Angels on the Edge of Time | ||||
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Live album by | ||||
Released | 1 January 2015 | |||
Recorded | 30 May 1992 | |||
Venue | AngelicA Festival Internazionale di Musica, Bologna, Italy | |||
Genre | Experimental music, free improvisation | |||
Length | 38:50 | |||
Label | I Dischi di Angelica (Italy) | |||
Producer | Massimo Simonini | |||
Fred Frith chronology | ||||
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Angels on the Edge of Time is a 2015 collaborative live album of musical improvisations by Lindsay Cooper, Fred Frith, Gianni Gebbia and Lars Hollmer. It was recorded on 30 May 1992 at the AngelicA Festival Internazionale di Musica in Bologna, Italy, and released by I Dischi di Angelica in January 2015. This is the only album released by the quartet.
The quartet of Cooper and Frith from Henry Cow, Hollmer from Samla Mammas Manna, and free improvising saxophonist Gebbia came about at the suggestion of Massimo Simonini, director of the AngelicA Festival for its 1992 event. Frith said it was a combination that he would never have thought of, but once they were on stage, "it made perfect sense". [1] [2] The quartet never performed again, and it was the last time Frith played with Cooper. [1] Hollmer and Cooper died in 2008 and 2013, respectively. [3] [4]
In the album's liner notes Frith reflected on Cooper and Hollmer's demise, calling them "two ... influential, passionate people" who "revel[ed] in the joy of making music" despite the hardships and setbacks they faced. Frith described the quartet's AngelicA performance as "a unique occasion", and said he was "happy and touched" by the release of this album as it reminded him of "a very special moment". [1]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
All About Jazz | [5] |
In a review in All About Jazz , Alberto Bazzurro wrote that Angels on the Edge of Time is an important, "historical" document that highlights Lindsay Cooper's relevance as an improvisor 24 years ago. Bazzurro felt that while not too much happens in this impromptu performance, the first half of the CD is interesting, in particular the third, three-part track, "Elegy for an Angel", which he said is nicely structured. [5]
All tracks composed by Lindsay Cooper, Fred Frith, Gianni Gebbia and Lars Hollmer.
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Retorisk Fråga" | 6:21 |
2. | "The Fountain and the Mirror" | 8:54 |
3. | "Elegy for an Angel (Fantasia / Memorativa / Imaginativa)" | 4:46 |
4. | "Mathesis" | 7:30 |
5. | "Indiscrezione" | 2:57 |
6. | "Conversazione (We Fall)" | 6:19 |
7. | "Audience / Applause" | 2:01 |
Sources: Liner notes, [1] Discogs. [6]
Recorded by Roberto Monari at AngelicA Festival Internazionale di Musica, Aula Absidale di S. Lucia, Bologna, Italy, 30 May 1992; mastered by Bob Drake at Studio Midi-Pyrénées, La Borde Basse, Caudeval, France, November 2014.
Sources: Liner notes, [1] Discogs. [6]
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser.
The sopranino saxophone is the second-smallest member of the saxophone family. It is tuned in the key of E♭, and sounds an octave higher than the alto saxophone. An F sopranino were described in Adolphe Sax's patent, but no known examples have ever been built.
Lindsay Cooper was an English bassoon and oboe player and composer. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians. She collaborated with a number of musicians, including Chris Cutler and Sally Potter, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group. She wrote scores for film and TV and a song cycle Oh Moscow which was performed live around the world in 1987. She also recorded a number of solo albums, including Rags (1980), The Gold Diggers (1983), and Music For Other Occasions (1986).
Lars Gustav Gabriel Hollmer was a Swedish accordionist, keyboardist and composer, whose work drew on music ranging from Nordic folk tunes to progressive rock. He has been a member and/or founder of over half a dozen groups, most of whose work has been recorded at The Chickenhouse, his well outfitted home studio in his hometown of Uppsala. His work with the band Samla Mammas Manna, in the late 1960s and early 1970s and up to 2002, when the re-formed group played at the two-day ProgDay festival in North Carolina, was and is considered progressive rock. However, he is most centrally an empathetic and generous collaborator: whether as a member of Accordion Tribe, while working with the experimental guitarist Fred Frith, or while spending several months with Japanese jazz players, he seems to find a style that brings his partners to the fore while remaining identifiably himself. Though his work is little known in the United States, he won a Swedish Grammis award in 1999 for his record Andetag. He has also composed extensively for Swedish film, as well as for theatre and dance productions. Consistent elements of his music throughout his career included use of irregular time signatures, a daring sense of improvisation, and used complex polyrhythms.
Fred Frith appears on over 400 recordings. This is a selection from bands he was/is a member of, collaborations with other bands and musicians, and his solo recordings. The year indicates when the album was first released. For a comprehensive discography, see the Discography of Fred Frith by Michel Ramond, Patrice Roussel and Stephane Vuilleumier.
Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire is a double live album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It comprises a series of graphic scores Frith composed in 1992 "for any number of players". It was performed live by Frith, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins and the International Occasional Ensemble at five concerts in Canada, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Frith also conducted and directed the performances.
The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set is a nine-CD plus one-DVD limited edition box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow, and was released by RēR Megacorp in January 2009. It consists of almost 10 hours of previously unreleased recordings made between 1972 and 1978 from concerts, radio broadcasts, one-off projects, events and the studio. Included are new compositions, over four hours of free improvisation, and live performances of some of Henry Cow's original LP repertoire.
The Last Nightingale is an album by various artists recorded and released in 1984 to raise money for striking coal miners in the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike. It features Chris Cutler, Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper from the English avant-rock group Henry Cow, singer and musician Robert Wyatt, and poet Adrian Mitchell. The cover artwork was done by British cartoonist and caricaturist Ralph Steadman.
Jean-Marc Montera is a French guitarist, mainly active in the experimental music scene. Besides being active as a musician, he's also the director of the organisation GRIM, that organises concerts, festivals, workshops and artist in residence projects in Marseille.
Bingo is an album by the Rova Saxophone Quartet featuring compositions by Lindsay Cooper, Barry Guy, Fred Frith, and Larry Ochs which was recorded in 1996 and released on the Canadian Victo label.
Rarities Volumes 1 & 2 is a 2014 posthumous double-CD compilation album of various pieces by English experimental musician and composer Lindsay Cooper. It was recorded between 1979 and 1992, and released in the UK and US by RēR Megacorp in 2014. The compilation was also released by ReR Megacorp in Japan in 2015.
Duo (Victoriaville) 2005 is a 2006 live album of improvised music by Anthony Braxton and Fred Frith. It was recorded on May 20, 2005 at the 22nd Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec, Canada, and released in May 2006 by Les Disques Victo, the festival's record label.
Dalaba Frith Glick Rieman Kihlstedt, also stylized as DalabaFrithGlickRiemanKihlstedt, is a 2003 studio album of improvised experimental music by Lesli Dalaba, Fred Frith, Eric Glick Rieman and Carla Kihlstedt. It was recorded at Guerrilla Recording in Oakland, California, and was released by Accretions Records in San Diego, California in 2003.
French Gigs is a 1983 live collaborative album of improvised experimental music by Lol Coxhill and Fred Frith. It was recorded live in France in Limoges and Poitiers in October 1978, and in Reims in 1981. The album was released on LP by AAA in 1983, on CD by AYAA in 1991, and again on CD by Klanggalerie in 2020. The 1991 release includes a new track recorded via correspondence in 1991–92 by Coxhill in London and Frith in Munich, while the 2020 release includes the extra 1991 track, plus another new track recorded in Aubervilliers, France in 1999, the last performance by Coxhill and Frith. The 2020 release was re-mastered by Myles Boison.
Ayaya Moses is a 1997 studio album by the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, an American-based contemporary classical and experimental music guitar quartet comprising Fred Frith, René Lussier, Nick Didkovsky and Mark Stewart. It is their debut album and was recorded in Radio-Canada's Studio 12 at Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, seven years after the ensemble was formed in 1989. It was released by Canadian record label, Ambiances Magnétiques.
Unsquare is a 2008 studio album by Maybe Monday, a San Francisco based experimental electroacoustic improvisation music ensemble featuring guitarist Fred Frith, koto player Miya Masaoka and saxophonist Larry Ochs. It is their third album and includes guest musicians Gerry Hemingway, Carla Kihlstedt, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins. Unsquare was recorded at East Side Sound Studio in New York City on November 18, 2006, and was released by Intakt Records in Switzerland in January 2008.
The Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow is a seventeen-CD plus one-DVD box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow; it was released by RēR Megacorp in November 2019. The box set comprises the previously released 2006 Henry Cow Box and the 2009 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set, totalling over sixteen hours. A bonus CD: Ex Box – Collected Fragments 1971–1978 was given to advance subscribers of the 2019 Box Redux, and contains newly recovered and previously unreleased recordings, plus the contents of the 2006 box set bonus CD-single: "Unreleased Orckestra Extract". The 2019 Box Redux plus the Ex Box bonus CD contains all the officially released studio and live recordings of Henry Cow, excluding "Bellycan" as released on the 1991 East Side Digital version of Legend, and the complete version of "The Glove" from the 1991 East Side Digital version of Unrest.
Still Urban is a 2009 avant-garde jazz studio album by English guitarist and composer Fred Frith and the Swiss-based ARTE Quartett. It was recorded in January 2008 at Swiss Radio DRS2 in Zürich, Switzerland, and was released in 2009 by Intakt Records, together with Frith and the ARTE Quartett's second collaborative album, The Big Picture, which was also recorded in January 2008 at Swiss Radio DRS2.
The Big Picture is a 2009 avant-garde jazz studio album by English guitarist and composer Fred Frith and the Swiss-based ARTE Quartett. It was recorded in January 2008 at Swiss Radio DRS2 in Zürich, Switzerland, and was released in 2009 by Intakt Records, together with Frith and the ARTE Quartett's first collaborative album, Still Urban, which was also recorded in January 2008 at Swiss Radio DRS2.
At Angelica 2000 Bologna is a double-CD live album by American musician Cecil Taylor recorded during Angelica, Festival Internazionale Di Musica, Bologna, Italy. Disc 1 was recorded on May 10, 2000 at the Teatro Comunale Di Bologna, and consists of a three-part piece for piano and voice titled "Dance of All Seasons." Disc 2, titled "Rap," was recorded on May 11, 2000 at the Teatro Comunale Di Bologna, and features a long interview with Taylor by musicologist and musician Franco Fabbri, followed by a montage created by producer and festival director Massimo Simonini which blends excerpts from the interview with some of the piano music. The album, which contains a 40-page booklet featuring photographs and transcriptions, was released in 2020 by I Dischi Di Angelica.