...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI



..::OPIS::..

Drummer, composer, lyricist, improviser, cultural theorist and the individual largely responsible for the existence of ReR/Recommended records, Chris Cutler (like his longtime musical sparring partner Fred Frith) has cast a long shadow over avant rock for over 30 years. He first came to prominence when he joined Henry Cow in 1971, but he had been active on London's psychedelic/underground scene since the mid 60s, and in the early 70s formed the Ottawa Music Company (a large collective of rock composers) with sometime Egg/Hatfields keyboards player Dave Stewart.

When Henry Cow ceased working in 1978, he was instrumental in setting up Recommended Records along with Nick Hobbs, Henry Cow's ex-manager, initially as a distribution service and subsequently as a label in its own right. He also formed the excellent Art Bears with Fred Frith and Dagmar Krause, in which he was lyricist as well as the drummer. Since then he has been involved in a bewildering number of projects, often simultaneously, including The Residents, Pere Ubu, News From Babel, Cassiber, Aqsak Maboul, The EC Nudes and P53. He has also worked as an improviser, notably with Fred Frith (see seperate entry), Thomas DiMuzio and Zeena Parkins. Further to all this, he has also developed a unique electric drum kit - to quote from the man himself: "There are no samples, pads or triggers, just acoustic drums amplified and modified with standard electronic processors ... All this is run into a small 16 channel mixer and out through various standard pedals and guitar effects" (from the sleevenotes to Solo). More details can be found on his website. At various points in its evolution, this kit can be heard on all his post Henry Cow recordings. To date there have been only 2 Cutler solo releases; Solo is live improvisations on the electric drumkit, while Twice Around The World is an album of soundscapes created for London based Resonance FM and described as 'an experiment in listening'. The discography also includes 2 albums recorded with electronics performer Thomas DiMuzio (who has also worked with 5UUs) and one with Zeena Parkins (News From Babel, Skeleton Crew).

A masterful and highly original drummer, he is well worth catching live where his unique style can be seen as well as heard. All of his albums can be recommended, but his collaborations with Thomas DiMuzio are perhaps the best place to start, in particular the masterful Dust. See also Cutler/Frith.

A seminal figure in the RIO scene, Cutler's solo and collaborative works are an essential addition to the RIO/Avant prog category.



10 CDs, 1 DVD, 80pp booklet and box.
To make public a mass of unreleased material I decided to wrap this musical collection into a box. These 10 CDs (and a DVD) include over five hours of unreleased materials, my three previously released solo CDs (‘solo’, ‘twice around the earth’ and ‘there and back again’); plus a double CD collection of tracks spanning 50 years of official recordings (It Makes Sense to Me), as well as the 22-hour radio programme I made for Radio Art Zone last year (that’s on the DVD). 36 hours. Comes with 2 fat books of documentation, artwork, photographs, published and unpublished texts.
for the avoidance of all confusion: of the 5 CDs of 'unreleased materials', 100 copies of 4 of them were privately printed for japan (as CC100, 200, 300 & 400), so a few of you may have them. CC500, the two books and the DVD appear for the first time.

The subscription edition is numbered and signed and comes with an extra CD not otherwise available.



An experiment in listening. These compositions are an offshoot of the daily soundscape programme I ran for Resonance FM radio between July 2001-2002, which consisted of commissioned real-time recordings made all around the world between 23.30 and midnight GMT (the time of the broadcast). This CD begins with material from these broadcasts confecting, as it were, two composites of the Earth and a few of its inhabitants, somewhat analogous to what an impossible satellite ear with pinpoint acuity might hear in transit - plus one ear-cleaning stretch between them, taken from a single hear-point. I have tried to make these pieces both open and to work on parallel levels: not only do they have their own narrative and aesthetic qualities, but I hope they also offer a meditation on listening and not listening, interpretation and structure, chance and microphonics. The list of ears around the world who supplied basic material is too long to print here, but it includes many names familiar from these catalogues, and many from the still young soundscape and phonograpic community. Full details of people and places are given in the booklet, along with artwork and thorough notes. You have to trust me on this, it's a really engaging record. Sometimes unbelieveable. I don't think you'll regret giving it a chance.



Record what you're doing right now. Don't worry about the fidelity, just hit "record" on your walkman or minicassette player, attach it to your pocket and we'll take care of the rest. Yes, I'm interested in what you get on tape. I really do want to hear how your refrigerator door sounds, and what's playing on television through the wall. The traffic outside is of particular interest, as is the conversation of whoever might be sitting nearby, or across the hall, or downstairs. When you have about thirty minutes, stop the tape, and send it to me. Don't worry, I'll take the best snippet, and immortalize your mundane vignette. In fact, ask a couple of your friends to do the same thing, and I'll make all of you stars. Avant-stars!

If this sounds like a waste of time, maybe you need some convincing. British experimental musician Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Pere Ubu, head of ReR Records) has assembled some of the most interesting aural moments in the lives of other like-minded musicians. He did this for Out of the Blue Radio, a broadcast project funded by the London Musicians Coop from July 2002 to July 2003, using snippets of sound taken from all over the world. The only catch was, his contributors had to record their sound during the time the broadcast would air-- 11:30 pm to midnight, in whatever time zone the person lived. Cutler took the 30-minute records and aired them for the program, unaltered. Think of it as reality entertainment of a sort.

For Twice Around the Earth, Cutler went a step further, editing 43 of the recordings he received into short snippets, and arranged them chronologically into the lengthy title track. Additionally, the piece follows the contributors geographically, acting as a sound guide, literally twice around the world. On this CD, Cutler also includes his recording "Lux", taken from in the inside of a cafeteria, and "Blue Winter": Thirty-four more contributor recordings selected and arranged by Cutler and kindred spirit/engineer Bob Drake.

Since both "Twice Around the Earth" and "Blue Winter" feature dozens of short, physically disconnected segments of sound, you might expect a dizzying, disorienting experience. Far from it: the segments tend to dissolve into one another, and the overall effect is one of constantly shifting, but ever blending still life. The opening of the title track, the Blue Radio theme, replete with clock tower chimes, segues seamlessly into English composer John Scott's jogging along the Thames, which in turn transforms into David Lee Myers' Frog Lake, New York soundscape of, yes, frogs and crickets, moving right along to experimental sound design artist Thomas Dimuzio in San Francisco recording the noise outside his window, only to erupt in Hardy Fox's recording of piano at the Musee Mechanique, also in San Francisco. This is the pace of "Twice Around the World": technically breathless, but in practice, more like an ambient night train. The quieter moments (like Otomo Yoshihide's short Tokyo apartment recording, or the Hafler Trio's Andrew Mackenzie recording the Reykjavik air across the street from Björk's place) never seem far removed from the more boisterous ones (Jon Rose's overheard nightlife conversation in Australia, or the bizarre electronic noise of Haco and Christopher in Kobe, Japan), even when I know they're different in almost every way.

Cutler's "Lux" unfolds more naturally, with uninterrupted activity from a Luxembourg cafeteria. Yes, you get the quiet roar of people talking, the clang of dishes, the squeak of rubber souls on marble, a lone, repeated piano motif in the distance, unintelligible loudspeaker announcements-- practically a greatest hits of urban interior ambience. Background noise it may be, but as with any number of sparse, free improv records, its effectiveness is rooted in an unpredictability even when I "know" exactly what is happening. Of course, there will be people who deny this is music at all, but I'm not sure that's the point. Cutler's document suggests that when the sounds around us are so intrinsically interesting, there's no need to frame them with structure or artifice.

Dominique Leone



..::TRACK-LIST::..

1. - 47. Twice Around The Earth (31:42)
48. Lux (13:52)
49. - 82. Blue Winter (21:46)



..::OBSADA::..

This composite was assembled by Chris Cutler at Studio Midi Pyrenees, France, and was engineered by Robert Drake. The introduction and Coda were made by Chris Cutler at the Elsenstudio, Berlin and were engineered by Lutz Glandien.

The individual recordings heard were made by:
John Scott, David Lee Myers, Tom Dimuzio, Hardy Fox, Nicholas Frances Chase, Daniel Van Beers, Brian Woodbury, Otomo Yoshihide, Brian Labycz, Haco & Christopher, Dickson Dee, Daniel Beban, Peter Cusak, David Kerman, Udi Koomran, Michael Northam, Marzio Carlessi, Michael Maksymenko, Andreas Hagerlüken, Chris Cutler, Will Menter, E.M.Thomas, Andrea Rocca, John Dreever, Tony Whitehead, Andrew McKenzie, Richard Windeyer, Jack Vees, Steve McLean, Phil Zampino, Carmen Borgia, Warren Burt, Annie Gosfield, Nic Collins, Chris deLaurentis, Toby Paddock, Bill Harkelroad, John Kennedy, Jim Denley, Philip Mar, Jon Rose and Warrick Swinney - and were all taken from their contributions to Out of the Blue Radio.
Out of the Blue Radio was conceived and is curated by Chris Cutler.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrK53xb9-dA



SEED 15:00-22:00.
POLECAM!!!