Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Wednesday, 4 January 2023
Terry Hall Easter special Piccadilly Radio
Terry Hall
19 March 1959 – 18 December 2022
Terry Hall Easter special
Piccadilly Radio, Manchester
8th April 1985 21:00-23:00
I asked 25 year old Terry Hall if he'd like to have a go at presenting his own show. There were just the two of us in studio 2 at Piccadilly Radio with a pile of records and a delightful shy and slightly nervous Terry. I played the records in real time, and encouraged him to tell his story and he gets more confident as the show progresses.
Enjoy the revelation of his inspirations and a personal insight into the processes of his recording. There are some joyous surprises coming up
The tape has been in the loft since 1985.
Wednesday, 16 November 2022
Anamibia Sessions 1 • The Wave by Melvin Gibbs
A potentially surprising release on Editions Mego. Another planned prior to the untimely passing of Peter Rehberg in 2021.
Melvin Gibbs is the renowned bass player and producer from Brooklyn who’s vast resume includes playing with Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, The Rollins Band, Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso and Femi Kuti amongst others. A solid resume, no doubt, but what is Gibbs doing on Editions Mego?
Behind the scenes, those who know Gibbs knew that amongst all this he was also tinkering away at another form of music, one which skirts around the border between music and sound design. The Wave is the first release that reveals this side of Gibbs’ creative output to those outside his inner circle.
The driving force for this output is Gibbs’ multi-decade friendship with acclaimed American video artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa. Over the course of time Gibbs and Jafa have had many conversations about music and the connection between film and music. Jafa’s desire to make film that worked the way Black (as in Black/African-American/ Afro-diasporic peoples) music worked inspired Gibbs to study the filmmakers Serge Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov and incorporate their philosophies and tactics when recording his own music. The two discussed sound design which directly informed Gibbs’ choice of music making tools and led to him acquiring Symbolic Systems Kyma software and hardware, incorporating this as a composition tool and sound design and component in his work. These conversations bore concrete fruit through Gibbs’ work for TNEG, the film studio Jafa ran with filmmakers Malik Sayeed and Elissa Blount Moorhead. Gibbs created the soundtrack for their very first project, the short film “Deshotten 1.0” (2009 - directed by Jafa and Sayeed) as well as their Martin Luther King-inspired meditation on Black life “Dreams Are Colder Than Death” (2013, directed by Jafa)
The bass-forward music, or ‘sonics’ as Gibbs calls it, emerged from an alternative mode of contemplation, a mode that he sees as closer to the mindset of a rootworker, an African-American herbal doctor who cures psychic ailments using means derived from African spiritual practice, entering a forest to find the right plants for a suffering client than a meditator attempting to invoke mindfulness. Gibbs says this practice yields results that suggest an aural form of creation akin to coagulation, a formal movement that gives the sense that a flow of sounds can emit something bearing resemblance to solidifying objects.
In 2020 Jafa asked Gibbs to work on the soundtrack for a work in progress called “The Wave''. When they got together to work on the soundtrack, Jafa played Gibbs a selection of sounds that included random moments of (probably unwanted) feedback on 70's Miles Davis records, Pop Smoke's Brooklyn drill, the music of Bernard Gunter and Darmstadt-style compositions made with test equipment. Those sounds, filtered through years of conversation with Jafa about Black creativity and the possible evolution of Black music, formed the sonic vocabulary of “The Wave”.
Over time the sonics evolved and “The Wave” became the piece Jafa calls "AGHDRA". This soundtrack incorporates and expands upon the sonics composed for “The Wave”. Gibbs mentions although the work with Jafa has always skirted these lines of evolution, this side of his vocabulary has been generally neglected, until now, due to his current jazz musician/jazz festival-centric focus and radar.
The result of this parallel exploration is a deep excursion into a nuanced sound world. The rich tapestry of textures allows one's mind to explore and project within this bed of curious investigation of sound. The bristling, itching, restless, clicking, diving nature of the electronic sound world presented by Gibbs, is abstract and unearthly on the surface but closer listening (which it demands) reveals a very human quality to these austere shapes.
It may be a universe apart from his work in the field of jazz but stands high amongst the more experimental work found amongst the Editions Mego catalogue and like Jafa’s work in film is a triumph of exploratory forms.
Melvin Gibbs is the renowned bass player and producer from Brooklyn who’s vast resume includes playing with Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, The Rollins Band, Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso and Femi Kuti amongst others. A solid resume, no doubt, but what is Gibbs doing on Editions Mego?
Behind the scenes, those who know Gibbs knew that amongst all this he was also tinkering away at another form of music, one which skirts around the border between music and sound design. The Wave is the first release that reveals this side of Gibbs’ creative output to those outside his inner circle.
The driving force for this output is Gibbs’ multi-decade friendship with acclaimed American video artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa. Over the course of time Gibbs and Jafa have had many conversations about music and the connection between film and music. Jafa’s desire to make film that worked the way Black (as in Black/African-American/ Afro-diasporic peoples) music worked inspired Gibbs to study the filmmakers Serge Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov and incorporate their philosophies and tactics when recording his own music. The two discussed sound design which directly informed Gibbs’ choice of music making tools and led to him acquiring Symbolic Systems Kyma software and hardware, incorporating this as a composition tool and sound design and component in his work. These conversations bore concrete fruit through Gibbs’ work for TNEG, the film studio Jafa ran with filmmakers Malik Sayeed and Elissa Blount Moorhead. Gibbs created the soundtrack for their very first project, the short film “Deshotten 1.0” (2009 - directed by Jafa and Sayeed) as well as their Martin Luther King-inspired meditation on Black life “Dreams Are Colder Than Death” (2013, directed by Jafa)
The bass-forward music, or ‘sonics’ as Gibbs calls it, emerged from an alternative mode of contemplation, a mode that he sees as closer to the mindset of a rootworker, an African-American herbal doctor who cures psychic ailments using means derived from African spiritual practice, entering a forest to find the right plants for a suffering client than a meditator attempting to invoke mindfulness. Gibbs says this practice yields results that suggest an aural form of creation akin to coagulation, a formal movement that gives the sense that a flow of sounds can emit something bearing resemblance to solidifying objects.
In 2020 Jafa asked Gibbs to work on the soundtrack for a work in progress called “The Wave''. When they got together to work on the soundtrack, Jafa played Gibbs a selection of sounds that included random moments of (probably unwanted) feedback on 70's Miles Davis records, Pop Smoke's Brooklyn drill, the music of Bernard Gunter and Darmstadt-style compositions made with test equipment. Those sounds, filtered through years of conversation with Jafa about Black creativity and the possible evolution of Black music, formed the sonic vocabulary of “The Wave”.
Over time the sonics evolved and “The Wave” became the piece Jafa calls "AGHDRA". This soundtrack incorporates and expands upon the sonics composed for “The Wave”. Gibbs mentions although the work with Jafa has always skirted these lines of evolution, this side of his vocabulary has been generally neglected, until now, due to his current jazz musician/jazz festival-centric focus and radar.
The result of this parallel exploration is a deep excursion into a nuanced sound world. The rich tapestry of textures allows one's mind to explore and project within this bed of curious investigation of sound. The bristling, itching, restless, clicking, diving nature of the electronic sound world presented by Gibbs, is abstract and unearthly on the surface but closer listening (which it demands) reveals a very human quality to these austere shapes.
It may be a universe apart from his work in the field of jazz but stands high amongst the more experimental work found amongst the Editions Mego catalogue and like Jafa’s work in film is a triumph of exploratory forms.
credits
releases December 2, 2022
Saturday, 12 November 2022
Thursday, 13 October 2022
BBC Radio 3 • Free Thinking
Miles Davis and On The Corner
From James Brown to Stockhausen, the influences which fed into Miles Davis's 1972 album On The Corner are explored by Matthew Sweet and guests, 50 years after its release. Bill Laswell, Chelsea Carmichael, Kevin LeGendre and Paul Tingen join Matthew to celebrate an album that was dismissed by some jazz critics as evidence of Davis 'selling out' when it came out, but that has gone on to be appreciated as an important and influential milestone.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Bill Laswell's many recordings and productions include Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974.
Chelsea Carmichael is a saxophonist and composer. Her most recent album is The River Doesn't Like Strangers.
Paul Tingen is the author of Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991.
Kevin Le Gendre is one of the presenters of BBC Radio 3's J to Z broadcast Saturdays at 5pm
Listen now
Download
Tuesday, 27 September 2022
Rare Pharoah Sanders Interview and Performace with John Hicks
Pharoah Sanders (born Farrell Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. A member of John Coltrane's groups of the mid-1960s, Sanders was known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound". He released over 30 albums as a leader and collaborated extensively with Leon Thomas and Alice Coltrane, among others. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world".
Sanders' music has been called spiritual jazz due to his inspiration in religious concepts such as Karma and Tawhid, and his rich, meditative aesthetic. This style was seen as a continuation of Coltrane's work on albums such as A Love Supreme. As a result, Sanders was considered to have been a disciple of Coltrane or, as Albert Ayler said, "Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost".
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Sunday, 25 September 2022
Wednesday, 7 September 2022
Translations in Dub • A Conversation with Bill Laswell
Ambient translations in dub, Japan in the ’80s, and future music with visionary bass player / producer Bill Laswell.
A few months ago, news arrived that iconic bass player / producer Bill Laswell was in need of help from his fans, friends, and fellow artists. The note, titled “Entering the 2nd phase of Sacred Begging: EMERGENCY,” included details of Laswell’s difficulties over the pandemic with preexisting health conditions, his recent eviction from his Manhattan home, and struggle to hold on to the lease of his legendary New Jersey studio, Orange Music. A GoFundMe campaign was set up and within moments, Laswell’s global network responded with an outpouring of love and support:
“Your records, your performances, your principles have imprinted in my soul and I’m better for it.”
“Bill. Without you, nothing if you ask me. You are a true warrior with a big musical integrity. We need you out there.”
“It’s a damned crime that the man behind so much innovative sound and music is out here in this situation.”
While the casual music fan might not recognize Laswell by name, the artist has had a hand in producing some of the most inventive and sonically adventurous music of the last four decades. “Rockit” with Herbie Hancock introduced turntablism to the world and helped hip-hop crossover to the mainstream. Last Exit, a quartet with Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann, and Ronald Shannon Jackson, pushed the sonic boundaries of free jazz and ventured into noise territory. Gigi forged a new world pop sound fusing traditional Ethiopian music with jazz, ambient, and gospel. The album would go on to inspire generations of Ethiopian youth.
Read the full interview: insheepsclothinghifi.com
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