HUGH DAVIES shozyg LP 82 avant experimental fmp bennink
$
214
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Description
Hugh Davies "Shozyg - Music for Invented Instruments" LP issued by FMP (SAJ-36) in Germany, 1982. ****** Rec:m- / Cov:ex ****** This under-recorded British pioneer of live electronic music appears more often as a participant in group projects than as a soloist. The very rare LP offered here, featuring excerpts from two different solo performances, shows how powerful he is when creating music alone. The first side features a series of shorter pieces, while the flip is one extended work. There is a high sense of drama with all this music, regardless of length, but it is not for someone desiring background music. A title such as "Music for Bowed Diaphragms" may give a hint of what is in store, and listeners may feel like the maestro actually is playing the front of their diaphragm with his bow. And when it comes to "Spring Song", he is not talking about the season. The former musical biography of Hugh Davies is worthy of a legend: the 58 year-old from London was an assistant of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen for a long time in the 60's. He was the successor of the famous Stockhausen dissident Cornelius Cardew. When he returned to England at the end of the 60's, he jumped into the eye of the typhoon. In Europe the improvised music emancipated itself from New Music and from Free Jazz. From 1968 to 1971 Hugh Davies played with the group that most resolutely represented the non-idiomatic, 'instrumental' music of the British: the Music Improvisation Company. His comrades-in-arms were Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and Jamie Muir. Peter Brötzmann grabbed Davies in his trio with Han Bennink and Fred van Hove for a short period of time. They even gave a legendary concert with Don Cherry. The quartet, however, was not recorded at the time. For Jost Gebers, organizer of the concert and producer of FMP, this concert was a good reason to record him. Hugh Davies' first solo record appeared then on FMP. Hugh Davies performed occasionally in a trio with percussionist Roger Turner and guitarist John Russell, and even with the pop-rock group Talk Talk ("Spirit of Eden", 1988, Nettwerk). Recorded over a couple of days in a Cologne studio, the album features four compositions never before recorded but going as far back as 1968 ("Shozyg Sequence No.1"). Davies performs on a variety of homemade instruments that combine rods that can be excited in many ways (tapped, scratched, bowed), various surfaces, contact microphones, and electrical circuitry. They produce a wide array of electro-acoustic sounds, but for the most part relate more to the sound palette of early musique concrète (coarse, almost brutal) than, say, Keith Rowe's table guitar. The pictures of the instruments included in the booklet actually raise more questions than they solve. Davies not only plays his inventions, he has written pieces to get the most out of them, shifting to different sections and possibilities, aiming for a structure than can be allusive at times. Ironically, the two best tracks are the two takes of "Music for a Single Spring", where the artist makes the most (noise) out of a very simple apparatus. This album still holds a lot of mysteries and will challenge (and fascinate) fans of otherworldly sounds. If anything evoking scraped metal gives you goosebumps, please avoid! ****** Original FMP inner sleeve included. ****** Very minimal cover wear. ****** The record looks like it has never been played. Top conditions! ****** Please wait to receive my invoice before sending the payment after the auction ends. Attention! Real postage costs are not USD 4 as all the items are located in Doha, Qatar (which has a very safe and professional post system). Postage costs registered up to 1 Kilo (generally 3 LPs): to Europe and Japan is USD 16,50 / to America and Oceania is USD 22,50. Postage costs registered up to 2 Kilos: to Europe and Japan is USD 28,00 / to America and Oceania is USD 34,00. ****** Thank you for your kind attention and good luck with your bids.
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