Biografia autorizzata di Robert Wyatt

You have heard all about Marcus O´Dair´s great Robert Wyatt biography in English already, but here is an Italian translation by Alessandro Achilli!

Out 21 October on Guinti.

May be ordered from Italian Amazon.

Psychedelic Brittannia

Look out for a new documentary named "Psychedelic Brittannia" on BBC Four!

"The film is narrated by Nigel Planer with contributions and freshly-shot performances from artists who lived and breathed the psych revolution - Paul McCartney, Ginger Baker, Robert Wyatt, Roy Wood, the Zombies, Mike Heron, Vashti Bunyan, Joe Boyd, Gary Brooker, Arthur Brown, Kenney Jones, Barry Miles, the Pretty Things and the Moody Blues".

Some of the "freshly-shot" performances are interviews I presume?

The blog enters it´s final stage

With Newton´s stencil "Evolution" this blog enters it´s final stage.

From now on there will only be posts related to Robert Wyatt, and I might throw in an Ivor Cutler message or two, just so I still can call this site Robert Wyatt "and Stuff"!

I´m sorry to say I don´t have enough words inside me to produce blog posts about the other favorite topics any more, and let´s face it - you know how to google.

Look for me on Twitter, Flickr and Instagram.

David Gilmour - The Girl In The Yellow Dress

Jazzy official video for "The Girl In The Yellow Dress" from David Gilmour´s "Rattle that lock".

You hear some Robert Wyatt cornet in the background there.

Shining live at Trolltunga

Now are these guys crazy or are they crazy?

Check out Shining playing live at Trolltunga (The Troll´s Tongue) in Tyssedal near Odda, Hordaland County (Norway), 700 meters above ground (or lake).

The coordinates (from Wikipedia): 60°07′58,74″N 6°45′14,64.

If you really want to visit this place, please be really careful. A young student unfortunately fell from Trolltunga earlier this autumn.

MURAL

Sunday evening I went out to get myself a solid dose of improvisation! The SOFA label trio MURAL was playing in Bergen with visual artist Kjell Bjørgeengen.
The concert was scheduled to last for four hours (no less!), so I settled for most of hours number 2 and 3, and what a fine experience it was!

Jim Denley (wind instruments), Kim Myhr (guitar, zither) and Ingar Zach (percussion) enveloped the small audience (some lying flat out on pillows) in varied and relaxing music, while the videoart added magic to the room.

MURAL released "Tempo", a recording of another four hour performance, on a 3CD-box set not long ago.
Have a listen to some of it here!

Voice — Sculpting Sound

Seek out the the new film "Voice — Sculpting Sound with Maja S. K. Ratkje" (2015), made by IJ. Biermann (writer, director) and Kai Miedendorp (director of photography)!

You will meet Maja Ratkje as composer, solo artist, band member (SPUNK, POING) and collaborator with loads of different musicians, producing improv, noise, children´s opera, contemporary classical, sound installations, political songs etc (good music for short).

Thankfully the talking is not made up of hundreds of short interviews (as may happen in documentaries), but her own voiceover.

All through the film there are beautiful shots of nature, quite suitable for an artist taking a stand against pollution and the power of oil companies.

The film premiered at Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, and should absolutely be shown at more festivals.

The DVD version also has an interesting audiocommentary track with Ben Knight in conversation with Ratkje and Biermann.

If you want the DVD, here is a message from the director (a bit edited by me):
"Yes, I do sell the DVD, so far I only do it myself, since there is not „official“ release yet — only through myself (= Myrland Films). So far the only option to buy the DVD is through my e-mail (ijb -at- illogical -dot- de), via PayPal or other ways of payment I am happy to send the DVD out to anyone in the world! I also have Blu-Ray Discs, but I have to produce them one by one, but I can offer them to anyone who is interested in a higher visual quality (together with the 5.1 mix and the various sound options of course)."

Also see Eyal Hareuveni´s review over at The Free Jazz Collective".

Ivor Cutler Tee

Unfortunayely it seems like Ben Bryden’s Velvet Donkey´s crowdfunding project, to make "Glasgow Dreamer: The Music of Ivor Cutler", did not reach it´s goal.

I´ll post news on this project later, that is if anything happens.

At least I got my Ivor Cutler T-shirt!

Pasteups

Some people have been working hard around Bergen last night, giving us loads of fine pasteups.

From the top you have the blue ones by RENO, then a collaboration between RENO, John XC and Teg, and finally a work by John XC.

Other Minds

Check this video celebrating 20 festivals (1993 - 2015) organized by the San Francisco Other Minds, under the leadership of Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian.

Brian Eno: The John Peel Lecture 2015

From now you have 23 days left to listen to Brian Eno´s John Peel Lecture over on BBC Radio 6 Music, introduced by Mark Radcliffe!

You may also read a transcript (PDF) of it all, and perhaps the transcript might stay longer on the site?

"The annual John Peel Lecture invites a notable figure from the music industry to shape a debate and create insight around music and music-related media. Taking its inspiration from one of the greatest radio broadcasters of all time, and a figure who perpetually challenged the status quo, the John Peel Lecture has been a part of the Radio Festival since 2011.

This year's John Peel Lecture will examine the ecology of culture. Brian Eno will seek to demonstrate how the whole complex of individuals and institutions engaged in culture - artists, broadcasters, gallerists, promoters, DJs, managers, lawyers, fans - are symbiotically connected parts of a single huge organism which we call Culture. He will outline some of his thinking on this very unpredictable ecology and explore the interconnective relationships between the elements and components that combine to create our culture, and show how cultural processes confer essential and important benefits on society."

Official Gong Band Members Statement

Gong don´t want you to buy Charly Records upcoming reissue of the Radio Gnome trilogy.

"We, the surviving members of Gong, do not support Charly Records upcoming reissue of the Radio Gnome trilogy.

None of the surviving members of the lineups that created those recordings were ever signed to Charly Records.

The truth is that during the making of Flying Teapot in January 1973, the band learned that the record company - BYG Records (also known as Promodisc) - had gone bust, it's Paris office stripped bare, no phones working. The band was abandoned at the Manor Studios midway through the album. Virgin - at the time just a chain of record stores and The Manor studios - was about to launch their record label.

Faced with an unpaid recording bill, they decided to cut their losses and release Flying Teapot as the second release on the new Virgin Records label. That's the true story."

Read the full statement over at Planet Gong.