779 - La faisabilité politique de l'ajustement (2)

La Faisabilité Politique de l'Ajustement (Part. II)
envoyé par NTRN

Rappel : première partie

778 - Rideau, noir, fondu : HADOPI, ce n'est pas notre amie !

RIPOSTE GRADUÉE : VUE GÉNÉRALE

Noir total le 4 mars

Lire le monolecte

Le 4 mars, ici, ce sera le noir total.

777 - Cette France là

cette France-là
06/05/2007-30/06/2008
volume 1

En librairies le 6 mars 2009

448 pages - 15 €

ISBN 9782707157133

Éditeur association Cette France-là

Diffusion La Découverte

Tirage 4000 exemplaires
dont 1500 expédiés à l’ensemble des députés et sénateurs, aux ministres du gouvernement, aux préfets, aux responsables des formations politiques ainsi qu’à nombre d’institutions, administrations et juridictions en charge des questions d’immigration.

"La vocation de Cette France-là est double : pour l’avenir, contribuer à constituer le dossier des historiens qui ne manqueront pas d’étudier l’impact de la présidence de Nicolas Sarkozy sur l’état de la démocratie en France ; pour le présent, inviter élus et électeurs à se demander si la politique menée par les premiers au nom des seconds mérite d’être soutenue, au risque d’en assumer la responsabilité historique."

776 - Le "prof" qui va faire fureur chez les Darcos & Cie, chez les Sarkozy-Bruni

"Les profs devraient avoir des cours de tenue de classe" - kewego

Vous allez voir ce que vous allez voir. La "saison" est propice pour les charlatans, les bonimenteurs et les démagogues. Ceux qui vous présentent clés en main des "solutions" pour résoudre les difficultés de l'école.
Surtout que les "solutions" envisagées puent cette vieille naphtaline qui donne des envies de vomir, tant elle est frelatée et qu'elle encombre les réseaux des neurones des auto-proclamé "sauveurs".
Allez savoir, il y aura certainement des gens sensibles aux charlatans comme d'autres ont été sensibles aux propos du candidat élu président.
Avec des "profs" de cet acabit, pour les prochains siècles, le score des bonimenteurs sera explosé.
Multiplié.
Tant nos bonimenteurs vont fabriquer des clones lisses sans esprit, sans âme, juste utiles pour obéir aux ordres des milices. Et des patrons.
La "tenue" en question n'est que le dépoussiérage des méthodes employées dans les camps d'orphelins d'antan, où le dressage était la norme.
La différence entre un "chien" et un "môme" s'atténue de plus en plus.
Faut bien des victimes expiatoires, des fois que les mômes, devenus grand, réclament des comptes aux actuels prévaricateurs.


Pourquoi il me vient l'idée débile de faire un coup de pub à ce représentant pétainiste de l'école ? Ben lui, et quelques autres, ont été reçu à l'Elysée, chez les Sarkozy-Bruni, le 23 février.
Ils étaient 11, exactement, censés représenter le "monde enseignant".
Dont cet acharné de l'abrutissement généralisé qui prône l'ordre dans sa classe.
Avec des notes de "tenue".
La laisse n'est pas très loin.

Prévoir la muselière dans la liste des fournitures scolaires pour la prochaine rentrée des classes.

775 - La langue des Sal... Séguéla

Inutile de revenir ici sur la glorification de la possession d'une montre pour parvenus comme symbole de la réussite.
D'autres le font beaucoup mieux que je ne saurais le faire, en renvoyant le parvenu à ses misérables atavismes grégaires, et un tantinet de la variété du pithécanthrope même pas erectus, car il y a du courbe chez ces gens là, voire même du rampant.

La publicité est et reste un langage totalitaire, avatar de la propagande si efficace pour nous faire croire qu'Arbeit macht Frei.
Aujourd'hui, il faut juste ajouter mehr à Arbeit.
Car la langue des publicistes se décline aujourd'hui avec mehr.
Ce à quoi s'emploie le parvenu avec montre au poignet.

Mais qu'importe.

La langue des Sal... Séguéla amateurs de réussite portée au poignet reste celle de la propagande, la même que l'Arbeit, avec mehr devant.

"Dans une école de commerce, le fait d'avoir un enseignement en anglais dès la deuxième année me paraît tut à fait fondamental car cela permettra d'obtenir des étudiants et des cadres parfaitement fluides. Ce qui est essentiel dans un monde de plus en plus global."

Donc, pour être un étudiant "fluide", il faut ".. acquérir la culture des soft skills, entrer dans un graduate programme qui, au moyen d'assessment center et d'intray exercize, vous permettra de constituer votre profil development file, puis votre talent identification et enfin votre career development".

Extrait du magazine de l'EDHEC, n° 21.

(cité par François Taillandier, dans l'Humanité du 19 février 2009) *

Que se passe t'il dans les tronches des géniteurs d'étudiants d'écoles de commerce ?
Ne ressentent ils pas, parfois, comme de la honte ?

* oui, ce blog est compatible avec l'Humanité.

774 - Matching Mole "Smoke Signals"

Rhâââ, quelle belle histoire, que celle de la Machine Mole, d'abord Soft, puis Mole après le départ de RW, parti vers de nouvelles aventures (pas encore terminées, hein, les aventures !).
Un alboume enregistré en public, dans ces années 72.
Encore un témoignage (du bouillonnement) qui est resté longtemps inédit.

Tout le monde connaît l'Histoire, mais il est bon parfois de se remettre en tête la bande sonore.

773 - Leonard Cohen "König-Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Germany 2nd November 2008"

Dance me to the end of love
The Future
Ain't no cure for love
Bird on the wire
Everybody knows
In my secret life
Who by fire
Hey, that's no way to say good bye
Heart with no Companion
Anthem
Tower of song
Suzanne
Gypsy wife
The Partisan
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
Democracy
I'm your man
Take this waltz
So long, Marianne
First we take Manhattan
Famous Blue Raincoat
If it be your will
Closing time
I tried to leave you
Whither thou goest

772 - Henry Cow Box Set "10 : DVD Vevey"

Pour le DVD, vous devrez faire comme moi, acheter le coffret.

Volume 1

Volume 2

771 - Henry Cow Box Set "9 : Late"

The final audio CD (Late) is collected from performances towards the very end of Henry Cow's existence (largely from June and July, 1978, with the exception of the freely improvised "RIO," recorded at the Rock in Opposition Festival in March, 1978), and demonstrate, perhaps, where the group might have gone had it continued along the same path. "Joy of Sax" is a saxophone trio—featuring Cooper on sopranino, Hodgkinson on alto and (probably, the liners say) David Chambers—that segues into another unexpected: a brief version of Thelonious Monk's "Jackie-ing," played with a martial rhythm from Cutler that segues into another brief untitled piece by Cooper. Newcomer/trombonist Annemarie Roelofs makes this the most horn-driven disc of the box, and of Henry Cow's career. Frith's "The Herring People" is a quirky instrumental that presages Frith's early solo discs including Gravity and Speechless (ReR, 1981).

But it's another lengthy improvisation, the four-part "RIO," that is the centerpiece and cornerstone of Late. Frith's guitar playing had never sounded this jagged; the presence of three horns and Cutler's percussive maelstrom creating a feeling of chaos and, at times, impending doom. But in keeping with the heavily composed approach of Western Culture, the inclusion of both the initially rhythm-heavy but ultimately sustained beauty of "Half the Sky" and angular "Viva Pa Ubu" are fitting closers to The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set's audio discs. Still, there's another surprise in the traditional "Virgins of Illinois," placed between "Half the Sky" and "Viva Pa Ubu"—a brief piece driven by Cutler and Born but equally hovering around anarchy with Cooper's recorder, Hodgkinson's clarinet and Roelofs' trombone.

AAJ

770 - Henry Cow Box Set "8 : Bremen"

Disc eight (Bremen), another live performance, begins with a lengthy improvisation that, in ambience, references contemporary classical composers Krzysztof Penderecki and, at times, Gyorgy Ligeti. Henry Cow was often considered, by those trying desperately to find a label with which to pigeon-hole the group, more related to jazz because of its penchant for free improvisation. Electricity and Cutler's sometimes backbeat-driven playing also associated the group with rock—as was equally the case with fellow Rock in Opposition groups Univers Zero and Art Zoyd. But if anything, Henry Cow represented a new kind of classical chamber music; one where spontaneity was a partial component, and the instrumentation used created textures that defied those looking for tradition and convention.

While every Henry Cow studio release represented a clear evolution, Western Culture remains, in many ways, the polarizing album of the group's decade-long career. Unlike its predecessors—even In Praise, where the merger with Slapp Happy created a substantially different sound that remained recognizably Henry Cow—Western Culture's near-exclusive emphasis on composition ultimately dissolved the group. Still, while Frith would go on to pursue more song-based writing with Cutler and Krause, he was still (and remains) a distinctive writer of more complicated through-composition. He was also, despite his being categorized in the experimental and the avant-garde, a writer for whom the beauty of a strong melody was never lost—a penchant that can be heard on The Happy End Problem (Fred/ReR, 2006). As oblique as some of Bremen's "New Suite" is, with its inclusion of an extract from Hodgkinson's "Viva Pa Ubu," there's also some of Frith's most lyrical writing as well.

On the other hand, the group continued to explore the most extreme boundaries of improvisation, with the 35-minute "Die Kunste Der Orgel" as jagged as ever, and the group at this point no longer with a singer—Krause's ill health, exacerbated at times by the rancor within the group, had forced her to leave the group. Hodgkinson's description is, like Cutler's earlier writing on the nature of improvisation, eye- and ear-opening:

Henry Cow's improvisations seem to have not been about each player responding instantly to the others, but a more autonomous improvising mentality that owes something to free jazz, but transposed into an electro-acoustic sound world. Each player seems to develop their own statement in its own layer, allowing things to extend and grow alongside other things. Henry Cow improvisations are usually 'impure' in the sense that they draw on recognizable idioms; however, they often combine these in non-idiomatic and unpredictable ways. A slow melody from somewhere might be heard at the same time as a percussive line that sounds like African folk music, but there's also a piano from a contemporary chamber ensemble and some surrealist groaning filtered through a lot of distortion and reverb.

Where it works best, I feel we are drawing on our studio work in the way that we build, combine and oppose sound layers. The material is not so much treated as thematic but as sonorous; its musical content is there as a manifestation or unveiling of a sound-shape. Composing on the basis of recorded improvisation in the studio taught us to place sound material into a space of frequencies and timbres—a space also suggested by indicators like reverbs and differences of level and definition. In other words there was a certain melting together of the notion of composing with the notion of mixing.

AAJ

769 - Henry Cow Box Set "7 : Later & Post-Virgin"

The group had, by this time, left Virgin Records, with Concerts being released by Caroline. Like Stockholm & Goteborg, disc seven (Later and Post-Virgin) again creates the semblance of what a 1977 performance might have sounded like. The inclusion of two tunes that would ultimately be associated with Art Bears—the plodding and melodically abstruse "Joan" and appropriately funereal "On Suicide," with words by Berthold Brecht put to music by Hans Eisler—show that, while Cow would ultimately dissolve over artistic differences, those differences weren't at all visible to the public. Like Soft Machine—whose best music was often driven to greater places by a tension resulting from four musicians with different musical goals—Henry Cow may well have been experiencing internal difficulties, but the music was still as compelling as ever, perhaps even more so.

The group returned to composed material from early albums, including a particularly vicious "Teenbeat 2," with some of Frith's most searing guitar playing of the box; an even more idiosyncratic "Brain Storm Over Barnsley"; and another kick at "Teenbeat 3," this time with Hodgkinson's saxophone at its most visceral. Greaves and Cutler's "Would You Prefer Us to Lie?" looks back to the group's Canterbury roots with a fuzz-drenched solo by Frith, while Cooper's episodic "Untitled Piece" challenges Hodgkinson and Frith in its complexity, foreshadowing some of the contemporary writing that would ultimately appear on her A View From The Bridge: Composed Works (Impetus, 1998). A defining characteristic of Henry Cow was its textural breadth, the result of most members being multi-instrumentalists. Frith, in addition to guitar, also played bass, violin, xylophone, piano and other percussion; Hodgkinson added clarinet and voice to his organ and alto saxophone; Cooper's jaw's harp, flute, piano and accordion augmented her more regular work on bassoon and oboe; and Cutler had already begun an early experimentation into electronics that would be more fully realized on later works including Solo: A Descent into the Maelstrom (ReR, 2001), in addition to considerable and distinctive piano work throughout the group's history.

With the group's use of tapes still a defining characteristic of its live improvisations, some of the free playing on Later and Post-Virgin is its most extreme. Repetition and the combination of piano and xylophone give a Steve Reich-like feel to the spontaneous "Chaumont 1," while Cooper and Hodgkinson join forces for "Chaumont 2," a duet that gradually finds its way to a piano-heavy take on Frith's "March" where Krause doubles the melody with Cooper's bassoon.

AAJ

768 : Henry Cow Box Set "6 : Stockholm & Göteborg"

There are those who question the purpose of extended forays into freely improvised territory, and Henry Cow's roughly equal allegiance to spontaneity and through-composition created an at times unfathomable blend of unheard beauty and catharsis. The sheer fearlessness with which Henry Cow approached its music—whether it was the extended liberation of unfettered improvisation or the seemingly impossible challenge of learning impenetrable material like "Erk Gah"—heard performed by the group for the first time on disc six (Stockholm & Goteborg)—made it a group that, four decades on, has never been even remotely imitated, even though there are many who cite Cow as a seminal influence. Cutler's notes on the subject of improvisation are a revelation—some of the best words ever written to try to explain the hows and whys of the process:

Improvisation is not a style; it's a way of being. And although it has to be learned—like speaking a language or driving a car—it can't help you with what to say or where to go: it's more a case of learning how, not learning what. I could describe my own state of mind when improvising as a kind of forgetful attentiveness. I'm certainly not listening minutely to what anyone else is doing; I don't routinely make decisions about my own interventions and I never express myself.

In other circles, sensitivity in improvisers is praised and appreciated, but I suspect Henry Cow would—had we ever discussed the question—have dismissed that kind of sensitivity as a euphemism for Bourgeois good manners—or fear. Harmonious agreement was never our way. Where composition superimposes a past onto a present, improvisation—when it works—is pure, unencumbered, present—a vehicle for the transfiguration of time. We would leap from the struggle with our pasts into these pools of forgetting. By not looking where we were going—and not trying to go anywhere in particular—we collectively stumbled, throughout our career, into impossible, beautiful and unrepeatable music, unaccountably conjured out of the space between ourselves and our contingent public. And although we increasingly argued about our compositions and their direction of travel, our improvisations evolved wordlessly and without conflict—as if they belonged to another version of ourselves, more harmonious in spirit.

Taken from radio recordings in March, 1976 and May, 1977, Cutler and Drake fashion a "performance that could have been" on Stockholm & Goteborg, culled from a series of free improvisations, "Erk Gah," "Ottawa Song," "March," Hodgkinson's bleak and curious "A Bridge to Ruins" (a coda to "Erk Gah") and another surprise—Phil Ochs' "No More Songs." The Ochs tune is about as direct and traditional, in terms of song form, as Henry Cow ever got and was performed as a tribute to the legendary songwriter, who had died the previous year (1976). That the personnel vary throughout the disc—from the same quartet that recorded Trondheim on the Goteborg date to the sextet with Greaves on "Ottawa Song" and with newcomer Georgie Born at the Stockholm show—is irrelevant. The entire 63-minute disc feels of a oneness, as if it came from a single performance.

With the exception of "Ottawa Song," taken from the same March, 1976 show as Hamburg with John Greaves, the rest of Stockholm & Goteborg also features Georgie Born on bass and cello. While still capable of the kind of timekeeping necessary on tunes like "March" (here receiving a far clearer and definitive treatment than on Trondheim), Born's approach was often more orchestral—a contrapuntal partner to those around her in the same way that Cutler, an equally potent groove-meister (though, at times, almost impossibly so given the group's penchant for mind-boggling metric shifts), was an intrepid and imaginative colorist.

Cow continued to be extremely active following the release of 1975's In Praise of Learning, but as 1977 approached they'd not released or recorded an album of new material and, despite the evidence of evolution heard on these discs, there was considerable disagreement as to the direction in which the group was heading. There was no shortage of material—the group had yet to record "Erk Gah," and Cooper was also contributing more. However, when Cutler was asked to come up with new text for "Erk Gah" in the week before the first studio session for what would become Western Culture, it proved an impossible task and, instead, he wrote a series of shorter song texts, proposing the group record them instead. The ultimate disagreement about what Henry Cow should be resulted in those songs being collected, along with four more composed and performed solely by Frith, Cutler and Krause, as Art Bears' debut, Hopes and Fears (ReR, 1978). Meanwhile, Cooper and Hodgkinson wrote (separately and collaboratively) the material that would appear on Western Culture, with "Viva Pa Ubu" and "Slice" first appearing on the 1982 double LP, The Recommended Records Sampler, and later showing up as bonus tracks on East Side Digital's 2001 CD issue of Western Culture.

AAJ

767 - Henry Cow Box Set "4 & 5 : Trondheim"

The final two discs of the first box (Trondheim 1 and Trondheim 2) document a complete concert recorded in Trondheim, Norway on May 26, 1976. With Greaves' departure and Krause ill in Hamburg, the group had committed to a nine-city Norwegian tour. And so, rather than looking for replacements the group continued on as a four-piece—Cutler, Frith, Hodgkinson and Cooper—putting on a series of entirely improvised concerts performed largely in the dark (lit only, if at all, by candlelight). The quartet had already been experimenting with taped sounds, and here it augments the landscape with various prepared materials on tape—one tape for each musician—that, while running continuously throughout the two-hour shows, were activated at will by each player with a foot pedal, creating unexpected interjections that could drive the group in entirely different directions.

Other than a few very sketchy markers and Frith's "The March"—a two-chord, 3/4 time vamp with a quirky yet still lyrical melody that gave each concert's end greater definition—this was about as unapproachable as Henry Cow ever got, and yet amongst the densities and at times harsh realms are moments of profound beauty. The 80-minute improvisation, spread over two discs, demonstrates the kind of intuitive push-and-pull that could only come from musicians not just spending a great deal of time playing together, but also living together, with a potent ability to sometimes shift ambience and color at the drop of a dime (even if, on a practical level, that dime was hard to come by).

AAJ

766 - Henry Cow Box Set "3 : Hamburg"

The books that accompany each box represent some of the most thorough and complete start-to-finish documentation of a group ever presented in a collection of this nature. A combination of oral history, recollections (fond and otherwise) and musical references, it also provides a detailed and chronological list of gigs and recording sessions so extensive that they shine a bright light on the difference between groups today and those of decades past. Faced with the harsh reality that, today, an extensive tour is rarely more than a couple of weeks in length, modern groups often have to splinter so that individual musicians can work in enough contexts to make a living. Not that living was by any means easy (Cutler's documentation clearly lays out the expenses of running a band), but as was the case with groups like Egg (documented in Uriel and Egg: The Road to Hatfield and Beyond), for the majority of Henry Cow's existence, it was an all-consuming affair where its members focused on nothing else but the group.

The group makes wordplay out of a number of known compositions from its studio discography, nodding perhaps to the sometimes significant alterations that were made to them for a specific performance or tour. Frith's "Bittern Storm Over Ulm," from Unrest, becomes "Heron Shower Over Hamburg," while the Frith/Cutler collaboration, "Beautiful As the Moon—Terrible As an Army With Banners," from In Praise, becomes "Fair as the Moon," in the 1976 Hamburg, Germany performance that opens disc three (Hamburg). Mirroring the BBC session that opens Concerts, the tune segues into Frith's "Nirvana for Mice" (from Legend), this time "Nirvana for Rabbits," gradually descending into crazed freedom despite Cutler largely managing to keep time moving forward. A brief drum solo and bassoon intro from Cooper turn stark for "Ottawa Song" and "Gloria Gloom," the latter a song by Robert Wyatt and bassist Bill MacCormick from their Matching Mole album, Matching Mole's Little Red Record (Columbia, 1972).

Unlike Concerts, however, the group then veers off into nearly 25 minutes of largely dark-hued free improvisation that's closer to contemporary classicism than it is to free jazz. It's a lengthy ride of abstruse harmony and unpredictable textures running the gamut from no time/no changes to time and, if not exactly changes, harmonic shifts that at least provide a core, before finding their way back to the irregular-metered vamp of "Beautiful As the Moon" for an end to the 47-minute continuous set, followed by another lengthy free improvised piece, "A Heart." The disc closes with two tracks culled from 1975 audience recordings in Rome and Paris, both featuring guest Robert Wyatt singing his own "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road," from Rock Bottom (Virgin, 1974) and a surprising and wackily absurdist take of "We Did It Again," the iconic and repetitive Kevin Ayers song from Soft Machine's 1968 debut, Volume One (Probe).

AAJ

765 - Henry Cow Box Set "2 : Early 2"

Early 2 opens with a series of well-recorded tracks from an unknown source, largely culled from Unrest but demonstrating Cow's penchant for mixing things up in performance so that, while all the signposts of Frith's "Ruins" are there, the complexion is changed by inserting "Half Asleep" smack dab in the middle. Frith doesn't reproduce the razor's edge tone of his solo on the studio version of "Ruins," but his immense, soundscape-like replacement provides an alternate approach that's perhaps even more powerful, before dissolving into a free improv section where the guitarist's innovative approach to prepared guitar techniques are on full display—concepts that he'd mine and evolve further over the years, in ways that would position him alongside Derek Bailey for sheer audacity and textural unpredictability.

Cow's ability to combine complex composition with improvisation of reckless abandon can be heard on the 30-minute excerpt from a 1974 Halsteren, Holland show. Presaging the more concise, 13-minute vocal version of Hodgkinson's "Living in the Heart of the Beast" that immediately follows on the disc (from a 1975 performance in Paris, France that also features Krause's first appearance), in Halsteren the group—at this point a quartet, with Cutler, Frith, Greaves and Hodgkinson—intersperses individual and collective soloing with composed segments from Hodgkinson's epic piece.

AAJ

764 - Henry Cow Box Set "1 : Beginnings"

While modern recording technology and fast improving online distribution capability are making it easier to appreciate the full extent of today's artists' work, the same cannot be said about relatively short-lived groups from the 1970s. This is especially true of groups that, despite being in some cases remarkably influential, remain cult favorites with a relatively small but intensely dedicated fan base.

A case in point is Henry Cow, a British group that began life in 1968 but didn't release its first music until 1973. Cow created some highly innovative and joyous noise throughout its 10 year run. It was also responsible for the creation of Rock in Opposition (RIO)—a loose collective of progressive-thinking bands that initially included Italy's Stormy Six, Sweden's Samla Mammas Manna, Belgium's Univers Zero and France's Etron Fou Leloublan—which has remained in philosophical opposition to the inequities of the record industry.

Cow's relatively diminutive discography—Legend (Virgin, 1973), Unrest (Virgin, 1974), In Praise of Learning (Virgin, 1975), Concerts (Caroline, 1976) and Western Culture (Broadcast, 1979), along with the peripheral Desperate Straights (Virgin, 1975), a reciprocal collaboration with Slapp Happy in return for that group's participation on In Praise (a brief merger of the two groups, in fact)—provided plenty of fine evidence of an intrepid and experimental (albeit constantly shifting) group that emerged out of the nascent Canterbury scene which also included groups like Soft Machine and Egg.

But while Legend possesses some markers to link it to the Canterbury scene, the group's three constants—guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith, percussionist Chris Cutler and keyboardist/saxophonist Tim Hodgkinson—quickly transcended even that broad musical categorization to become an entity that embraced, certainly more than most, author William S. Burroughs' iconic statement, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

The music ranged from detailed composition—approaching, at times, contemporary classical music in its rich layers and contrapuntal complexity—to flat-out free improvisation which utilized pre-recorded tapes and a wealth of instruments and sundry items that made the Henry Cow stage look more like a musical instrument yard sale.

But as extreme as Cow could be—existing, at the same time, at both ends of the composition-to-free improv continuum and everywhere in-between—it left a wealth of memorable material, including Frith's knotty "Nirvana for Mice" from Legend, his epic "Ruins," from Unrest, Hodgkinson's idiosyncratic and long-form "Living in the Heart of the Beast" and the Frith/Cutler collaboration "Beautiful as the Moon—Terrible as an Army with Banners." The latter two came from In Praise and featured, for the first time, the group's politics made literal through the introduction of lyrical content, sung by newcomer/Slapp Happy singer Dagmar Krause.

As rich and varied as Cow's recorded music is, it can't possibly tell the whole story about the group, with no shortage of composed material and alternate arrangements either unrecorded or left on the cutting room floor. The studio was an early tool for experimentation, with a myriad of overdubbing and other techniques allowing the group to create soundscapes that, at the time, couldn't be recreated live. And Cow was, indeed, a band to be experienced live—a different beast entirely that, with the exception of Concerts, went woefully undocumented. The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set, promised by Cutler for well over a decade and now finally delivered, goes a long way towards filling in various gaps in the group's musical history and painting a more complete picture of Henry Cow by sourcing material from demos, rehearsal tapes and a variety of live performances. The quality varies, but Cutler and Bob Drake's editing and mastering work is superb, making even the poorest of sound sources—some coming from audience cassette recordings—surprisingly clear and full.

The box is divided into two five-disc sets, each available separately or together—if bought together, a bonus third box is provided to house the existing Cow studio discography. The first box covers the group's earliest recordings from 1971 through to the 1976 Hamburg, Germany radio recording that was bassist John Greaves' final performance with the group. It also includes the Trondheim, Norway performance from the tour that immediately followed Greaves' departure, with the group pared down by necessity to a quartet that also included bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper, who had joined the group for Unrest, replacing founding member/woodwind multi-instrumentalist Geoff Leigh.

The second box contains four CDs that follow the group through to its end in 1978, also including what is, perhaps, the gem of the entire set—a DVD of a 1976 performance in Vevey, Switzerland. Featuring Krause and newcomer Georgie Born on bass and cello in addition to Frith, Hodgkinson, Cutler and Cooper, the sextet performs material from In Praise and more, including Hodgkinson's "Erk Gah"—also known as "Hold to the Zero Burn, Imagine," later released on Hodgkinson's Each In Our Own Thoughts (Megaphone, 1994). There are more surprises still, but the bottom line is: The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set offers, for the first time, a comprehensive account of Henry Cow's breadth and depth.

For those familiar with Cow's existing discography, hearing early versions of Frith's "Teenbeat" and Hodgkinson's "Amygdala" reveal just how far the group would evolve by the time it laid these tracks down for Legend. "Pre-Teenbeat I" and "Pre-Teenbeat II," which open up the first disc (Beginnings) contain many of the markers that would end up on the finished version, but here they're sparer, germinal ideas, as is the case with an extract from Hodgkinson's "Amygdala." The 10-minute version of Frith's "Teenbeat," on the other hand, expands upon the album version with a lengthy solo from Frith and entirely new sections that embed free improvisation and odd conversational snippets, courtesy of Egg's Dave Stewart and vocalists Amanda Parsons and Ann Rosenthal—members of The Ottawa Music Company, a collective ("Rock Composer's Orchestra," according to Cutler) formed by Cutler and Stewart in 1970 that never recorded but performed with an ever-growing group of musicians from (or soon to be in) Henry Cow, Egg, Khan and Hatfield and the North. Frith's "With the Yellow Half Moon and Blue Star" was only represented by a three-and-a-half minute excerpt on Legend; here it's reproduced in its entirety, its nearly 12 minutes featuring a wild, overdriven organ solo by Hodgkinson redolent of Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge.

Beginnings also includes three previously unheard tracks—the brief but knottily arranged "Olwyn Grainger," the freely improvised "Betty McGowan" and Greaves' "Lottie Hare," a neo-classical miniature that's in sharp contrast to his more jazz-inflected "Half Asleep, Half Awake," that would appear on Unrest and also on disc two of the box (Early 2). Two unexpected vocal tracks from Frith reveal a nascent songwriter long before he began exploring shorter song-form with Art Bears and on solo albums including Gravity (Fred/ReR, 1980) and Cheap at Half the Price (Fred/ReR, 1983). Still, these were no straightforward three-chord tunes, with "Rapt in a Blanket" dabbling in irregular meters and "Came to See You" experimenting with episodic shifts in feel and complex arrangements. Both songs show the influence of Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt and, with another overdriven organ solo from Hodgkinson, Mike Ratledge.

AAJ

763 - Daniel Palomo Vinuesa "L'Homme Approximatif"

Œuvre, plus que simple alboume, avec une tentative de linéarité scientifique : Darwin - tiens, au fait, où en sont les crétins créationnistes ?, Pythagore - le symbole sur la pochette, comme approche de l'infini des nombres, comme écho à l'infini des sons... comme théorème de la pratique artistique qui s'affranchit du fini.
Et puis, s'il y a un fil conducteur scientifique, il existe aussi un "avant" et un "après", ainsi que des "Global". Il en faut quand même 4, alors que Global, c'est un tout.
Donc ce n'est peut-être pas dans les titres qu'il faut tenter de chercher une clé.
Car il n'y a pas de clés, sinon celle de la liberté singulière et déconcertante d'une oeuvre libre, qui touche à des sons et des genres variés, multiples, divers, non pas sans limites, mais sans contraintes.
Il y a là une approche de l'universel, sans messages ni doctrines, mais avec des emprunts sidérants de force narrative, dans une dramaturgie cinématographique, tant la densité de cette musique est propice à la création d'images fortes.

Il faut savoir ruser avec ses propres habitudes, pour mieux se laisser surprendre par cet "Homme Approximatif" qui est une oeuvre, comme pour littéraire ou cinématographique.
Il est question ici d'un alboume infini, non pas fermé dans sa durée, mais ouvert sur un temps qui échappe au temps.

762 - Jon Hassel & Maarifa Street "World Cafe Live in Philadelphia 8 fevrier 2009"

Weekend Edition Sunday, February 8, 2009 - Trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell used to joke: "I do country music; it's just a matter of what country."

Or maybe it's a matter of what planet. Decades ago, Hassell coined the term "fourth world music" to describe his sound — one that evokes both the primitive and the futuristic. He continues to explore new sonic landscapes on his latest album, Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street. The title came from the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi.

"Rumi is sort of the beginning of the idea of Sufism ... and kind of a hippie, right?" Hassell says. "I mean, he was a — you didn't know if he was praising God or talking about a hot-looking girl passing by. So the title itself, Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street, has a combination of cosmic and a bit sexy."

Hassell is on his first North American tour in more than two decades. He spoke with Liane Hansen from WOSU in Columbus, Ohio.

Though first inspired by more mainstream jazz, Hassell has worked with electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen and studied with Indian classical singer Pandit Pran Nath. It helps explain his fascination with atmospheric electronics — and, he says, his soft, puffy style on the trumpet.

"I certainly started to play trumpet in a different way, drawing lines in space, musical lines, kind of Arabesque musical calligraphy," Hassell says. "A certain kind of curve where you touch one line but don't touch another, and touch this one lightly and touch that one more. Very beautiful and subtle."

Hear the full interview with Jon Hassell by clicking on the link at the top of the page, starting around noon ET on Sunday, Feb. 8.

Music interview

Jon Hassell - trumpet/keyboard
Peter Freeman - bass/laptop
Jan Bang - sampler/live sampling
Dino J.A. Deane - sampler/live sampling
Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche - violin

01. ba-benzele
02. abu gil
03. courtrais
04. last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street
05. aurora
06. north line
07. blue poles
08. open secret

761 - Henry Threadgill's Zooid "Live Middleton, 6 février 2009"

Mille mercis à PunkJazz (sur Dime) pour ce concert superbe.

Henry Threadgill - flute and alto saxophone
Liberty Ellman - guitar
Jose Davila - tuba
Christopher Hoffman - cello
Elliot Humberto Kavee - drums

Le premier titre, c'est "simplement" un hommage d'Anthony Braxton à Henry Threadgill.
Où il dit, entre autres, qu'à 12 ans, Henry était son héros.

Et après... brrrrrrr, grand frisson.

760 - I Have Eaten The City "Feral Geography"

Comme les éléments sont assez rares sur ce trio total impro, transgenre, à nul autre pareil, j'ai collecté des infos, juste pour vous donner envie, comme ça, en passant.

C'est parti !

Colin Fisher (guitar, saxophone, pedals, bouzouki, auxillary percussion, voice, effects), Nick Storring (violoncello, computer, dictaphone, Casio SK-1, electronics, small flutes, bird calls, voice, auxillary percussion), Brandon Valdivia (drums, percussion, ocarina).

Nick Storring is a young, multi-faceted musician whose interests lie both in and outside of the world of improvisational music.

Nick's main focus as an improvising musician is his project with drummer Brandon Valdivia and guitarist/ saxophonist Colin Fisher, I HAVE EATEN THE CITY, in which he plays cello, keyboards and various small instruments through live computer processing. The group's approach, which draws variously from “spiritual” free-jazz , abstract electronica, contemporary classical, avant-rock, noise, ambient, musique concrete and non-Western Musics, has permitted them to play a variety of audiences in and around the Toronto area, where they are based. The group served as the backing group for Damo Suzuki in 2005 on one of his Canadian dates, and played with Tzadik artist Toby Driver (of avant-metal group Kayo Dot) on his 2006 tour in Canada.

Storring has also performed in many other improvisational contexts with musicians including Paul Dutton, Jean Martin, Frank Gratkowski, Michael Keith, Ken Aldcroft, Christine Duncan, Lori Freedman, Anne Bourne and Matthew Brubeck.

Apart from his interest in improvisational music, Storring is very active as an electroacoustic composer, as well as composing for theatre and interdisciplinary artwork. His electronic music has appeared at the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound in 2003, and at 20th Anniversary of the Maison de Culture Notre-Dame De Grace in Montreal.

He studied composition at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario with Peter Hatch, Glenn Buhr, Richard Windeyer and Linda Catlin Smith.

He also plays cello in Polyvinyl Records' experimental-rock group Picastro, who merge spare songwriting with dark, primarily acoustic atmospherics.
AAJ

Colin Fisher

I am a Guitarist/Tenor Saxophonist who enjoys composing and improvising Currently most of my musical activity is in the area of Toronto Ontario. Although I live in Stratford Ontario and have played with a few bands here resulting in the formation of Sing that Yell that Spell who have a recording out through Escapegoat Records in Toronto. Most of my other musical activity is centered in the improvised music community of toronto (which started with the infamous alto saxophonist Maury Coles whom i was in a band with near the end of his life called “Abstract” we recorded 2 albums one of which with Joe Mcphee) with people like Jason Hammer, Evan Shaw, Mark Hundevad, Jean Martin, Nick Fraser, Scott Thompson, Ken Aldcroft, Joe Sorbara and many others. I've also played with improvisors outside of toronto such as Dominic Duval, Jean Derome, Paul Hession, Gerry Hemingway, Sabir Mateen. We had a collective, before Jason Hammer moved to Vancouver, we humoursly entitled Chronic D thats focus is entirely on improvised music. I'm was also part of a band of Jason Hammer's 'Green Eggs and Hammer' of which his compositions ranged from blues to afrobeat to full out free improv. I've recorded with The Constantines for their sub pop release “Shine a Light”, the upcoming Vermicious Knid release, the band Red Trakpants 'fear of castration' album and others. I am also involved in another project with Nick Storring - cello, laptop/electronics and Brandon Valdivia - percussion... called I HAVE EATEN THE CITY (the music ranges from free-rock/jazz/glitchy-electronica/noise/new-music composition..etc - all of the music we make together is improvised). I also have my a list of my own compostions i play with Evan Shaw - Alto Saxophone, Nick Fraser - Drums, Jason Hammer - Bass and myself on Tenor and guitar. A DVD of a performance we did in toronto, while on tour with Trevor Dunn/Shelly Burgon, will be avaiable mid-2006. I also have a CDR available of duets and trios with Nick and Jason of my compostiions called “EUPHONIUS” that is only availabe through contacting me.. but if youre interested there are sample tracks availble on my myspace site. thanks!

AAJ

Je n'ai pas trouvé l'équivalent sur Brandon Valdivia, mais sachez qu'il est à la hauteur des 2 autres zozos.

Bref, trio détonnant. Pas de temps morts (même dans les temps calmes), mais une intense démarche d'exploration.
Chaudement recommandé.

759 - Evelyn Glennie & Fred Frith "The Sugar Factory"

This collaboration between Fred Frith and Scottish percussion soloist Evelyn Glennie was suggested by filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer to coincide with the filming of "Touch The Sound", a documentary feature about Glennie and her work. The recordings took place in a disused sugar factory (hence the title) in Dormagen, Germany where the pair set about a series of raw improvisations that were then edited down into these six bewitching pieces. The entire recording is characterised by the imposing, cavernous presence of the factory itself, which as Frith concedes in the liner notes, soaks the whole session in its unique reverberations. Consequently there's a very definite sense of atmosphere that looms over everything, adding a stark industrial edge to Glennie's percussive elements (particularly on the fearsome opener 'A Route Of Wolves'), but by the same hand making Frith's guitar sound positively majestic - never more so than on the closing 'Walls Are Loosening/A Little Prayer' which finds the two musicians linking up for their most obviously melodic collaboration. Frith's crystalline lead part soars above Glennie's warm, infinitely gentle marimba piece making for a real spine tingler of a closing number. Highly recommended.

Boomkat

Fred and Evelyn get together in a big empty space - for a documentary - and improvise, mostly. Evelyn has a vast array of classical and profane percussion instruments and Fred has his guitar and pedals. It's a fascinating collaboration not least in the way it uncovers something of the very different root approaches to improvisation that these two musicians somehow bring successfully together. But, eloquently, it works best on the final track, when Evelyn plays a composed piece for Marimba which Fred, not knowing, simply improvises with, perfectly tonally - improvisation is free, but that doesn't mean it has to be abstract or difficult; the rule should be that there are no rules; and for a good improviser, like an actor, no role should be impossible. The result is a truly glorious piece - sublime would not be too strong (and it would chime happily with a deep root in romanticism). People talk a lot about pure music, but here's a very rare opportunity to hear what such a thing might sound like.

ReR

This first meeting between British vanguard improviser Fred Frith and world-renowned drummer and percussionist Evelyn Glennie (who happens to be deaf) was created, for the most part, in a disused sugar factory where a makeshift studio was created and the two performers played 100 feet apart from one another. According to Frith's liner notes, the pretext was to make music for a documentary film by Thomas Riedelscheimer entitled Touch the Sound, based on Glennie's life as an artist. (She is the first percussionist ever to have a successful career as a soloist.) The music here is not the soundtrack to the film -- which exists in its own right -- but an album compiled by the pair from the total of the music they cut together. There are some re-recordings, but they are virtually indistinguishable from the material recorded at the sugar factory. (Once the listener engages the disc, it will be a surprise since the reverb -- a natural part of the sound environment -- never actually disappears.) Frith plays electric guitar, bass, organ, and "metal objects" with Glennie improvising on everything from drums, gongs, marimba, and vibraphones, steel drums, a toy piano, and bell-tree, and her voice, to name just some of the instruments and objects put into play here. Just under 50 minutes in length, and edited by Frith, who took his versions to Glennie before re-recording, this is a document that will be fascinating to those who are well-versed in the guitarist's own work, but may come as a shock to those who have heard Glennie's more cohesive work. It is divided into six tracks, but it needn't have been. It flows seamlessly from one piece to another, and feels like a complete collaborative work. Dynamics, textures, tensions, and aesthetic values complement one another nearly instinctively despite the challenges of the sound environments. Glennie is "noisier" than she normally is, but that's what makes this so compelling: there are moments here where all the cacophony results in a blisslike listening experience for the listener. Nowhere is this more true than on the album's final 15 minutes, in a work called "The Walls Are Loosening/A Little Prayer." (The latter end of that title is an actual composition by Glennie.) The sheer wail and whomp of large bassy drums are juxtaposed against electric guitar lines that range from near ambient to feedback-driven, from open strings left to resonate a bit to scree and skronk. But control is everything, and these two practice it at every turn, even at the work's most bombastic parts. There is little to hold on to and that is the desired effect: to let go. As the "walls loosen," every sound that emerges becomes a part of the bigger body of the work, the players and the listener. It's almost an aesthetic that came out of spontaneity and keen listening -- as well as major-league ego control by the participants. The Sugar Factory is a listening experience unlike anything else. It's deep, humorous, sublime, rattling, and warm. It's a universe of sound and noise that becomes, by the time the disc has played its entire run of 49 minutes, a new approach to both playing and encountering that wonderfully magical and poetic thing called music.

Allmusic

Indispensable.
Disponible chez Orkhêstra.

Note (12 avril 2009) ! liens supprimés (links deleted)

758 - Touch the sound

757 - Evelyn Glennie & Fred Frith "A little prayer"

Description : impovised record session in an old sugar factory in Dormagen/Germany with guitar and marimba (excerpt from great documentary "Touch The Sound" by Thomas Riedelsheimer), CD "The Sugar Factory" on Tzadik [Aug.2007]http://www.evelyn.co.uk/homepage.htm

756 - Siné : la Une de demain...

755 - Michele Rabbia / Marilyn Crispell / Vincent Courtois "Shifting Grace"

Définition de la beauté ?
Qui tente sa chance ?
Y a t'il une ou des beautés.
Certainement des.
Dont une.
Ce magistral trio.
Qui s'empare d'une beauté.
Qui l'invente.
La fait vivre.
Voilà la beauté définie par la capacité des musiciens de donner vie à la beauté.

Tout est là, en écoute.

Après, achetez si vous voulez.

Masque, trio version

754 - Vive la Guadeloupe !!!

VIVE LA GUADELOUPE !!!!

Mais ils ne pourront éviter le mot salaire, ni le 18 février, ni le 19 mars. La grève générale ne se commande pas, ne se décrète pas, mais elle est là, elle est à l’ordre du jour…

Lire la suite sur le blog de Gérard Filoche.

753 - Jolie Holland "The Living and the Dead"

Voilà.
Pas besoin d'aller très loin.
C'est immédiat.
De belles chansons joyeuses.
L'alboume se termine d'ailleurs en rires.
C'est dire à quel point cela fait du bien.
Jolie possède un timbre de voix qui EST ici, l'expression de cette joie.
De joie à Jolie, c'est juste une question d'L

Bon, en même temps, ce n'est pas tout rose, hein.
Nous savons notre mortelle et humaine condition.
L'alboume précédent était "sombre" ? Soit, et alors, qu'importe.
Nous sommes tous parfois très sombres.
Tendance noire.
Obscure et grise.
Même Jolie.

Et là, avec cet alboume vivant, c'est comme le retour de ce côté du miroir, en toute lucidité, du côté des vivants.
Mais pourquoi, au nom de cette lucidité, abdiquer ?
Et surtout renoncer à chanter ?
Cette voix là est le chant.
Superbement accompagné par des musiques si belles que Jolie chante encore mieux. Et c'est là que Jolie est belle.

752 - Eluvium "LIFE THROUGH BOMBARDMENT"

Juste pour le titre global et l'immense contraste avec la musique proposée.
Avec l'idée que l'on s'en fait.
C'est censé être très zen.
Mais pas toujours.
Et pas seulement.

751 - Henry Threadgill's Zooid "Up popped the two lips"

Henry Threadgill - Alto sax; flute
Liberty Ellman - Acoustic guitar
Tarik Benbrahim - Oud
Jose Davila - Tuba
Dana Leong - Cello
Dafnis Prieto - Drums

1. Tickled Pink [6:54]
2. Dark Black [5:26]
3. Look [4:54]
4. Around My Goose [8:00]
5. Calm Down [5:35]
6. Did You See That [7:43]
7. Do the Needful [6:53]

Déjà, en listant les instruments, cela doit donner une "manière de jouer" sur les mélanges possibles, impossibles (si nul n'y est tenu, il y a aussi de l'impossible dans cette musique) et rêvés (car la musique est source et s'inspire).
Les structures peuvent sembler terriblement complexes, chaque instrument semble suivre une voie personnelle et libre, sans sembler trop se soucier des autres.
Au final, il y a une a-cohérence absolument dansante, toujours inventive, avec des instants de "douceur" apaisants.
Et ça joue ! Parfois d'une manière espiègle, bondissante.
Musique terriblement inspirée, libre de contraintes.

Sept Cent 50 - Marie Boine "Eagle Brother" (1995)

Alboume hors du temps.
Marie Boine traverse.
Défie les chemins faciles.
Immense.
Les bottes des 7 lieues sont aussi musicales.