Saturday, May 23, 2009

Review (belated!)... Tom McConville/David Newey at Traditions at the Tiger, Sunday 17th May, 2009

















I wrote this the day after the gig - and promptly forgot to post it - it's been one of those weeks... But here are a few thoughts on a great evening...

I have been meaning to get over to 'Traditions at the Tiger' in Long Eaton for a long time – but for a variety of obscure reasons, have never made it. My loss... Finally dragging myself from God's Little Acre over the county line with the automotive help of Mr and Mrs B – who help to run this club. A reasonable sized room in the traditional way – over the pub. With an incongruous pool table in the middle – which was useful for putting cds and tapes on... (I had wondered if there would be a game in the interval, as a couple of lines from an old Jackie Crowley song went through my mind: 'And every man jack was up for the crack, with his arse in the air playing pool.') High ceiling, which resembles the club room above the Swan in the Rushes back home. Good for resonance...

Tonight: violin master Tom McConville in a duo with guitarist David Newey. But beforehand, in both halves, a demonstration of the depth of talent this club has – with their residents apparently a little depleted, still, some fascinating songs delivered in a variety of styles and voices – from Dave Sutherland, John Bentham, Al Atkinson, Corrine Male, Jack Crawford - plus Sheila Bentham's storytelling skills – and another nice surprise, the redoubtable Bill Wilkes and Lynne Cooper from the Barrow club (where I would be the next night) who had also crossed the county line. Great singing from the tradition, backed with a depth of knowledge and erudition, delivered with skill - and humour...

Tom McConville has been around, as they say... Supported by supple guitar, flatpicked and fingerstyle as applicable, he delivered tunes and songs, a lyrical voice with plenty held back in reserve, nothing forced, soaring violin, underpinned with the rhythm section of John Lee Hooker – a firm stomping brogue. David Newey accompanied sympathetically, switching from up on the one – for the traditional stuff – to the more syncopated 2 and 4 for more American influenced syncopation. A class act - and to my mind, ample room for crossover – this is music that is well capable of reaching a wider audience – without compromising integrity. I know McConville has played around Europe and beyond to the USA and that widespread experience is easily detected in the broad spread appeal of his material where different traditions can blend easily, held together by a sharply focused vision, exemplary skill – and abundant good humour... He's a droll cove...

Roll on the next one - Tom Kitching and Gren Bartley (no strangers!) on June 7th...



Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Review: Joel Holmes/'African Skies'...









Pigeon holes have become more confusing these last years, especially with regard to the music(s) we call 'jazz.' Born on the cusp of the electronic age and accelerated by the developing technologies, its development has been rapid compared to the longer, more sedate span of western art/classical music. Measure from plainsong to Schoenberg and beyond, for example and compare the years travelled against work song/ragtime/marching band/blues to... 'modern post bop,' which is how Blue Canoe, the digital jazz label based in Georgia, defines this new release by the young pianist Joel Holmes. A separate journey of course – jazz as a majestic African-American achievement (in the main, but not exclusively) went down many different roads compared to its Western art music relation, while recapitulating and folding much of that music's advances into itself – wheels within wheels indeed. So: there is a lot to unpack in the tight compression of a hundred years of jazz history leading up to the term 'post-bop.' Leaving aside 'free jazz' – Holmes is broadly in the mainstream lineage – what lies under the large panorama of his album 'African Skies?' Joel Holmes shows his influences – as a young musician should – but also demonstrates how far he has travelled from them (while retaining his links with those earlier styles) and some of the areas he wants to explore further. Which indicates, perhaps, the breadth of possibilities that the mainstream of jazz still has to explore. Here you will find adaptions of Chinese folk song, homages to Coltrane and Herbie Hancock, original compositions and a nod to the American standard songbook, played by: solo piano, straight ahead piano trios, burning quartets with Gary Thomas's tenor saxophone added, further extensions with added strings and flute, spiced with African/Latin percussion. All these different angles held together by the leader's keyboard skills and highly developed sense of structure – and strong spirituality – the whole kicked along by the booting drums of Eric Kennedy, rhythm being at the heart of the mainstream/modern postbop whatever, the solid link with the tradition. It all swings...

A brief overview:

'African Skies' starts on a slow rumble to suddenly bounce into a lithe line, fast piano echoed by tenor and punctuated by the added percussion whose rolling rhythms evoke both African and Latin styles. Solo honours from tenor and strong but melodic piano.

'Impressions,' and 'Impressions – Take Two.' Two fast runs through the Coltrane number. Holmes shows his two-handed skills and fleet sense of melody, shadowed by nimble bass and the powering drums. Gary Thomas proves himself deserving of wider recognition...

'Chinese Fishing Song' signals a change of gear and direction – heading East, rhapsodic piano evoking the rippling of waves and then slow stately violin takes the folk song theme. Moving into a steady tempo as the violin (Chia Yin Holmes) slowly builds an elegant yet intense solo, increasingly prodded by drum interjections, followed by muscular, jaunty piano.

Another Coltrane tune, 'Mr P.C.' Straight up quartet again. Tenor solos first then piano comes running fast out of the blocks. Then: a trading section across the band - swapping choruses rather than fours or eights, in a round robin, which demonstrates again the intelligent arranging/structuring, to get as much out of the various smallband lineups as possible.

'Fatima' - another sonic area opens here – piano trio with added percussion, strings and flute. The strings are used sparingly, the airy pastorality of the flute balanced by strong bass ostinatos and – again – the powerful drums that are never far away.

'Summer night.' A piano trio: surefooted spin through a light waltz. A standard, from Harry Warren and Al Dubin, taken skilfully round the floor. Perhaps a nod at another Holmes's hero – the late Oscar Peterson.

Another pick from the jazz songbook – the patter of bongoes gives a Latin feel to Herbie Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage.' Contrasts aplenty – reflective passages giving way to storming drums. Another well-structured track with much dynamic variety.

'Soliloquy of trouble.' Solo piano – evoking one of his favourite pianist influences, Art Tatum with sudden swirling jaunts away from the slow tempo. Exposed, Holmes passes the test...

'Moment's Notice.' Back to the trio... chorded theme with fast-skittering drums – then quick fire, sparkling lines from the leader. Eric Kennedy really boots this along, taking the track, and fittingly, the session, out with a thumping solo.

An impressive album... Holmes is not afraid of showing his strong links back, not just to the immediate past – Coltrane, Herbie Hancock etc but further, Oscar Peterson, back to the great Art Tatum (and beyond – interestingly he says that ragtime was his first influence), but avoiding pastiche or retro/tribute band lockdown in his incorporation of wider musical streams – 'folk/world music,' etc. Again, these terms have often implied a watering down blandout – avoided here by the tough, supple drumming of Eric Kennedy which provides a flexible platform throughout – and the leader's overall maturity of vision. The relatively short tracks offer concise episodes where Holmes sense of structure and dynamics is displayed effectively– the individual pieces refracting each other to offer a kaleidoscopic panorama of the possibilities still open 'within the tradition.'

Final thoughts: Holmes is well-supported on the album: Gary Thomas and the other musicians bend their individual skills to the wider endeavour – the tenor saxophonist, especially, I would like to hear more of...



Collective Personnel:

Joel Holmes - piano
Gary Thomas, Tim Green - sax/flute
Eric Kennedy - drums
Jeff Reed, Eric Wheeler - bass
Melena - percussion
Themba Mikhatshwa - conga, djembe
Chun-Wen Chuan - cello
Chia Yin Holmes - violin

Monday, May 18, 2009

Tiger, Tiger...




















Sunday - a great night at the Tiger... My first visit - and I see why it is considered one of the best local clubs. Tom McConville and David Newey on fine form, the violinist especially offering a masterclass on his instrument. Small review to follow, when I have finished the album review due last week... Time runs away...

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The music returns... Cecil Taylor... Anthony Braxton... Ornette Coleman...

A slow and easy squeeze back into the mp3 game - I had a request for these three tracks from an old post so have re-upped them. The original post is here... 'Womb waters scent of the burning armadillo shell' has to be one of my all-time favourite titles...



Cecil Taylor
(Rashied Bakr, drums, voice · Karen Borca, bassoon, voice · Günther Hämpel, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, vibraphone, voice · Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, voice · Andre Martinez, drums, percussion, voice · William Parker, bass, voice · Enrico Rava, trumpet, voice · Tomasz Stanko, trumpet, voice · Cecil Taylor, piano, voice · John Tchicai, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, voice . Frank Wright, tenor saxophone, voice)

Womb Waters Scent Of The Burning Armadillo Shell
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Anthony Braxton
(Anthony Braxton, clarinet, alto, soprano, sopranino and C-melody saxophones, flute (collective instrumentation for the album) Adelhard Roidinger (b) Tony Oxley (d))

Compositions 40J & 110A (+108B + 69J)
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Ornette Coleman
(Ornette Coleman (as) Gregory Cohen, Tony Falanga (b) Denardo Coleman (d))

SleepTalking
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Monday, May 11, 2009

Iain Sinclair in Coventry... Saturday May 9, 2009...

Down to Coventry to attend a reading by Iain Sinclair (unofficial web site)... Touch and go I would make it as the old exhaustion has sidelined me since I got back from London – but managed to drag myself off to the station – missed the Waterstones book signing at 12 pm and had some time to kill so I went off in search of refreshment. I've been going to Coventry (no pun intended) quite a lot these last couple of years for gigs (Tin Angel/Taylor John's etc) but that was at night and we usually managed to get lost so the daytime city I know hardly at all. I found the Library fairly easily and went off to the marvellously named Medieval Spon Street as I vaguely remembered a pub in that direction. Duly found The Old Windmill, a hurried pint of Belgian wheat beer, some Indian guy tried to sell me a bed – and I consequently got lost coming back to the reading. I think they call it psychogeography... Only briefly however – course rectified, I made it back to the Library in plenty of time.

A reasonable crowd for a reading – I've seen less... High up on a level that overlooked the main library with people coming and going all around. It struck me as odd at first, but actually it worked very well and resonated with much of Iain Sinclair was subsequently to speak and read about. Engaging with the local... Probably better than being stuck in one of those doctor's waiting room cubby holes where they usually hold these events, it was oddly intimate AND open...

Sinclair is a tall man, balding, dressed in black, an amiable presence which disguises a sharp intellect. He did a stand up gig really, conversational, fluent, his patter seamlessly interspersed with readings of earlier work and sections from his latest extravaganza 'Hackney, that Rose Red Empire.' An old pro – a class act. But more than just an entertainer – there is a serious message here in his obsessive diggings deep into the substrata of London and beyond. The current preoccupation that haunts his new book - the looming shadow of the Olympics, that fiscal crack-up coming to a capital city near you soon, the manner in which London communities are being moved on to make room for the latest Millenium Dome debacle(farce repeated as... farce), the new 'Enclosures' – if John Clare was the signature poet of the old ones, driven mad eventually by the destruction of his ground and his encounters with London and fickle celebrity surely Sinclair is the bard of the new. (Although saner!).

Loops...

'Polis is
eyes'

(The Maximus Poems, Letter 6, l 1-2 by Charles Olson)

– reading this in Maximus, it struck me how this acted as a good rule for what writers should do – SEE through the murk, the bullshit. Then, during the reading, when he mentioned the Orwellian preponderance of CCTV cameras in this country, it suddenly struck me as a prescient joke – police have eyes, the Glaswegian spin in the word mutating it into a description of our present over-observed society with its increasingly overt possibilities for a police state – rather than the local anarcho-democratic politics hinted at in Olson's 'polis.' Connections...

I would have liked to hear some more of his poetry but given the time strictures we were still treated to a rich verbal feast - and there was the new book to plug, after all. It struck me that as Charles Olson had eventually surpassed his earlier master, Ezra Pound, with his Maximus poems, over the years Sinclair had transcended his early influences – Beats/Black Mountain/WCW – to forge a unique style that was rooted in his native culture(s) (in the broadest sense: prophets of the wilder possibilities rather than those 'canonised' by an academe that has grown ever-more stifling – who would have thought that possible?) while having the flexibility and energy that those American precursors brought to their own language. Moreover – a style that has evolved to describe as accurately as possible and further, to engage and criticise the contemporary world in a unique manner, the form evolving as the field spreads outwards. Olson again (from Creeley): Form is never more than an expression of content. A million miles away from the Brit lit scene – you know who I mean. The heritage farmers... In Sinclair's work, voices from the past mingle with the contemporary demotics in all their clashing multi-culti sprawl of contradictions and uneasy alliances. Gangsters, poets, artists, hustlers, the older cultures rub against the new on the London street, counterposed against the shadows of Post Thatcher New Labour Babylons... 'Moloch, Moloch, Nightmare of Moloch,' as Ginsberg had it...

Yet - the whole done with a light touch and liberal dashes of humour. However scholarly the underpinnings - and his research alone covers a massive range - Sinclair will usually break it up with a gag here and there. Polemic leavened with humanity...

Heady stuff for a cold afternoon in a Middle England library – and the provincial may yet be our collective salvation. Energies grounded in the local. Maximus to Medieval Spon Street...

Unfortunately I had to dash off back to God's Little Acre – but managed to grab a quick word with Kevin Ring, the editor of the fine mag 'Beat Scene' – and bought a copy of Mr Sinclair's Kodak Mantra Diaries from him which you can also get from his web site – scroll right down...

Update: Just found this which gives a flavour of his work: Sinclair on the Olympic Scam...

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Review: Freedom of the City Festival, Conway Hall, London, Monday 4th May, 2009...





















A long day and a glorious marathon of music...

Kick off at 2 pm – a duo with Seymour Wright and Sebastian Lexer – alto saxophone and piano/electronics. I've seen Wright before a few years ago and didn't take to his assembling/dismantling of his instrument routine. That said – today I felt that I got what he was on about. Wright's a deadpan/zen character in a smart suit, sitting with his cohort Lexer in meditative silence before starting – crackles of sound from Lexer, Wright opening up on alto mouthpiece and various additions. Small, imperceptible breaths, spurts of air – it all sounds a bit precious until you go with it. This is musical exploration deep below the surface of the melodic/harmonic line, delving into the properties of discrete units of sound. Once the alto was assembled, Wright continued his forensic investigations of its physical properties, using a small radio inside the bell, a tambourine balanced on the same as Lexer produced complementary sounds from the piano and further processed through his rig. A riveting performance – visual as well as aural. I detect – though I could be wrong – a wry humour behind the mask. After all, he is one of us provincials, from Derby way. We do wry... Great start to the afternoon...

A trio next – Ross Lambert/Paul Abbott/Jerry Wigens. Guitar/electronics/clarinet. I enjoyed it but thought it a little disconnected and a trifle dry at times. One thought I had about the festival as a whole was how the electronics side never really seemed fully integrated with the conventional instruments, apart from a couple of exceptions. Here, Lambert and Wigens intereacted fluently throughout, but Abbott seemed more colour than equal contribution - however, this could have been due to my position off to the side of the hall...


John White and John Lely
– the old guard and the new. Sat at a couple of tables with their electronic produce in front of them, it struck me rather facetiously (as ever) that there is a thesis somewhere for an earnest young academic to write – on the influence of church jumble/bring and buy sales on laptop/electronic music. (Might get them a job on The Wire...). Two parallel streams of sounds, some short wave radio interference which provided a couple of laughs. Something about this seemed – well, it was interesting, as was everything on the festival, but a bit flimsy... academics having fun... nothing visceral...

After a short break – fire music of the first order. A stunning duo of John Edwards and John Butcher, gonzo bass player supreme and saxophones - tenor and soprano. Edwards is a virtuoso, taking his instrument way beyond its conventional range (caveat: whatever that might be these days), slapping it, stroking, pummelling, jamming his bow into the strings, producing a massive array of sound that always hard drives any combo he is part of. Butcher I had taken for a more cerebral player, used to his multi-tracked albums rather than his live work. On storming form here – they jacked up the energy levels and went down accordingly well with the enthused audience.

A duo – Ute Wasserman and Aleks Kolkowski. Now this really was something different. When I clocked the musical saw I thought about heading for the bar as I hate glissando-ey wobbley instruments (never could dig the theremin for the same reason). Luckily I let curiosity get the better of prejudice and witnessed one of the highlights (for me) of the festival. Kolkowski, bowing on the saw and on a phono-fiddle (an instrument I have not seen since I was a street musician way back and encountered regularly an old guy who played one down Marble Arch subway) completely transcended his instruments' vaudeville connotations. Wasserman, a tall woman, stood straight and sang/produced vocal sounds starting from pure, almost operatic tones (she has that sort of range and technique) that were bent and roughed up into more granular areas, subtly punctuated with additional small bird callers. Without any electronic aid – apart from the microphones - they brought forth amazing music of condensed purity. Bottleneck phonofiddle as well, I kid you not...

More fire: Marc Saunders/Pat Thomas/John Coxon. Starting on smashed piano chord/clusters whacked out of the Bosendorfer by Thomas as Saunders rattled up fast-wristed salvos across his kit, spiced with Coxon's high-octane electric guitar noise. The guitarist used his instrument for colouration, coming from a different genre he grasped how to interact with the speed of the other two musicians, wrenching amplified shrieks and splashes into appropriate shapes to match their lines. Maybe not always successfully, but a brave stab...

The evening session. First up: John Russell's latest incarnation of QuaQua – a seven piece tonight, including Phil Minton... I almost left for the bar again – there are not many vocal improvisers who do it for me anyway and Minton definitely is not one of them. Luckily in a group this size - piano and added electronics (again), violin, percussion, bass, alto, and Russell's guitar, there was plenty to hold the attention away from yelping by numbers. Stirring stuff – at times when they got stoked up they seemed to hit a spiky fragmented almost-groove – not in a jazz/freejazz even sense, but something intrinsic perhaps to Brit/European improvisers who have played together so much down the years, a collective energy field of spiky movement hard-driven by Turner's percussion. Russell a bit low in the overall mix – his sound concept of dry, dusty scrapes, sharply strummed notes and skittering runs performed on an old archtop guitar is obviously deliberate but with little carry can get tonally swamped. Pity, because he is a fascinating guitarist. (Somewhere I have some old radio shots of him in a trio with John Butcher and Phil Durrant where the guitar cuts through much more – must dig those cassettes out of the garage). A small beef, however – great set...

Lol Coxhill solo... I first heard Lol back in the old days when he was busking round the West End – as I was. I would often go down the road and listen – one of our national treasures. Tonight, in relaxed form playing to the home crowd, as it were... Lol manages to go in and out seamlessly, his improvisations following a logic that bends occasional timbral effects into the melodic flow without seeming contrived. He finished on a standard – shock horror! 'Lover Man,' a beautiful rendition but with one eye on the clock – he suddenly stopped in mid chorus. Courtesy for the following musicians – and good stagecraft. Still a marvellous freshness to his playing after all these years...

A trio: Alan Wilkinson/John Bissett/James Dunn – baritone and alto saxophones/guitar/electronics. Blistering stuff – Wilkinson I have never seen live and he gave of his all – fast and furious and shading it on the alto horn, I thought. Bissett was a new name to provincial me – I would like to hear more, he struck me as having an interesting take on post-Bailey guitar. A powerhouse set – but again, it struck me that the electronics of James Dunn were interesting but just adding colour rather than being more deeply integrated into the whole. I kept thinking of someone with the visceral live intensity of Aaron Dilloway, wondered how he would fit into these ensembles... but a good segment closer, all the same.

The end of a perfect day... A superb duo to kick off the last section, Tony Marsh and Alexander Hawkins, veteran drummer alongside up and coming young pianist. Hawkins started in lyrical mood, upping his game into wilder crashing smashes and scampering lines – a little repetitive in places, perhaps, with the top of keyboard flurries, but overall exciting stuff. Marsh was superb, visibly enjoying himself throughout. Went down a storm...

To the last set – left to right, John Edwards, Evan Parker, John Russell and Peter Evans – bass, tenor/soprano saxophone, guitar and trumpet. A heavyweight band, although I noticed how Parker pulls back in these situations, playing for the ensemble rather than allowing his formidable technique to dominate. I would like to have heard a bit more of him, as one of my favourite musicians, but the band came first... Similar point as above concerning Russell's guitar, although it was fractionally more audible than with Quaqua, I still wanted to hear it more clearly. But the overall timbral balance was pretty good, considering Edwards edged into Russell's sonic field occasionally. Evans was a revelation, another name I don't know, his supple trumpet, open and muted, flying alongside Parker in places with a dizzying tightrope brilliance. You really didn't want them to stop, even after hours of music.

But they obviously had to...


Last thoughts. So much good and varied music... Congratulations to all who managed to put this event on, musicians playing for love rather than financial reward and all the backstage organisers, comperes, soundcrew etc. In hard times – and made harder no doubt with the bloated and bungled Olympic budget snaffling lots of lottery cash from putative Arts funding – they deserve a big round of cyber applause...

Evan Parker at the end mentioned that perhaps next year, there will be a three day event rather than two. I hope so...



Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Freedom of the City Festival 2009...






















I will post the review of Monday's events later today (hopefully). Still high from the music...

Monday, May 04, 2009

Review: The Freedom of the City Festival... London Improvisers' Orchestra... Christian Wolff... The Post Quartet...










I skated in to the four o clock show of the Freedom of the City Festival direct from my hotel – then found that the earlier show had overran – so time for refreshment. Some odd organic lager... Then into the Conway Hall, the venue for this year's bash.
The London Improvisers Orchestra was assembling in all its anarchic (in the best sense) glory – over thirty musicians (too lazy to count them all) on the stage and in ranks in front of the stage – reeds, brass, strings, percussion, laptops, electric guitars and more – I think I spotted a sarod in the front row. They performed a selection of 'conductions' - 'a type of structured free improvisation where... an improvising ensemble [is directed] with a series of hand and baton gestures' (quoted from here ) – five separate pieces, the last being a kind of 21st 'Concerto for Cootie' featuring the redoubtable Brit jazz trumpeter, Henry Lowther, ending on an all-in free improvised piece.
A fascinating set – improvised music especially benefits, in my opinion, from being experienced live where you can witness the interactions between musicians. Especially so with a band this size – I've heard them on recordings and enjoyed their work but invariably missed some of the nuances -
the vast blocks of sound they can produce sometimes becoming a bit muddy unless recorded scrupulously – and even then... No such problems today – apart from the sheer weight of sonic information coming at me when they hit full throttle, but this offers an exhilarating live encounter for the sympathetic listener. Each of the conductors employed their own style and interaction with the orchestra, which gave a variety of interpretive moves to compare and enjoy. Subtle washes of moody swooning strings, a poignant brass chorale, some violent eruptions of electric guitar, trombone tailgate rips and snorts, sudden breaks into a swinging jazz four,and much much more. Henry Lowther, employing mutes and open trumpet on his feature, lyrical yet quietly girdered with passion. The 'Concerto for Cootie' gag was only meant half-facetiously – the muted work referenced deep back into the jazz heritage to earlier collective improvising traditions. The overall concept would seem unwieldy, but they manage the contradictions and juxtaposed genres remarkably well – sections that could have come out of contemporary 'serious' art music shoved next to electronically treated and looped vocals, almost conventional big band sectional blasts, plenty of free jazz moments, plenty of more 'traditional' jazz moments especially of timbral movement, percussive effects that would amuse Steve Reich no doubt, when various members were summoned to thump on the backs of their instruments, or clap along – to produce a building wave of overlapping rhythmic ripples. I didn't quite get the Terry Day piece, where he did his crazy poet/diamond geezer routine – but his manic conduction was amusing and energetic. Throughout, in fact, there was a great sense of the pure joy of playing music together – a lot of smiles and laughs.
To go out: I wondered how they would end the collective free improvisation without a frontperson. Answer: Sun Ra style, when various members of the ensemble started to walk into the audience. Finally circling the hall with a couple upstairs who made it to the balcony, enveloping the audience in a total surround of music which was a brilliant coup de théâtre.

I was weary after a late night and early start up to town but stuck around for the Christian Wolff segment. String trio (one of the Post quartet apparently being ill/indisposed), Wolff on piano and small electronic keyboard linked to a tube he blew into (hey, I don't miss these technical details!), plus a table of small instruments played by Michael Parsons and John Lely. Performing selections from Wolff's 'Exercises.' Mainly a music of small melodic fragments, occasionally punctuated/interrupted by sharp high-pitched small-drum raps, cymbals and tambourine, plus the string players using tiny (finger?) cymbals and a bunch of keys attached to their music stands - which were also occasionally rattled by their bowsattling - for additional amendments. I found it interesting but a little dry, nearer to the post-Cageian art house than the barrelhouse of my preference. A snidey comment maybe – but, to be fair, I did get more pulled in as it progressed – a cumulative experience perhaps, where the small details slowly build. Later on there were sections where the cello gave longer deep supporting notes that opened it out more, and some intriguing duos swapped between the cello, viola and violin that balanced the dominant pointillism. Overall - despite exhaustion, I was glad I stayed for it - the contrast with the rowdy wildness of the London Impovisors made for a fascinating day/evening.
Pity to miss Wolff with AMM - but I headed for food, hard liquor and much-needed sleep...

Written on the run... just off for today's extravaganza starting at 2 pm...

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Freedom of the City... Beat Scene... Iain Sinclair...

I am off back to London tomorrow for the Freedom of the City festival – but just received the latest edition of Beat Scene which reminded me that the editor, Kevin Ring, kindly tipped me off that my favourite (living) British author Iain Sinclair is up in the provinces next weekend (Saturday 9th May) at the Coventry Literary Festival(scroll down for details) – doing a book signing at 12 pm(Waterstones)and reading at 2.30 pm (Central Library). I'm currently 100 odd pages into his latest 'Hackney, that Rose Red Empire.' Which is magnificient... this review here gives a flavour of its sprawling reach. I'll be there...