Phil Minton
Tasting
Recorded live at the June 2006 Jazz à Poitiers festival this little gem features the work of two truly extraordinary musicians, both of whom are giants from a technical and creative point of view: Phil Minrton and Sophie Agnel, an unusual and very welcome pairing in that ceaselessly changing world which is the improv scene. The former is well-known, and has the weight of many years’ experience on his shoulders, but refuses to give up and continues indomitably to explore the outer possibilities o…
Five Men Singing
'It was a match made in heaven, or rather on earth, at last year's 20th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. Five vocal artists on one stage—Dutch Jaap Blonk, Japanese Koichi Makigami, Canadian sound poet Paul Dutton, Englishman Phil Minton, and German new music singer David Moss—was indeed one of the highlights of the '03 Victoriaville Festival. Only mad vocalist Mike Patton was missing.
These five men had never performed together on one stage, though they have worked wi…
With, Without
Phil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter. He is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake with his own ensemble. Minton is perhaps best known, however, for his completely free-form work, which involves "extended techniques" that can be as unsettling as they can be mesmerising. His voca…
Taking the Dog for a Walk
After Sunny’s time now, his authoritative portrait of the American Free jazz drumming legend Sunny Murray, Luxembourg filmmaker Antoine Prum turns his attention to the British Free Improvised Music scene in this new feature-length music documentary. Branching out from a three-day festival in Berlin conceived and organised for the purpose of the film, Taking the Dog for a Walk maps the scene of British Improvisers, past and present, retracing the road that led from its emergence and emancipation …
Advent
Recorded live by Michal Kupicz in Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Warsaw on 13th December 2014 during the Playback Play #7: Adwent. Curated by Michał Libera and Michał Borkiewicz. Cover Design by Kama Sokolnicka. Mix by Gerard Lebik, David Maranha. Mastering by Joe Talia. Phil Minton - voiceDavid Maranha - organGerard Lebik - generators
Ways For an Orchestra
Following three beautiful studio albums, Minton and Weston are back with an outstanding program of orchestral arrangements. The music flows with great pathos through renditions of their own most memorable compositions alongside pieces by Eric Dolphy, Luc Ex, Lindsay Cooper, Jacques Brel and others. Music by Phil Minton, Veryan Weston, Eric Dolphy, Arthur Sullivan, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Lindsay Cooper, Luc Ex, Jacques Brel
Léandre - Minton
Joëlle Léandre : doublebass, voice. Phil Minton : voice. Recorded by Jean-Marc Foussat in Paris on October 2016. Incredible concert of these two great improvisers!
A Doughnut's End
** restocked** At times barely more than breathing, at others breaking into full-throated song, A Doughnut's End is a highly concentrated sequence of solo improvisations that captures the full range of Phil Minton's vocal powers."Many of the sounds on the album’s 15 short tracks are unpleasant, but they’re all the more powerful for it. This work is in no way deprived of wonder, and you have to marvel at the breadth of what Minton can do. “Breaking News” bleeds from high pitched warbling to m…
A Duo(s)
In case you weren't there, Bocian present documentation of a pretty unhinged Cafe Oto session between gifted improvisers, Mats Gustafsson (reeds), John Russell (guitar) & Phil Minton (voice). Just imagine stumbling in on this one unprepared - a trio of blokes bleating, parping and yanking like Reeves & Mortimer after three days on the sauce. Of course, that description does a disservice to their well-honed extended technique and dexterity, but we'd defy anyone to keep a totally straight face at …
Quintet
Things get dislocated, gather themselves, spread across areas of varying intensities. More intimate or more complex song. closer to the sacred, left untouched by mediation, even slightly incomprehensible, though mostlyambivalent and reality-piercing. At times, the music seems to lead us to a meaning that is deeper than the textual level. or is it the depth of another possible song? That's when the music takes us to areas that seem perpetually urging, more than their simple addition of voi…
By the Stream
A study of free-form improvisation, rhythm and language using vocalizations, cello and analog electronics. These recordings in two movements can be taken as, on the one hand, pieces for two voices and improvisation chamber orchestra (which is what the musicians felt throughout the recording session) and, on the other hand, pure free improvisation. Both voices in interaction, perpetually urging the other on, producing more than their simple addition, producing a third voice -- like a semi-au…
Live at Knot Gallery, Athens, November 2011
Edition of 300 (coproduced with phase records & mafia). 'it was in dhalgren that i had read about a father getting fired, and who trying not to depress his family about it, wakes up every day, shaves, dresses himself up, has breakfast and leaves for his work. where does he spent his almost 8 to 10 hours? a mystery. perhaps crying on a park's bench or drinking or whatever. however, there are times when reality creates even more dystopian images than those in sam delaney's aforementioned o…
Two
Axel Dörner (trumpet), Thomas Lehn (analogue synthesiser) and Phil Minton (voice). two extended improvisations by three of Europe's most accomplished improvising musicians, taken from live performances in Austria (2005) and Germany (2008).
No Doughnuts in Hand
The third of Minton's doughnut reduction series features 37 solo vocal improvisations. This showcase for his remarkable vocal talents follows on from A Doughnut In Both Hands (Emanem 4025) and A Doughnut In One Hand (FMP 91), his previous solo outings. 52 minutes.
Q
Recorded live on 20th May 2002 at Musique Action, Vandoeuvre-Les-Nancy, France.
Slur
"Phil Minton is virtually alone in blazing a trail for the male vocalist in freely improvised music and this is one of his very infrequent outings as a group leader. In his notes for the accompanying booklet he refers to having toyed with the idea of singing words on this disc. The fact that he could apparently see no point in doing so might just be the thing that makes this music so successful, as the intrusion of words might only have rendered earthbound music that occupies a far more nebulous…
A doughnut in both hands
Solo singing. The variety of sounds that this man can make with his voice and mouth is totally unbelievable. Reissue of Rift 3 with extra material from the same and slightly later sessions. 56 minutes.