Paul Dean Burwell (24 April 1949 – 4 February 2007) was a British thaumaturge and percussionist, influential in the fields of free improvisation and experimental art.
Born in Ruislip, he studied drums with Max Abrams, then at Ealing Art College and in the workshops organised by drummer John Stevens. [1] [2]
Through the 1970s, he played in a duet with David Toop, sometimes extended to a trio with the sound-poet Bob Cobbing. He was also a founder member of the London Musicians Collective, holding membership card no 1, and wrote for the magazine Musics among others. Paul was also a member of the Resisters. The Resisters played gigs in London and Germany in the late 1970s.
During the 1980s he formed the industrial performance group Bow Gamelan Ensemble with Anne Bean and Richard Wilson.
In 2000, Burwell moved into the old Kingston Rowing Club in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, [3] turning it into an experimental art space for both local and nationally recognised artists and musicians. Few recordings of his work exist; his work was primarily live and acoustic.
Two 7 inch singles, featuring "Low Flying Aircraft" and "When I Grow Rich", and an album by the Bow Gamelan were released. [4] He also featured in David Toop's Sonic Boom booklet from the Hayward Gallery in 2001, and on Richard Wilson's Turbine Hall Swimming Pool performance album.
He was featured in William Raban's film, Beating the Bridges. [5] [6] [7]
A feature length documentary, Burning Bridges - The Story of Paul Burwell (2024) [8] produced by Nova Studios Ltd tells the story of Burwell's life and work and features interviews with artists including Anne Bean, Richard Wilson, Ansuman Biswas and Shaun Caton together with friends and founder members of the London Musicians Collective including David Toop, Sylvia Hallet, Max Eastley, Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack and Evan Parker, his former partner Sheila Cobbing (daughter of the poet Bob Cobbing) and their sons Titus and Piers Burwell.
Steve Beresford is a British musician who graduated from the University of York He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music. He is probably best known for free improvisation, but has also written music for film and television and has been involved with a number of pop music groups.
Bob Cobbing was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival.
Hull Kingston Rovers are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of British rugby league.
David Toop is an English musician, author, curator, and emeritus professor. From 2013 to 2021 he was professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British music magazine The Wire and the British magazine The Face. He was a member of British new wave band The Flying Lizards.
Jonathan Mark Hamilton Priaulx Raban was a British award-winning travel writer, playwright, critic, and novelist.
No-Man are an English art pop duo, formed in 1987 as No Man Is an Island (Except the Isle of Man) by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson. The band has so far produced seven studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections (including 2006's career retrospective All the Blue Changes). The band was once lauded as "conceivably the most important English group since The Smiths" by Melody Maker music newspaper, and a 2017 article of Drowned in Sound described them as "probably the most underrated band of the last 25 years".
Simon Finn is an English psychedelic folk musician.
Musics was a music-related magazine that was published from 1975 to 1979.
Trevor Bolder was an English rock musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his long association with Uriah Heep and his tenure with the Spiders from Mars, the backing band for David Bowie, although he also played alongside a variety of musicians from the early 1970s.
Richard Wilson is an English sculptor, installation artist and musician.
Anne Bean is a London-based artist who works in installation, large-scale sculpture, sound art, and performance art. She was born in Livingstone in Northern Rhodesia. She lives in Limehouse in the East End of London.
The Bow Gamelan Ensemble was a group of musicians in Bow, London, England, who used elements of gamelan music. Formed in 1983 by Richard Wilson with Paul Burwell and Anne Bean, the group disbanded in 1990. The ensemble created a theatrical experience, going beyond the normal definitions of music, and adapted their performances to the environment. They performed at Three Mills on the River Lea and many other novel venues.
Alan Burwell is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1960s and 1970s. He played at representative level for Great Britain, Great Britain (Under-24s) and Yorkshire, and at club level for Hull Kingston Rovers and Canterbury-Bankstown (captain), as a wing, centre, stand-off or scrum-half.
Peter Cusack is an English artist and musician who is a member of CRiSAP, and is a research staff member and founding member of the London College of Communication in the University of the Arts London. He was a founding member and director of the London Musicians' Collective.
Richard Anthony Bean is an English playwright.
Michael Bearpark is an English scientist and musician.
Philip Thomas Lowe was an English professional rugby league footballer and coach who played in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as a second-row forward. He was a member of Great Britain's 1972 World Cup winning team, and also represented England, and Yorkshire. At club level he played for Hull Kingston Rovers and Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, and coached at York F.C. after finishing his playing career.
Max Eastley is a British visual and sound artist. He is part of the Cape Farewell Climate Change project. He studied painting and graphic art at Newton Abbot Art School and then went on to gain a BA in Fine Art (1969–1972) at Middlesex University. He is a sculptor (kinetic), musician and composer. His primary instrument is a unique electro-acoustic monochord, developed from an aeolian sculpture. 'The Arc' consists of a single string stretched lengthwise across a long piece of wood which can be played with a bow, fingers or short glass rods. The end of the instrument has a microphone attached so the basic sound can be amplified, recorded and run through sound effect programs.
York City Rowing Club is a rowing club by the River Ouse in York, England. It has over 200 members, of all ages. The boathouse is on the west bank of the river next to Lendal Bridge and in Memorial Gardens. The club has modern buildings but is three years older than the oldest coastal rowing club in Britain, Dover; it is 25 years younger than the oldest non-academic rowing club, Leander. The reach of canalised river it enjoys is unusually long – over 20 mi (32 km).
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