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a
present from the pickpocket
lee
noyes and phil hargreaves
whi004
The
story so far: we created this recording over a period of four years.
Originally it was to be a kind of follow up to the recordings i did
with Bret Hart ('the greater part of what my neighbors call good i
believe in my soul to be bad', whi003), and in a way it is. However, we
abandoned Bret's purist approach of using only first takes and single
overdubs, and laid the ground rules wide open. Not long after we
started exchanging recordings, i had a breakdown and Lee developed
carpal tunnel syndrome. By the time i'd recovered sufficiently to
approach Lee's CD's, i'd stopped playing saxophone altogether - i'm now
playing cello and singing - so this represents the last of the
saxophone recordings, for the time being at least.
We've
taken the decision not to charge for this recording, so it's available
as a free download in MP3 format, RealAudio or lossless FLAC. If you'd
rather have the
full, high fidelity CD, i'll burn you one (with artwork) and mail it to
you at cost.
email pickpocket@whi-music.co.uk for details.
"This is seriously warped and seriously wonderful!" Review by Mark Francombe on Furthernoise.org
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1. returning, success 2. mirrors the movement 3. later that day 4. the institute of mental health (burning) 5. solstice 6. the memory of pain 7. rulers did not visit 8. smile for you
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phil
hargreaves: saxes, flute, voice, cello, programming lee
noyes: drums, guitars, erhu recorded
in Liverpool, UK and Dunedin, New Zealand 2002-2005 all
tracks by hargreaves/noyes except for 'the institute of mental health
(burning)', by Hammill/Smith cover
painting by Luke Hancock, Nelson, Aotearoa
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I'd had the CD that Lee sent sat sitting on my desk for around two years when i finally put it in a CD player and played it. In the meantime he'd received my solo stuff, put his contributions on to it and passed it back, so i actually had quite a decent pile of disks to listen to. The solo recordings turned out to be 34 minutes of acoustic guitar, but the Lee/phil duos were more promising, and my first thought was that they had the feel of incomplete trios, so i added flute or cello where appropriate, or in one case moved one of Lee's guitar solos, via an amp simulation, to make quite a substantial power trio. I think it might have been that that set off a train of thought, and within two or three weeks i was shaping the raw materials into a kind of improv rock album.
Although there are track listings, all tracks have been run together to form one long piece of music: it's up to you to decipher where one track ends and another begins. There are some definite clues, if you're interested, including a cover of Peter Hammill's 'the institute of mental health (burning)'. Making it was entirely unlike a conventional improv recording: i set out to make as listenable a record as possible (for people who like fairly difficult music, natch), as there wasn't an original performance to be faithful to, so i had a free hand to manipulate the raw materials as i saw fit. Probably the most enjoyable recording i've ever done - i hope you feel something similar towards it.
Liverpool, Dec 2005
'The Institute of Mental Health (Burning)' was written by Peter Hammill and Judge Smith. You can find out more about Peter Hammill's work at the Sofa Sound website, and Judge Smith's stuff is here, at his personal website. Thanks to both of them for permission to use their song.