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 amk 
there are 4 titles featuring amm in stock.
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 $23.52

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guitar-themed

erstwhile (usa) #erstwhile 030 cd

keith rowe / john tilburyduos for doris” double compact disc set

  • cathnor (70:14)
  • olaf (45:32)
  • oxleay (17:29)
erstwhile press release...
keith rowe: guitar, electronics
john tilbury: piano


keith rowe and john tilbury most likely need no introduction to anyone reading this. since 1981, they have performed together within the legendary improvising ensemble amm, as well as in numerous other contexts, both improvised and composed. duos for doris marks their first meeting ever as a duo.

rowe co-founded amm in 1966 with eddie prevost and lou gare, but has widened his focus in recent years to include many new and challenging contexts. these include his telepathic rapport with toshimaru nakamura (documented on weather sky, as well as a second studio recording to be released on erstwhile in 2004), steering the ambitious mimeo electronic orchestra, an ongoing series of works with oren ambarchi, and a trio with thomas lehn and marcus schmickler (documented on the kaleidoscopic rabbit run). he has also continued his ongoing solo explorations, most recently releasing a superb 3" disc on sound 323.

tilbury is one of the preeminent contemporary classical pianists, releasing impeccable recordings of skempton, wolff, cage, and most notably a four disc box set of the complete morton feldman solo piano ouevre, capped by the gorgeous for bunita marcus. as an improviser, besides his more than two decades in amm, he has also released projects with sachiko m, werner dafeldecker, franz hautzinger, and with mimeo, the epic hands of caravaggio.

tilbury and rowe first met each other in 1965 when both were asked by cornelius cardew to perform treatise for a bbc broadcast. they have enjoyed a fruitful professional relationship ever since, in the scratch orchestra, various music now and cardew groupings, performing christian wolff and john cage pieces, and most notably, in amm since 1981. they met in nancy, france at the ccam studio in january 2003 (on the same stage where amm had recorded fine in 2001) in order to record for the first time as a duo, with melancholy in the air due to the passing of john's 95 year old mother, doris, two days earlier. her loss, along with the perilous world geopolitical situation, hung as almost tangible events in the air, deeply affecting the atmosphere during the recording. the more than two hours of music presented here (selected from the three hours they recorded) is close to perfect in its conception and its arc from beginning to end, remarkable for totally improvised music. the understated, intricate beauty and modesty of the work belies its complexity. the cover painting is by rowe, inspired by l.s. lowry, a well-known british landscape artist and a favorite painter of doris'.

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threads:
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matchless (uk) #mrcd61 cd

amm / mevapogee” double compact disc set

  • amm & mev - apogee part 1 (31:21)
  • amm & mev - apogee part 2 (19:48)
  • amm & mev - apogee part 3 (19:38)

  • amm - 01.05.04 (39:27)
  • mev - 01.05.04 (36:40)
matchless press release...
amm & mev: apogee (2005)

musica elettronica viva & amm

alvin curran
eddie prévost
keith rowe
frederic rzewski
richard teitelbaum
john tilbury

cd1 was recorded at gateway studios, kingston-upon-thames, surrey on 30 april 2004.
cd2 was recorded at 'freedom of the city' festival, conway hall, london on 1 may 2004.

mrcd61 (2cd)

...

i am. we are.
that is enough. now we have to begin
.

and if that is how ernst bloch begins the spirit of utopia, a book containing, suggestively, a lengthy essay on "the philosophy of music", it can only be almost as worrying to encounter, in an essay by adorno on the same topic, the dispiriting suggestion that "music gazes at its listener with empty eyes".

fortunately the music of amm or mev is by no means empty; though it might seem an empty gesture to be yoking the two groups together. they seem at first glance to share little beyond longevity, each having a history extending for four decades; that, and the fact that they were once on opposite sides of a long-vanished vinyl lp. both their histories and the consequent musics are very different. amm’s membership has been by and large stable; it has had the same line-up as is on these cds for a quarter of a century. it has been rare for more than a year or two to pass without some aural documentation of what they’re up to (albeit in some cases issued decidedly retrospectively). musica elettronica viva, to give them their full name, have not merely had many personnel “given their solicitation of audience participation, their full playing complement would be unlistable thousands” but there have been different versions of mev operating in different countries, even continents, producing albums with markedly different, even incompatible, aesthetics. their music, as far as one can gauge it from the scant half-dozen available recordings - and decades have passed with no licit releases is more expansive (as one would expect, given their broader performance practice) and with, particularly recently, a markedly hospitable approach to musics from other places and times; amm, in contrast, might be thought, particularly in the last 25 years or so, to be more introspective, with the music immediate, self-generated, even autotelic. (the use keith rowe makes of the radio during performances neatly skewers this over-easy generalisation.) it is a delight, then, that what might have been over-enthusiastic festival programming has produced music of substance and excellence; "live electronic music, improvised", which both has a kinship with their shared album of that title, now nearly forty years old, and is also unlike anything else either group has recorded previously. this is both the music that existed, unheard, between the opposed sides of that old mainstream album, and a music that is utterly without precedent.

one reason for the "newness" of both amm and mev in the mid-60s was the speed of their take-up of new technologies - if that term isn’t too hi-falutin, given the levels of bricolage involved. amm were pioneers of the use of the radio as an instrument (for which the now-deceased composer-improviser, cornelius cardew, an early member of the group, found a precedent in cage’s 1951 imaginary landscape no. 4.) more important for both groups, however, was the example of the pianist-turned-live-electronics pioneer, david tudor. his conviction that the circuit diagrams and wiring layouts constituted scores was something of a blow to a compositional aesthetic, particularly given his renown as a pianist-interpreter. frederic rzewski apparently spent some time in buffalo, ny, during which he heard tudor perform, even stayed with him. in spring 1966 rzewski came back to rome (where mev was founded and based) with some cheap contact mikes and mixers and some discarded circuitry formerly the property of the inventor/performer/composer david behrman; these were hooked up with bed-springs, glass plates, rubber bands, tin cans, toy pianos, sex vibrators, assorted metal junk, et the obligatory cetera. cardew tells us that around 1968 amm were exploring the range of small sounds made available by contact microphones on all kinds of material - glass, metal, wood, etc. - and a variety of gadgets from drumsticks to battery-operated cocktail mixers. in a time when live electronic improvisation is so common that it not only has sub-genres but even an "original instruments" tendency, it is worth recollecting just how original this was for mev in particular. their undersung founder member allan bryant heavily rewired a cheap electric organ, adding switchable resistors and capacitors to the outside of the instrument. as well as working with the first "r.a. moog music synthesizer" in europe, richard teitelbaum pioneered techniques of manipulating its signals using heart-beat, brain-waves and variations in skin resistance. all of which echoes adorno’s contention that the correct way to think of a composer"s musical material - even an instant composer"s - is as the technical productive forces of an age, concretised. this is material not as inert lump, but stuff that has not yet become something; or is still in the process of doing so. although a period’s technology need not drive its music, it cannot but shape it, often in ways which are far from evident. bloch observed that the ancient greeks would not have understood calculus, as, lacking microscopy, they could not have conceived of the subdividability of basic units and elements. (an observation with more relevance to the music on these cds than might at first be apparent.)

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threads:
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matchless (uk) #mrcd05 cd

ammthe crypt • 12th june 1968” double compact disc set

  • like a cloud hanging in the sky? (45:21)

  • coffin nor shelf (45:36)
  • neither bill nor axe would shorten its existence (18:08)
full edition of the classic 1968 session that spawned the amm side of the mainstream amm / mev split lp “live electronic music improvised” ... this is most certainly amm at their most wild & wooly ...
matchless press release...
the crypt (1968)

cornelius cardew
lou gare
christopher hobbs
eddie prévost
keith rowe

recorded 12th june, 1968.

1992 double cd edition. the complete session with material not released before.

mrdcd05 (double)

...

amm music

amm was formed in 1965 and concerns itself - certainly outwardly - with musical improvisation of an experimental kind. this music is apparently unsuited to mechanical reproduction. amm has made three records and broadcast in britain, denmark and germany. in all this it has 'displayed its uselessness' (in the sense of the story quoted) for reproduction purposes. about the live performances - amm has given many public concerts, including some in the usa - the press has said some surprisingly nice things and some not-so-nice things, but few (nice or otherwise) ever revealed any insight or relevance. if we believed everything written by the critics we would have long since stopped playing - if they had ever let us start!

one comment by a journalist, however, came close to expressing, albeit unwittingly, something of why we play. peter willis wrote (in peace news) "ultimately, however, amm fails." ultimately amm will fail. there may be rare moments when we, or others, sense a kind of success, but there can never be 'ultimate' success. nevertheless, with kind of perversity that really belongs only to nature, amm continues to play. it continues to want to play and in playing fails; appears at times to be succeeding then fails and fails. the paradox is that continual failure on one plane is the root of success on another (and i'm not thinking of the hack violinist of the metropolis passing himself off as a virtuoso in the provinces). we certainly must not look for failure any more than for success.

the problem with amm is that it is enormously difficult to honestly justify any approach or promotion which will lead to a playing situation - paid performances in particular. when somebody pays they expect the goods - we may not have the goods, and if we have we may lose them tomorrow. and if we do we may yet spend our lives 'in the enjoyment of untroubled ease.' meanwhile the risk spurs on the music.

cornelius cardew and eddie prévost c. 1970

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threads:
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matchless (uk) #mrcd17 cd

supersession” compact disc

  • supersession (36:56)
matchless press release...
supersession (1988)

evan parker - soprano/tenor saxophones
keith rowe - guitar/electronics
barry guy - double bass
eddie prévost - percussion

recorded at a concert given in london, england on 3rd september 1984.

mrcd17

...

alienation strategies are the stock shots of the avant garde; to move an audiences expectations and lift them on to new planes of perception. cage’s silent piece 4’33 is perhaps the ultimate example - although lamonte young’s piano piece for david tudor no.1, in which the piano is offered a bale of hay and a bucket of water, might run it a close second.

the effect of alienating is to surprise - to make an aesthetic mismatch. but alienation strategies need not be confined to single pieces; they might equally be conveyed by more substantial aesthetic shifts of practice. i remember frederic rzewski suggesting that cornelius cardew’s move from the musical avant garde to communism was itself a piece. this may seem a cynical interpretation of his late friends motives but maybe the theme of alienation ran through cardew’s work more deeply that the other artists with whom he was associated.

much of contemporary improvising music might seem to owe its development via similar alienating strategies. dispensing with composition. using traditional instruments in unconventional ways. not using traditional instruments at all. audiences and musicians alike were fascinated/repelled by new techniques and the development of performance within the music which at times transcended even sound production. but all alienation strategies and all avant gardes become exhausted. the effect is weakened by repeated applications. and the fragility of the alienating method is that it is inherently reactive. it exists by virtue of negating a negative.

many progressives in established music use improvisation as a medium of refreshment. it is not seen as a novel experience in which musicians take music apart and construct it anew. the classical tradition remains intact and improvisation and experimentalism are subservient; minor appendages to the main current of musical life. and, in terms of their use as alienating methods they are certainly less potent than they were. this argument is difficult to counter if we accept the terms in which it is ultimately couched; that of alienation and the act of negating.

there are, of course, varying degrees of alienation. a musician with a western heritage of beethoven and company on his back may feel the tradition alienating, especially if he has a more radical cultural/political perspective than the tradition allows. such a tradition is likely to be weightier than the more informal and tenuous connection a british musician could possibly have with american jazz. the alienating methods employed by the musical avant garde (c. 1960/70) often reduced composition to a comical parody and offered ultra democratic ideals - making all players no matter their abilities equal in the music making process. in some sense of course this ideal made for expansive and creative opportunities. it is interesting to note however that many of the advocates of this leveling have scuttled back to the protective skirts of the music establishment, leaving their unschooled associates high and dry, now that the experimentalism is (for them) exhausted.

alongside these alienating methods, entwined with them,was another ethos - the improvisational. it may have taken lessons from jazz and the new musical activities of the western avant garde; it may well have been attracted by the general spirit of rebellion. but it was never imbued with such a severe sense of alienation. if alienation existed in the improvising community it was never perceived in the same cultural/artistic context as projected by the more formal elements in the avant garde.

twenty years on what remains and has developed from those tentative steps of free improvisation is a whole range of techniques and an open-ended aesthetic of enquiry propelled by a dialogical mode. the musicians, such as these on this album, are at ease in this medium, even though they may be ever striving for some elusive sense of musical fulfillment. they are not driven by an alienation strategy, they do not seek to demonstrate an alternative form. they are content to perform in a mode which has become the simple and natural means of musical expression. any sense of negating the negative is weak, because the musicians are not ideologically trapped by musical/cultural forms from they might feel alienated. having no firm musical tradition they have made their own. they have superseded other other ways of making music; couching their objectives and methods in relation to the desired expression of hitherto unrealized cultural ideals.

eddie prévost - august 1988

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