AMM
AMM music is supposed to admit all sounds but the members of AMM have marked preferences. An open-ness to the totality of sounds implies a tendency away from traditional musical structures towards informality. Governing this tendency -reining it in- are various thoroughly traditional musical structures such as saxophone, piano, violin, guitar, etc., in each of which reposes a portion of the history of music. Further echoes of the history of music enter through the medium of the transistor radio (the use of which as a musical instrument was pioneered by John Cage)” Cornelius Cardew, Towards an Ethics of Improvisation
AMM music is supposed to admit all sounds but the members of AMM have marked preferences. An open-ness to the totality of sounds implies a tendency away from traditional musical structures towards informality. Governing this tendency -reining it in- are various thoroughly traditional musical structures such as saxophone, piano, violin, guitar, etc., in each of which reposes a portion of the history of music. Further echoes of the history of music enter through the medium of the transistor radio (the use of which as a musical instrument was pioneered by John Cage)” Cornelius Cardew, Towards an Ethics of Improvisation
Member of: Eddie Prévost
The Great Learning
RESTOCKED "We are proud to present the first complete release of a milestone of XX century music and a first piece to be called minimalist (by Michael Nyman). In a nearly 5-hour long recording of the piece one can hear Webern's punctualism, Reich's trance music, Ligeti's "clouds of sound" and echoes of Cage's conceptual provocations. The monumental music-theater mystery, on the one hand, evokes long lost spirit of archaic tribal rituals and, on the other, prophesies emancipated, experimental hom…
Phi
First meeting of experimental musicians Keith Rowe & Radu Malfatti in a 3 disc set: one disc of compositions by Jurg Frey and Cornelius Cardew; one disc of their own compositions; and one disc of improvisation. Keith Rowe and Radu Malfatti are two of the most influential experimental musicians in recent decades, each with extensive bodies of highly distinctive work and a combined 80+ years at the forefront of their respective areas of exploration. On Φ, their first meeting ever is documented via…
Cardew works 1960-70
2024 stock. Cornelius Cardew's music of the Sixties is arguably from his most creative and experimental period as a composer, beginning with Autumn 60 and ending with the last paragraphs of The Great Learning in 1970. This decade can be divided into two parts, where the first half focuses on indeterminate music and the latter sees a growing emphasis on improvisation. Treatise functions as a bridge between these two periods, as it contains elements of both. This recording is a document of this du…
Penumbrae
Matchless Recordings presents a live concert by Eddie Prévost - bowed percussion and Jennifer Allum - violin.
This album is composed of two parts: Investigative Study recorded at The Welsh Chapel, Southwark Bridge, Road, London on 13th July 2010, and Dolwilym Penumbra, recorded at the Mwnci Studios on the Dolwilym Estate, west Wales on 12th October 2010.
Jennifer Allum alternates two bows, a 17th century German one and a 'conveyor-belt' bow. Eddie Prévost picks a mass-produced model and two more…
Afternoon Tea
Who would have thought a relaxed sunny afternoon, newfound friendships and some spur-of-the-moment would have resulted in what's been described as 'one of the most compelling documents of both free improvisation and electronica' (All Music Guide) It's the people involved in 'Afternoon Tea' - originally released in 2000 on German label Ritornell and now available on vinyl for the first time with a new master, bonus tracks and newly discovered live recordings - that ensured it as more than a happy…
Sounding Music
AMM's performance at the 2009 Freedom of the City Festival with AMM regular members Eddie Prevost and John Tilbury extended with John Butcher, Chritian Wolff and Ute Kanngiesser. "[...] Certainly in places this sounds like AMM through and through. When Prévost and Tilbury are working together it really cannot be anything else. I find myself hearing the connections between these two musicians through everything else, no matter what other sounds are there to be heard. There are the little climaxes…
Lost Daylight
'The compositions on Lost Daylight' by John CAGE and the almost-forgotten American Fluxus composer Terry JENNINGS date from between 1958 and 1966. Yet in the hands of John Tilbury and Sebastian Lexer they sound astonishingly modern. JENNINGS' solo pieces couldn't be more conventional in using only pure keyboard notes, but they could hardly be more radical in the way in which the notes are reduced, isolated and surrounded with silences. As Michael Pisaro's sleevenotes say, 'It is music of simplic…
Music for Piano and Strings by Morton Feldman. Volume 1
The Smith Quartet with pianist John Tilbury perform two long works by Morton Feldman: "For John Cage" (1982) and "Piano and String Quartet" (1985) on DVD Audio. Several lifetimes ago, when I was nineteen, I was interviewed by Wilfrid Mellers for a place at York University. That I failed to win a place may have been due in part to the confinement of our discussions to the music of Morton Feldman. Wilfrid (a friend of Feldman's and, in later years, a friend of mine) saw Debussy as a powerful influ…
Contact
Keith Rowe (guitar, electronics) and Sachiko M (sine wave, contact microphone). Recorded by Taku Unami at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo on september 21 and september 23, 2008. Mixed by Taku Unami. Mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura.
Treatise
Rare original edition, a few back in stock. ** 300 copies ** Cornelius Cardew's opus magnus Treatise is a 193 page graphic score written between 1963 and 1967 while he was performing with the improvisation group AMM. The score's graphic notation, with its intricately devised graphic lines, shapes and symbols was intended to question the limits of compositional practice. Decisions concerning pitch, timbre and duration, along with the choice of instruments and the number of performers, are left en…
Consciously
This compilation is a sort of 1970's alternative social history in song. An eclectic mixture of previously unreleased songs, with widely differing styles, performed by a diverse grouping of musicians. This all combines into a unique experience. Musicians: Cornelius Cardew; Pete Devenport, Vicky Silva, Laurie Baker, Hugh Shrapenl, Chris Thompson, Keith Rowe, John Marcangelo, Evan Parker, Pip Pyle, Dave Smith, Hamilton DeGale, John Tilbury, Alec Hill, Huw Warren, Nick Connors, Geoff Pearce, Robert…
Gracilty
2024 lucky restock. A mind blowing archival double cd centred around Laurie Scott Baker, who has been involved in experimental music since he was a teenager. A pioneer of live electronics and graphic scores back in the 60s, a member of the Scratch Orchestra & Peoples Liberation Music with Cornelius Cardew, played many first performances of new music. Gracility comes out of the development of free improvisation & groups such as Scratch Orchestra etc. & the general questioning of the music establi…
It Had Been An Ordinary Enough Day In Pueblo, Colorado
For folks familiar with AMM, this one really doesn’t need much by way of introduction. However, as an entry point, it serves up (relatively) short digestible tracks that illustrate the organic genius of AMM. By the time they recorded this album, this was AMM’s third incarnation. By no means the groups most decisive or challenging work, the songs clearly demonstrate the various shades of free improv mastery that give the group it’s perrenial status as one of the finest examples within the genre. …
We Only Want The Earth
2024 restock. Long out of print, subtitled "the Peoples' Liberation Music Tapes & other Songs", the tracks from this CD come from a rare collection of Cornelius Cardew's live recordings and studio sessions made between 1973-78. Plans to issue them on vinyl LP in the 70s never came to fruition (although small numbers of cassettes circulated). The original songs and arrangements are of the 70s and so reflect that time. Some people find it difficult to accept that revolutionary words can be set to …
Treatise (Prague Version, 1967)
Featured work: "Treatise (Live Recording, Prague 1967)." Performed by: QUaX Ensemble (Petr Kotik, Director). "This performance of Cardew's monumental 193-page graphic score 'Treatise' was recorded live in Prague in 1967 by the Czech QUaX Ensemble, directed by composer/flutist/conductor Petr Kotik. This historical recording offers a unique perspective to hear 'Treatise' as interpreted by Cardew's contemporaries. Kotik met Cardew in Warsaw in 1962, and they began exchanging scores by mail, includi…
Gamut
Seymour Wright, alto saxophone. Eddie Prévost, roto toms. Recorded at Trinity College of Music, Greenwich, England on 2nd April 2008. Recording and mastering Sebastian Lexer. CD booklet image photograph by Paulo Wright. Notes Seymour Wright and Eddie Prévost respectively.
Blackheath
Alexander von SCHLIPPENBACH, piano. Eddie Prévost, drums. Piano solo, drums solo and then a duet. Recorded at a concert given at Blackheath Halls, London, England on 30th March 2008. Recording and mastering Sebastian Lexer. Notes by Christoph Wagner. Cover artwork Myah Chun.
Keith Rowe - Taku Unami
ErstLive 006 is from the duo of Keith Rowe and Taku Unami, and took place on the first night of the Amplify 2008: light festival in Tokyo in September 2008. This was the first set they'd ever played together. Keith Rowe: guitar, electronics. Taku Unami: computer with objects, contraguitar, mandolin.
Keith Rowe
ErstLive 007 is a solo set from Keith Rowe, and took place on the second night of the Amplify 2008: light festival in Tokyo in September 2008. This was Rowe's first ever solo set in Tokyo in his 40+ year career. Keith Rowe: guitar, electronics.
The Great Learning / Two Poems
Cornelius Cardew's "The Great Learning," is a great example of his struggles to reconcile his innate musical aesthetics and his intellectual belief that the "avant-garde" was inherently elitist. Written for a mix of musicians & non-musicians, it is a grand improvisatory work that nicely exploits the talents of whomever is performing it. Two of the seven "Paragraph's" are performed here by The Scratch Orchestra, who give the expected first rate performance. Bedford is known to many in the rock w…