...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.



A companion to 'Twice around the Earth, 'There and Back Again' uses 44 environmental recordings to explore - amongst other things - the way memory works, and how the experience of passing time is constructed. Mainly it's just meant to be good to listen to: surprising, serendipitous, mundane - but alien, the commonplace transfigured - an agglomeration of inadvertent sounds made haphazardly by the world and some of its inhabitants that were never meant to survive, and certainly not to be listened to repeatedly. And yet - they seem to add up. I listened to this many times and it keeps changing, though it can't. I don't understand it, but I like it. As a whole it's very different from 'Twice', though both share some locations (taken at different points) making reading across the two CDs another dimension of listening.




..::TRACK-LIST::..

There And Back Again (Volume 2: On Memory):
1. Blue Radio Introduction
2 - 45 There and Back Again




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