona e Parigi lo scorso maggio: Jad Fair era con John Sluggett, Mick Hobbs, Jason Willett e Gilles-Vincent Rieder.

www.jadfair.org
www.halfjapanese.co.uk
www.myspace.com/halfjapanesefanpage
http://www.youtube.com/user/folwool

I loro (pochi) materiali ufficiali - l'album Extra Weapons (1985) e i brani di Double Dog Dare, Summer '84, condiviso con Look De Bouk - li aveva meritoriamente raccolti in cd tre anni fa l'austriaca Klanggalerie, tralasciando solo alcune versioni demo apparse provvisoriamente su un paio di audiocassette. Sono quelle a essere ora recuperate dalla statunitense Concentric Circles, a documentare fin dai primissimi esordi una breve esperienza condotta ai margini delle vicende This Heat, The Work e Family Fodder di inizio e metà anni Ottanta. Protagonisti Alig Pearce, Carrie Brooks, Mick Hobbs e Joey Stack, più qualche amico di passaggio: The Lo Yo Yo.

https://theloyoyo.bandcamp.com/self-titled

Ancora interessanti ripescaggi sui blog di Continuo e Mutant Sounds: Cough, cassetta dal vivo del 1985 del gruppo Officer! guidato da Mick Hobbs, e un raro vinile di Heiner Goebbels, un 45giri uscito su Riskant nel 1982 con i brani 'Die Letzte Buche' e 'so wird der Schrecken ohne Ende langsam normales Leben', con la partecipazione di Christoph Anders e Chris Cutler.

http://continuo.wordpress.com
http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com

 

Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes
(Mick Hobbs, 1965-2025)

Una scarsa dozzina di brani d'assalto oggi quanto allora, introdotti da un illuminante scritto di Chris Cutler e raccolti in una confezione acre e pungente finanche al tatto: The Work, con i magnifici Mick Hobbs, Rick Wilson, Tim Hodgkinson e Bill Gilonis ritratti a sbalzo tra il 1981 (Fingers and Toes) e il 1994 (Stone). Quattrocento copie offerte dalla parigina Jelodanti Records. Per far bello l'alberello...

https://jelodanti-records.bandcamp.com/album/compilation
https://www.discogs.com/it/The-Work-Compilation/release/12393535

Nuova occasione per avvicinarsi dal vivo alle ipnotiche trame sonore intessute dal corposo ensemble di tastiere, distorsori, bassi elettrici e percussioni guidato da Andy Saunders e accompagnato dalle immagini di Ian Owings: Himmel (in precedenza, Pimmel), Music for Massed Fuzz Organs. In formazione ci sono tra gli altri Chris Cutler, Mick Hobbs, Glyn Perrin, Kath Gifford, Debbie Googe, Graham Carlow, Andrew Manson, Mike Barnes, Jason Slade, Chris Anderson e Bela Emerson. Questa sera al Cafe Oto, a Londra.

29 musicians, 25 vintage electric organs, two drum kits, two bass guitars and three projectors. Himmel’s music spans the territory between drone minimalism, krautrock and cosmic jazz, creating a powerful live musical spectacle at the edges of the known. Himmel’s music contains minimal landscapes of intense beauty contrasting with the elemental power of a rock band in full spate. The complexity and awe of this experience is magnified by the layered compositional strength of an orchestra of massed, vintage electric organs played through fuzzboxes. Two tolling Fender Rhodes, two bass guitars and two drummers lay the foundation for a mosaic of distorted shifting harmonic drones and submerged melodies.
Himmel was founded in 2008 by Andy Saunders and the experimental arts collective Lewes Arts Lab. Andy Saunders is a founding member of Towering Inferno, whose album Kaddish, released on Island 1995, fused chanting rabbis with heavy-metal guitar and hypnotic systems music. Ian Owings is a multimedia artist whose work includes paintings, video, large scale installations and digital billboard imagery.
Focusing on the relationship between film and music, this is an exploration of the combined power of massed fuzz organs and minimal abstract visuals.

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/himmel.shtm

http://vimeo.com/83537031

Per intercessione di Bing Selfish ritorna disponibile il primo album dell'Orchestre Murphy Up Murphy Street, uscito in tiratura limitata nel 1986 e mai più messo in circolazione. Lo si recupera oggi attraverso www.bingselfish.com e www.divineagency.org oltre che da ReR. Parecchi i nomi coinvolti, alcuni come da tradizione sotto mentite spoglie, altri riconducibili al giro The Work / Camberwell Now: tra questi Mick Hobbs, Chris Cornetto, Trefor Goronwy, C.D. Gray, Emma Peters, Bill Gilonis e naturalmente Robert Storey. Una piccola perla ritrovata!

Ne scrive Clive Bell: "Under a shifting series of aliases - Orchestre Murphy, The Working Stiffs, The Miners of Banal - The Murphies have released albums of unique, eccentric songs characterised by colourful, if ramshackle arrangements, the querulous vocals of Rob Murphy and an absence of any information on the sleeve. There have also been operas (including a tribute to a South London pub tribute to Mickey Spillane), radio plays and shows with that maestro of the lip-curling political lyric, Bing Selfish. A strange, half-solemn cabaret, Up Murphy Street flirts with pop, but allows bassoon, Bontempi organ and trombone to divert it into Spanish marches and folk dirges. As English as Gilbert and Sullivan, it could be Kurt Wiell rising from the pub piano to embrace The Incredible String Band. This early Murphies extravaganza is not as effortless as the recent Smut (on Alchohol records), but it confidently builds its own world in "Noah And The Ark": "I turned on the radio in outer space/ The animals were singing/ We've got to get out of this place"."

www.bingselfish.com

www.divineagency.org

www.rermegacorp.com

 

Guardano invece all'opera di Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) gli Officer! di Mick Hobbs, Felix Fiedorowicz e Bill Gilonis, con un album a dir poco sorprendente realizzato anche grazie all'apporto di una lunga lista di amici e collaboratori come Xentos Fray Bentos, Andy Bole, Mary Currie, Catherine Jauniaux, David Kerman, Alig Pearce e Rick Wilson: Paragraphs and Principles, prodotto in cd da Klanggalerie e in vinile da Jelodanti.

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg366
https://officer-official.bandcamp.com/paragraphs-and-principles
https://jelodanti-records.bandcamp.com/paragraphs-and-principles