Mike Cooper
Influential British guitarist Mike Cooper is primarily regarded as a folk-blues guitarist and singer/songwriter, though his wide range of work cannot be so easily defined. He is also a celebrated improviser and electronic musician. In addition, he creates sound installations and radio art; he\'s a videographer, journalist, and music historian; and he performs scores for silent films.
Influential British guitarist Mike Cooper is primarily regarded as a folk-blues guitarist and singer/songwriter, though his wide range of work cannot be so easily defined. He is also a celebrated improviser and electronic musician. In addition, he creates sound installations and radio art; he\'s a videographer, journalist, and music historian; and he performs scores for silent films.
Trout Steel
2015 Reissue. With the oddly evocative choice of his third solo album’s title, appropriated from Richard Brautigan’s 1967 surrealist-pastoral novel Trout Fishing in America, Mike Cooper might very well have been describing his own mercurial musical practice. “Trout Steel” suggests a reflective, highly mutable, quicksilver riverine element, an apt metaphor for the lap steel runs summoned from his trademark National resophonic guitars and his restless, constantly evolving development as a singer, …
Places I Know / The Machine Gun Co.
After two years of tireless work to liberate these long out-of-print masterpieces from the vaults, Paradise of Bachelors is proud to present the first artist-sanctioned reissues—and first-ever vinyl reissues—of iconoclastic English-born, Rome-based folk and experimental music legend Mike Cooper’s classic trio of early 1970s avant-folk/rock records: Trout Steel (1970), Places I Know (1971), and The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper (1972). The latter two titles are presented for the very first tim…
New Kiribati
Discrepant presents the first ever vinyl release of Kiribati, the very first instalment in the acclaimed Ambient Exotica Soundscapes by veteran English experimentalist Mike Cooper. ''This was the first release on my Hipshot c.d.r label in 1999. I wanted to create an album of imaginary soundscapes from imagined exotic places based on my travels in the Pacific Islands and South East Asia. Kiribati was the first in a series of three CDs of Ambient Exotica Soundscapes – played on lap steel, el…
White Shadows in the South Seas
receding the Killing Melody LP by ten years, this EP was recorded by Mike in the late '90s and originally released on his own CDr label Hipshot. A 500 only pressing, these are the last remaining copies. Mike Cooper is a British blues legend. In the early 60s he supported John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Howling Wolf, Son House and many more American blues artists on their UK visits - as well as backing British R&B bands. He honed his guitar skills to later include steel blues and Hawaiian lap …
Fratello Mare
Fratello Mare, which takes its title from Folco Quilici's classic 1975 film, continues UK-born, Italy-based musician Mike Cooper's ode to the Pacific, its people, and the traditions that have flowed from that part of the world into seemingly endless iterations within contemporary culture. Recorded across 2014, the tropical opus dovetails neatly with Cooper's other Room40 editions, White Shadows in the South Seas (RM 454CD, 2013) and the post-everything classic Rayon Hula (2004). It expands h…
Light On A Wall
New album from Mike Cooper recorded live on Radio Lebanon in Beirut. Cooper plays electric lap steel and sings several of his 'Spirit Songs' - a body of vocal works that he has been presenting live over the past few years. These 'songs' are constructed by chopping up - (William Burroughs /Brion Gysin/Tom Phillips style) - Gravity's Rainbow and V - two novels by Thomas Pynchon. No chords, melodies or harmonic patterns for each song are planned prior to them being performed. Both accompanime…
New Globe Notes
For the past fifty years, Mike Cooper has been constantly experimenting with live composition, field recordings and free improvisation; in the late 90s he developed a particular kind of contemporary exotica inspired by his trips in the Pacific area; the result is, in his own words, an “imaginary, exotic, ambient soundscape of places that didn't exist”.“New Globe Notes” collects material previously released on Mike Cooper's own imprint Hipshot Records, and is accompanied by a 32 paged bookl…
Live at the Hint House
Live at the Hint House might be considered a field rec. in as much as it is a recording of an ambience or soundscape. Made on my first ever trip to mainland America to play music this is the 2nd set of that evening, the 1st set had been an acoustic one of songs and slide guitar. At the start of the 2nd set i quickly realised that my guitar was not working and rather than stop and attempt to find out what was wrong i decided to just continue and improvise with what was at hand on the table …
Oceanic Feeling - Like
It’s this musical whisper that is amplified on Oceanic Feeling-Like, as Italian based musician Mike Cooper and Australia’s Chris Abrahams unite for the first time to create what could be described as a picturesque horizon of melodic ocean swell. Stretching out wide, Oceanic Feeling-Like is generously coloured by Cooper’s unique approaches to the guitar and Abrahams' distinctive piano motions. Both bring a wealth of technique and improvised flare, creating a series of island-like compositions tha…
Metal Box
Mike Cooper: For the past 40 has been an international musical explorer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres. Initially a folk-blues guitarist and singer songwriter his work has diversified to include improvised and electronic music, live music for silent films, radio art and sound installations. He is also a music journalist, writing features for magazines, particularly on Pacific music and musicians, a visual artist, film and video maker…