AMM

Laminal is the three-CD set with which AMM marked thirty years of playing together in 1996. Each disc holds one complete concert from a different era of the group: Aarhus in 1969, London in 1982 and New York in 1994. The title comes from Evan Parker, to whom the set is dedicated. In a lecture on improvisation at the ICA in London in August 1980, Parker described AMM's music as laminal, in contrast with the atomistic approach of other improvisers. Eddie Prévost took up the word because the idea of "layers superimposed on other layers" was close to how the group actually sounds.

The Aarhus Sequences were recorded in Denmark on 16 December 1969 and restored by Adam Skeaping. They catch the late-sixties line-up: Cornelius Cardew on piano, Lou Gare on tenor saxophone, Christopher Hobbs and Prévost on percussion, Keith Rowe on electric guitar. The Great Hall comes from Goldsmiths' College in London on 20 February 1982. It is the first important recorded concert of AMM with pianist John Tilbury, now in a trio with Rowe and Prévost. Contextual is the same trio at Context Studios in New York on 3 May 1994, the last date of that year's American tour, produced by Bruce Lee Gallanter. Victor Schonfield's text in the set describes a group that "uses all the dimensions of musical space", where volume, speed and density count as much as pitch.

Published by Matchless Recordings in 1996 as MRCD31, three CDs in a fat jewel case with a 24-page illustrated booklet. It contains notes by Schonfield, Jim O'Rourke, Malcolm Le Grice, Tilbury and Prévost, with cover and booklet illustrations by Rowe.