28-01-2012 - London Philharmonic Orchestra - Ivan The Terrible (Prokofiev arr Levon Atovmyan) - Royal Festival Hall

Some of the earliest bootleg recordings were made by one Lionel Mapleson, from above the proscenium arch at the New York Metropolitan Opera House, using a crude phonograph to record snippets of operas. These cylinders have been described as “probably the worst-sounding collection of live performances ever recorded on phonograph cylinders, thus setting the standard for most subsequent bootleg recordings”, though these assorted arias stand as vital historical documents from the dawn of the recording era.

Kicking off 2012, we bring you some bootleg classical music, our tribute to the man once dubbed the Father of Bootlegging: a couple of extracts from the LPO’s world premier performance of Levon Atovmyan’s new arrangement of Prokofiev’s score to Eisenstein’s Ivan The Terrible. Possibly owing to fear of Stalinist censure, Prokofiev never made concert versions from his scores for Ivan The Terrible as he had done with two of his most popular efforts for film, Lieutenant Kije and Alexander Nevsky. Abram Stasevich’s 25-section concert version (with superfluous narration), formed the basis of later suites by Christopher Palmer and Michael Lankester. 

Atovmyan’s version dispenses with the narration and comes in at about 50 minutes in 8 sections: 1. Ivan and the Boyars, 2. Song of the Beaver, 3. Oprichnina, 4. Swan, 5. Anastasia, 6. Ocean-Sea, 7. The Capture of Kazan, 8. Magnification.

Stylistically and melodically rich, with colourful vocal writing and orchestration, the drama of Eisenstein’s film is conveyed with tremendous force, never more so than in the strong modern arrangement we were treated to at the Festival Hall as part of an imaginatively programmed season “Prokofiev - Man Of The People?”  The bootleg turned out much better than expected, and we therefore present two of our favourite sections, the Oprichnina (a kind of polytonal Tom Waits work song) and the Capture Of Kazan (an incendiary slab of Soviet-style action music to blow your speakers). 

TNIM.

17-12-2011 - trioVD - A Twisted Xmas, King’s Place, London UK

Chris Sharkey - Electric Guitar 
Christophe de Bezenac - Alto Sax & Electronics
Chris Bussey - Drums

TNIM favourites trioVD conceived an entire festive alternative, performed for 90 riotous minutes in the otherwise inert airport lounge that is the King’s Place. Their demented imaginations were let free in jazz metal reimagingings of East 17, All I Want For Christmas Is You, Jingle Bells, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts, fool) and other hallowed classics of the season in new assaults and reinvented versions of their own tunes, interspersed with christmas cracker jokes and silly hats. We knew it would be uhhgly (they basically killed Santa), but ne’er so enjoyable. Daft sods.

We present their ludicrous screamo polyrhythmic Jingle Bells, soaked in a brandy-infused audience loving every twisted second.

Merry Christmas!

TNIMxx

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/20111217-trioVD-JingleBells.mp3

07-09-2011 - Nought - Brixton Windmill, London UK


James Sedwards - Guitar
Jonny Mitchell - Drums
Santiago Horro - Bass
Luke Barlow - Keyboards 

Nought are a catalytic band.  A hushed-tones outfit.  Their importance lies in their importance to other bands. They inform and qualify all other bands of their kind, with the frightening technique of jazz musicians, the noise of a terrifying rock band, and the attentiveness of accomplished composers.  Brilliant, always ahead of their time, they could take on any US avant outfit… they are dedicated but seemingly shy to put themselves about… in this and other ways, they are definingly English.
 
Bandleader James Sedwards is a true muso hero, unassuming but omnicompetent.  Talent catalysing talent, he has talented mates like Alex Ward, who is a true contemporary alt-jazz legend and played on their album, and was there bopping nerdishly at this  show.   It’s been a decade since Nought released that monumental LP, which is still unique in fusing lush arrangements with gnarly complicated math forms. With little threat of a decade-delayed followup album soon, we are going to give you an entire show, recorded in Brixton (London UK), presenting a bootleg of their visceral prog noise with the hope that they’ll be encouraged to give us more. But the main reason for sharing the whole show is that their long-form style unfolds more logically and satisyingly when can you experience the variety of their rollercoaster. They are truly astonishing, a gleaming gem hidden from view.
 
The short extract is, we think, the second part of “Daddymoneymummytart”, but we don’t even know where pieces begin and end, never mind what they’re called. Needless to say this is otherwise unrecorded, to our knowledge. You’ll also find youtube footage from the same show, and the entire bootleg in 2 parts. It starts with us dashing from the Windmill’s smoking yurt into the fray; then at about 12:39 into the first part the sound clears and gets louder (though with more clipping) - presumably someone in the crowd moved out of the way - and the performance unfolds with an increasing sense of total amazement on the part of those gathered.
 
Growing out of the same Oxford scene as Radiohead, Nought retain the vitality and excitement that their more commerical counterparts are always grasping to attain.


Part one (http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/Nought/20110907-Nought-Windmill-PartOne.mp3)

Part Two (http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/Nought/20110907-Nought-Windmill-PartTwo.mp3)

We’d like to give props to the Organ Show on Resonance FM, longstanding champions of this fine band: http://www.organart.demon.co.uk/otherrockshow.htm

Nought’s official website can be found here: http://www.noughtmusic.com/

And their description of their essential 2001 album and a download link can be found here: http://www.noughtmusic.com/text.html

Live at the Windmill  

19-07-2011 - Evan Parker: 50 years of British improv - Purcell Room, London UK 
 
Evan Parker (saxophone), John Russell (guitar), Phil Wachsmann (violin), John Edwards (bass), Neil Metcalfe (flute), Percy Pursglove (trumpet)

 
 
Evan Parker has been called the most important saxophonist since Coltrane. He is a legend of multiphonics and circular breathing with the lung stamina of a mule, having developed techniques over the course of 40 years to layer harmonics and false notes in dense contrapuntal weaves, generating electronics-like textures acoustically, building soundscapes out of dizzyingly fast arpeggios, which despite the wall-of-sound delivery are mostly pitched and develop tonalities and an unconventional lyricism.  
 
On the same day that pies were flying while Rupert Murdoch was questioned by a home affairs committee, Parker led an ensemble hand-picked from the best of the scene in a series of configurations in improvisations envisioned to celebrate the last half decade of British free improv and point to ways forward.

We present a recording of Parker’s phenomenal solo, which is a masterclass in structural and harmonic development and sheer technique. Other highlights included versatile bassist John Edwards’s own solo, and an extended group improvisation by the whole sextet where, as characterised the whole evening, the vocabulary was drawn as much from twentieth century modern classical as from jazz and noise.

 1. Trio: John Russell (guitar), Phil Wachsmann (violin), Neil Metcalfe (flute)

2. Solo: John Edwards (bass)

3. Duo: Evan Parker (saxophone), Percy Pursglove (trumpet)

4. Duo: John Edwards (bass), Neil Metcalfe (flute)

5. Solo: Evan Parker (saxophone)

6. Sextet: Evan Parker (saxophone), John Russell (guitar), Phil Wachsmann (violin), John Edwards (bass), Neil Metcalfe (flute), Percy Pursglove (trumpet)

7. Encore

http://thenoiseitmakes.tumblr.com/day/2011/09/27

13-09-2011 - Apartment House: John Cage Night - Queen Elizabeth Hall, London UK

I went to a performance of John Cage’s 4’33” last night and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.

As part of the run-up to the centenary of the birth of John Cage, his finest contemporary exponents Apartment House (named after one of his pieces) played a “John Cage Night” at the QEH in London, starting with 4’33” and closing with 0’00” - a concert in which nothing happened… twice.

Some years ago we attended a dual concert curated by Oliver Knussen in which he announced that the idea of playing works by John Cage alongside others by Aaron Copland, the juxtaposing of the avant-gardist with the composer of “Fanfare for the Common Man”, was in part conceived just to prove that Cage was a composer at all.  Apartment House’s programme at the QEH had less to prove, taking a more exploratory approach to Cage’s work, as befits their modus operandus, which has seen them rise to be the most exciting and versatile exponents on Cage’s long career (he composed right up until his death in 1992).

The concert began with the notorious 4’33” (which you can read up on here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3 ) and closed with its sequel 0’00”. In between Cage emerged as a composer of rewarding and oddly beautiful music, albeit robustly steeped in the vocabulary of 20th century modernism (he studied under Schoenberg, for one thing) and aleatory techniques, conceptually weighty, but always with a lightness of a touch and an openness to humour, sonic experience, careful composition, and the devil-may-care.

In the Q&A afterwards, we were treated to a very interesting discussion of Cage’s entire oeuvre, and we reproduce a fascinating section about the intricacies of playing 4’33” from a performer’s perspective:

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/AH/20110913-ApartmentHouse-QEH-433.mp3

I know you’re dying to know about 0’00”. So, this solo piano interpretation of 4’33” was played with hands raised over the keyboard during its three movements, and we were expecting a similar hand gesture, or movement, or something, for 0’00” - having not thought about it. 0’00” is of course impossible. I think its performance probably occurred after the clearing up of the props from the prepared piano after the applause for “Music for eight” had died down, possibly at the instant the piano lid was cursorily (theatrically?) toppled down over the keyboard as the musicians left the stage before returning for the final bow. Nonexistence is not silence; and neither is silence - as 4’33” continually proves.

TNIM.

See http://johncage.org/ for everything you could need to know about what’s going down in the Cage.

One of the more out there pieces of the John Cage Night, “Child of tree for solo percussion”, was partly played on a cactus, which we were sure you’d want to hear, and so: 

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/AH/20110913-ApartmentHouse-QEH-Cactus.mp3

Download link for 4’33”

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/AH/20110913-ApartmentHouse-QEH-433.mp3

http://t.co/KCjAObOS

03-08-2011 - trioVD - Purple Turtle, London UK
 


Chris Sharkey - Electric Guitar
Christophe de Bezenac - Alto Sax & Electronics
Chris Bussey - Drums
 
The most exciting band you’ve ever seen. Reinventing the trio format with a jazz vocabulary, trioVD make the most outrageous racket since Beefheart gave it up for painting in the desert and consequently died. Our favourite band from quite an amazing pool of Leeds bands, trioVD named themselves after the filename of their first recording together, which was on Valentine’s Day, hence trioVD. Nuthin kinky eh.
 
And there we were at a metal night, and the sexiest band was not the metal sirens headlining, but the outsider riot-jazz outfit.  We thought that everyone would be heading for the tube, but the metal fraternity & sorority never sleep, and stayed absolutely riotous for trioVD.  The band responded with a blistering set, stylistically hard with jazz and nasty dance influences, largely gathered from their unreleased second album, which, it is fairly certain, will be on non-stop rotation in any house that demands their music exciting and visceral.  
 
Cheapest download of their utterly essential first album can be found at:
http://babel.ithinkmusic.com/my-store/detail.php?r=9786 
 
Further VDisdm at:
 
BBCmusic profile: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/4242f5c6-c236-437c-9787-051e2a2dce27 
BBCintroducing profile: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/introducing/artists/triovd/
Myspace profile: http://www.myspace.com/triovd
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/triovd

“great show in camden last night! insane, midweek crowd - we can’t wait to play there again! some stupid pics will most likely follow….”

One of our correspondents records the following incident: “I didnt interview em but the chat was quite funneh, asked Sharkey how the “last” Ladyland gig went and his sax player (who is distinguished from the other Chris dudes by being named Christophe rather than Chris) asked “Oh yeah how did it go?” and he went “Yeah, all right”. And then they drove back to Leeds. Fucken legends.”

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/trioVD/20110803-TrioVD-PurpleTurtle-last15.mp3 (15 mins, 35mb)

And because we care, you should hear some of the Vortex show from March 2011:

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/trioVD/20110311-TrioVD-Vortex-First_Tune_1st_set.mp3 (11 mins, 26mb)

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/trioVD/20110311-TrioVD-Vortex-Last_Tune_1st_set.mp3 (6 mins, 14mb)

In the evergreen spirit of random, we’ve been turned on to this setting of a youtube correspondent who has been set to trioVD’s music, check it out:

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/trioVD/RUTH.mp3

30-01-2011 - Mara Carlyle - Royal Festival Hall, London UK

“I do not chide you, though my heart breaks, love ever lost to me! Though you shine in a field of diamonds, no ray falls into your heart’s darkness. I have long known it: I saw the night in your heart, I saw the serpent that devours it: I saw, my love, how empty you are..”

We always thought Mara Carlyle was one of those people that by rights should’ve been absolutely fucking massive. From the first we were transported, discovering her with a special awe that only happens when you’re not expecting it. Mara works in disarming contexts, with collaborators including Plaid, Matthew Herbert, the novelist Toby Litt, and the whole scene around the Polar Bear-Acoustic Ladyland/jazz-classical types of London Village.

One of her star turns is an arrangement and translation of a Schumann setting of a Heine poem called “Ich Grolle Nicht (I blame you not)”, a piece which is justly renowned but never so beautifully delivered, which we heard her perform at the first of Oliver Coates’s Harmonic Series concerts back in January.

We present this heartbreaking performance of “I Blame You Not” arranged for voice, piano and saw. The proper recording is more detailed, but oh it’s so much more powerful stripped back and vulnerable - we’d love to hear a studio version of this arrangement without that damned punter coughing away; in the meantime, keep a tissue handy – if you had to use it we’d blame you not.

Video for the studio arrangement of “I Blame You Not”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXvrOuUc-Us

You can buy Mara Carlyle’s album here and in a bargain bundle (John Matthias’s Small Town Shining is also recommended): http://www.accidentalrecords.com/mara-carlyle/

Promo about the “Harmonic Series” concerts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJdBUfN4l00

Bootleg download: http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/Mara_Carlyle_-_I_Blame_You_Not_Live_30-01-2011.mp3 (5 mins, 9mb)

http://tumblr.com/xgj2vnjrpm

02-03-2011 - Toine Thys Trio - Gare au Jazz, Brussels BE

Toine Thys - tenor & soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, compositions
Arno Krijger - Hammond B-III
Joost van Schaik - Drums

“I am going to type three words and you must listen. BELGIUM BY EUROSTAR.”

So it was that I came to be in Brussels, following an inspired suggestion (or direct order) from a friend via twitter. I went seeking two things: 1) “l’esprit de Jacques Brel” and 2) the Belgian jazz scene, which I’d heard is really strong. I wanted to wander about, get lost, write words & record sounds, and, my Grail, to record & interview a jazz group.

So it was that I came to be in Jazz Station (Gare au Jazz) in the St Josse district. The venue was clean but not cold, with excellent beers (naturellement, this being Belgium) and, unlike some other venues in town, inexpensive, both in the price of the ticket and in not having to dine. Look. Eating people are wrong.

Toine Thys (pronounced like “taste”), Arno Krijger and Joost van Schaik warmed into each of their two sets with impeccable pacing and by the end of each were positively roasting. They played a mixture of originals and standards (including a version of “All The Things You Are” in a 7/8 time signature), some of which are to be found in shorter performances on the Trio’s album “The End of Certainty”.

After the show Thys observed my recording machine lying on the table and asked “Oh are you going to make money out of this?” and I stumbled: “Aw no, I have this blog…” and, in a rare moment of initiative, asked if I might interview him. After speaking at length with a fascinating photographer called Johan Van Eycken, whose photographs grace this posting, I went back and the bandleader, despite being “beat” by the exertions of the show, consented to chat for a bit: 

Toine Thys is an engaging Dutchman, who told me that this month he was playing 12 shows with this trio, 12 with another band, and putting on a few nights of free playing with guests from several countries, including some percussionists from Africa. Quite a character, I’d say.

We present “The Other” which is delivered differently quite differently to the studio version, with Toine’s extended solo introduction, and looser, more varied and expansive approaches to the theme and verse material. They really kick the tune around, twisting it into new shapes, particularly Joost van Schaik’s drumming, which does tightrope handstands with and especially against the theme and at points goes proper old-skool hip hop. Thrilling. 

You can also listen to another tune from late in the second set, a more straight-ahead upbeat number with beautifully tightly developed solos and playing and similarly explosive variations. 

Santé!

Toine Thys Interviewed by TNIM
http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/TTT/20110302-ToineThys-Interview.mp3 (8 mins, 18mb)

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/TTT/20110302-ToineThysTrio-TheOther-GareAuJazz.mp3 (11 mins, 26mb)

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/TTT/20110302-ToineThysTrio-LastB4Encore2ndSet-GareAuJazz.mp3 (9 mins, 22 mb)

Toine Thys official website: http://www.toinethys.com/

Listen to and buy the album “The End of Certainty”: http://toinethys.bandcamp.com/album/the-end-of-certainty

http://tumblr.com/xgj1sw4jhw

09-02-2011 - Mogwai - Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London UK

At 1130am one plain day it was announced that at midday an extremely limited number of tickets would go on sale for a warm-up show by Mogwai, those pioneers of monolithic instumental amplification exercises. At 1155 I secured two, and by midday it was already over: the show sold out before it even went on sale. 

The Hoxton Bar & Grill seemed smaller than I remembered, and was packed out and roasting. Mogwai are a likeable band who don’t seem to take themselves too seriously, and it was a privilege to see them in such an ‘intimate’ context.

The newer material is more melodic and structured than formerly, even overlaying vocoder on one tune. After the upbeat bass-driven groove of “Mexican Grand Prix” one punter piped up “Very New Order that one Stewart, New Order!” evoking a grin from bass-player Dominic, who late in the set managed to blow up his amp, which only goes to show.

We present the tinnitus-inducing closer “My Father My King”: about 18 minutes of relentless riffing followed by another 6 of rinsing feedback and noise. Enjoy. Oh, go on, you can have “Batcat” as well then. You’ll probably need to chill out after that so here’s “Letters From The Metro” too. We spoil you rotten.

Mogwai’s website is at http://www.mogwai.co.uk and you can buy things at http://mogwai.sandbag.uk.com/

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/Mogwai-MyFatherMyKing-HoxtonBarKitchen-09Feb2011.mp3 (24 mins, 44mb)

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/Mogwai-Batcat-HoxtonBarKitchen-09Feb2011.mp3 (8 mins, 14mb)

http://pleasurebridles.com/mp3/Mogwai-LettersToTheMetro-HoxtonBarKitchen-09Feb2011-boosted.mp3 (4 mins, 10mb)

http://tumblr.com/xgj1rr9h7c