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Mike COOPER
“Black Flamingo”
Collaboration, improvisation, innovation.
The remit for Black Flamingo.
During the Covid lockdown period I started on line long distance collaborations with a team of friends and made Oceans Of Milk and Treacle for Room40.
A family of long time associates plus some more recent and one that I have never met in person. All of them with a unique ability to respond creatively, in any genre or context, in a creative, spontaneous and improvised manner.
Featuring Geoff Hawkins on tenor sax. Our 60 year friendship goes back to the 1960s and my first band The Blues Committee then on through the 1970s to Trout Steel and the Machine Gun Company on the Dawn label meeting up again in the mid 1990s on my Island Songs c.d. and more recently on Oceans Of Milk and Treacle on Room40.
His son Aaron Hawkins who I have known since he was born, is now a prominent figure on the Bristol music scene in the UK joins us on tenor saxophone as well.
Elliott Sharp, guitarist, composer, improviser from the Downtown New York music scene. We first played together in Rome many years ago. We have a duo digital collection on my Bandcamp site and here on Black Flamingo Elliott plays bass clarinet.
Jon Raskin, a founder member of The Rova saxophone quartet based in California surprised me one night in London by appearing in the audience at a folk club concert I gave. We also have a duo collection together on my Bandcamp site.
Scot Ray, slidationist; lap steel and pedal steel guitar visionary. We have never met in the real(?) world, only on line. I am always seeking audacious players of both those instruments and Scot is a true star. Check out his own solo and other projects.
Michael Thieke, a fellow part time Roman part time Berliner member of the International Nothing (great name) brings peace on the clarinet with breathy playing on this most beautiful of wind instruments.
Viv Corringham has shared her voice on many past musical roads with me from Greek Rembetronika to an improvising trio with Lol Coxhill and Soundwalks in hills around Hong Kong.
Tim Hill on Baritone sax. We go back to my 1980’s in Reading in the UK. Together we had Beating Time with Paul Burwell on drums and Gary Jones on bass, both sadly gone now and Mayhem Quartet with Pat Thomas on keys and Neil Palmer our improvising dj both happily still with us. Then we started Trystero System which became a floating membership duo spanning several years and has included both Viv Corringham and Pat Thomas with myself and continues from time to time.
Lastly The Migrant School of Bodies Choir was the result of a workshop in Milan for a performance/dance piece organised by choreographer/dancer Ariella Vidach. The text is each member counting from one to 26 in their own language each one starting to count after the neighbour had reached the number eight . Most of the members were from Africa and shared no common African language. The rhythmic and tonal variations set up an interesting shingling effect with the voices tumbling over one another.
14,00€
In stock
LP
Mike COOPER
“Playing With Water”
From Mike Cooper
Playing With Water is a novel written by James Hamilton-Paterson. I was introduced to his writing by the Australian poet Peter Bakowski who gave me a copy of his book ‘Seven Tenths - The Sea And Its Thresholds’; a book that influenced my record Globe Notes and subsequent works immensely. Another of his books ‘Playing With Water: Passion And Solitude On A Philippine Island’ is about exactly what the title describes it as and provided me with the title.
The first edition on my Hipshot c.d.r label in 1999 was titled Kiribati and was dedicated to the people of that Pacific Island nation as I shared their concern, then as now, with the fact of rising sea levels due to global warming which threatens to destroy or make uninhabitable their low lying island homes. That album was the start of a long musical and artistic journey for me.
In the years that followed I have visited many places around the North and South Pacific, South East Asia and The Caribbean that are also in danger of being inundated as water levels rise, both coastal and inland, due to melting ice or weather patterns that change drastically bringing untypical amounts of rainfall.
Cities such as Venice, Bangkok, Jakarta, London, Manhattan or any coastal, or near a major river, city will be subject to serious flooding and subsidence and may well become uninhabitable in the same way in the very near future.
Bangkok was previously known as ‘The Venice Of South East Asia’ and its now roads were once canals. I have been in that city during the monsoon season and seen water coming up through the floor of shops and houses exiting to the street through the door. Jakarta is currently sinking at such an alarming rate that the Indonesian Government is building a new capital city in Kalimantan (Borneo)
Several of my albums subsequent to Kiribati - Globe Notes, Rayon Hula, Reluctant Swimmer/Virtual Surfer, Fratello Mare, Raft, Oceanic Feeling-Like (with Chris Abrahams) and now Playing With Water are all conceptually concerned with this same subject.
Another conceptual thread connecting them is my concern for the co-habitation of the human and non-human world expressed through my use of unprocessed avian or insect field recordings of song, signs and signals. Climate change, as well as the destruction by humans of the natural habitat of many species, is disturbing the balanced relationship we need to have with nature. Indigenous and small, often nomadic, coastal communities are very aware of this balance and the incursion of the industrial world into their way of life is having disastrous effects which will ( if not already ) have similar effects and repercussions on ours.
There are field recordings on this edition from Pulau Ubin, Ko Phayan, Ko Lanta, Sri Lanka, Bangkok, St.Lucia and Martinique; all places that can look forward to or are already witnessing the Postdiluvian Future.
We could quite possibly all be looking forward to an island existence in that future where all of our cities, or Wetropolis, will be floating worlds of Aquatecture and Aquaculture will provide all our food, powered by wind, solar or mechanical energy from the tides and the waves. Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface making it the worlds largest solar collector - Seven Tenths
In 1957 the Rio Turia that ran through the city flooded to such an extent, killing 60 people, that it was diverted to the south and what was the riverbed turned into a park which runs through the centre and surrounds the old part of the city. Within a few weeks after finishing recording this collection in my studio in Valencia the city experienced the biggest storm recorded in over a hundred years. Within a day the normally 135 metre wide, several kilometres long, Malvarrosa beach and the 10 metre paseo and road beyond it was completely flooded, as were the restaurants lining it. After cleaning and repairs some weeks later they re-opened only to be closed again two weeks after by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown in which I am now writing this.
My guitar playing here, as always, draws on a number of styles and genres influenced by Hawaiian Slack Key and Lap Steel guitar.
22,00€
In stock
Book + CD
Mike COOPER
“Oceans Of Milk And Treacle”
From Mike Cooper
This is a soundtrack for an otherwise silent film. The title of the album, and of course the film, is borrowed from my late friend Fred Hardy’s book The Religious Culture of India - Power, Love and Wisdom, considered to be one of the most important books on the subject. In this book Fred wrote...
Mike Cooper plays Electric Lap Steel Guitar. Acoustic Brazilian Viola Ciapira and Virtual Pedal Steel Guitar, Double Bass, Koto, Strings, Percussion and Drums.
Viv Corringham - Voice.
Tim Hill - Baritone Saxophone.
Aaron Hawkins - Tenor Saxophone.
Geoff Hawkins - Tenor Saxophone.
Lol Coxhill - Soprano Saxophone.
Roger Turner - Percussion.
Ambient and Field Recordings from Bali, Cambodia, Vietnam, Martinique, Crete, Sri Lanka, Australia.
18,00€
Out of stock
LP
Mike COOPER
“Distant Songs Of Madmen”
« Distant Songs of Madmen was recorded live in Palermo and was my solo set in a concert organised by Lelio Gianetti and Curva Minore which included my trio Truth In The Abstract Blues and Eugene Chadbourne. My set was free improvisation; some cover versions of folk and pop songs and some of my own songs. The title of the record and some of the improvised pieces were taken from Sam Shepard's writing. Sam, one of my favourite writers, has sadly died since I recorded this record and I dedicate it to his memory ». Mike Cooper
Available in a beautiful designed cover with an exclusive amazing artwork made by Italian artist Carla Indipendente.
Mastered for vinyl by Brian Pyle (Ensemble Economique).
200 black copies. 100 red copies.
Original price was: 18,50€.10,00€Current price is: 10,00€.
Out of stock
LP
Mike COOPER
“Light on a wall”
Orange vinyl limited to 100 copies. New album from Mike Cooper recorded live on Radio Lebanon in Beirut. Cooper plays electric lap steel and sings several of his “Spirit Songs” - a body of vocal works that he has been presenting live over the past few years. These “songs” are constructed by chopping up - (William Burroughs / Brion Gysin / Tom Phillips style) - Gravity’s Rainbow and V - two novels by Thomas Pynchon.
No chords, melodies or harmonic patterns for each song are planned prior to them being performed. Both accompaniment and the songs melody are improvised during each performance rendering each performance unique. There are other recorded versions of these pieces which, by the very nature of this approach to presentation, are completely different.
This set differs radically from other versions also because it was recorded using an electric Vietnamese lap steel guitar (as apposed to his usual electro-acoustic resonator guitar) heavily processed through a vintage Kaos Pad and Zoom Sampletrack looper. The guitar has built in, on board, distortion, wah-wah and tremolo. The result is a more dense and “heavy metal” sound than is usually associated with Cooper’s music.
All the songs and improvisations are original apart from the last track Masters At War - a version of an anti war song from the sixties written by a master of the genre but here presented as a thundering call to throw light on a wall…
“Every war and every conflict between human beings has happened because of some disagreement about names. It is such an unnecessary foolishness, because just beyond the arguing there is a long table of companionship set and waiting for us to sit down…” - Rumi - Sufi Poet.
Original price was: 18,00€.10,00€Current price is: 10,00€.
In stock
LP
Mike COOPER
“Reluctant Swimmer – Virtual Surfer”
The ‘icon of post-everything’, Mike Cooper, returns to Discrepant with a recording of a live set recorded at the Controindicazioni Festival of Improvised Music in Rome in 2003.
The music moves very slowly through four movements: “Reluctant Swimmer”, “Movies is Magic”, “Virtual Surfer” and “Dolphins”. “Floating in out of the exotic ether and disappearing like smoke, engulfed in the alien hugeness of nature... a very elegant set by a visionary artist.”
Mike Cooper says “the first half is played on my old 1920s National tri-plate lapsteel guitar and the second half on my vietnamese electric lap steel. I also sing two songs along the way. “Movies is Magic” by Van Dyke Parks and “Dolphins” by Freid Neil. It was the first time I had ever sung the last song.”
LP artwork is a specially commissioned collage by US artist Evan Crankshaw.
The music moves very slowly through four movements: “Reluctant Swimmer”, “Movies is Magic”, “Virtual Surfer” and “Dolphins”. “Floating in out of the exotic ether and disappearing like smoke, engulfed in the alien hugeness of nature... a very elegant set by a visionary artist.”
Mike Cooper says “the first half is played on my old 1920s National tri-plate lapsteel guitar and the second half on my vietnamese electric lap steel. I also sing two songs along the way. “Movies is Magic” by Van Dyke Parks and “Dolphins” by Freid Neil. It was the first time I had ever sung the last song.”
LP artwork is a specially commissioned collage by US artist Evan Crankshaw.
15,00€