The Squid's Ear Magazine


Monicker (Scott Thomson / Arthur Bull / Roger Turner): Libr'aerie (Bug Incision Records)

The second release from the trio of legendary London improvising drummer Roger Turner, Montreal trombonist Scott Thomson and guitarist Arthur Bull, aka Moniker, after their 2018 Ambiances Magnetiques album "Spine", in three improvisations about "Books", quick witted active improvisation with a carefree and bright approach to exceptionally detailed interaction.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Arthur Bull-guitar

Scott Thomson-trombone

Roger Turner-snare drum, cymbal, small junk percussion


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Label: Bug Incision Records
Catalog ID: bim-79
Squidco Product Code: 29663

Format: CDR
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: Canada
Packaging: Plastic Sleeve
Recorded live at the Librairie St-Jean-Baptiste, in Quebec, Canada, on June 21st, 2018.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"If there was such a thing as a "perfect" Bug Incision album, it might be possible to argue that this is it. Libr'aerie, the second release from the short-lived Monicker trio, is a glorious, raw, kinetic, funny, and riotous pile of minutes, placed firmly within the historical trajectory of "free improv", that multifarious genre with birth origins in Europe's early 1970s.

The music itself can attest to this claim, but to sweeten the pot, we have here the presence of legendary British percussionist Roger Turner, who, even on his earlier LP outings on Incus and Caw, presented a sort of percussionist's platonic ideal for what it means to authentically engage with this approach to music making; his playing consistently displays the rare combination of technical prowess, vulnerability, and moment-to-moment discovery that can be achieved in this realm. Aiding and abetting this master are two Canadians that should be familiar to anyone with an ear cocked to our fertile scene.

Scott Thomson, a returning Bug Incision Records artist, is one of the country's preeminent trombonists and a true virtuoso whose broad range of abilities has allowed move easily between work with the likes of Lori Freedman, John Oswald (as Joust), Jean Derome, and the Ratchet Orchestra.

Guitarist Arthur Bull has kept a lower profile over the years, but has been involved with the key players in the Canadian avant-garde since the early '70s, logging hours with the under-heralded Bill Smith Ensemble, Michael Snow and CCMC crew, Paul Dutton, and John Heward (whose art adorns this cover).

This recording captures an intimate performance from the trio's 2018 tour of eastern Canada, at a small bookshop in Quebec City."-Benoit Hughes


Artist Biographies

"Arthur Bull. Born Residence: Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada. Composer, Performer (semi-acoustic guitar).

Arthur Bull is a veteran musician of the improvising music scene. Formerly the guitarist with The Bill Smith Ensemble, Bull has also played extensively with Paul Dutton, David Prentice, Michael Snow, John Oswald and John Heward, and he has performed in concert with Derek Bailey, Roscoe Mitchell and Roger Turner. He is also a poet, with three books published, and a translator from the Chinese. Originally from Ontario, Bull now lives in Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia, with his artist and musician wife, Ruth Bull."

-ActuelleCD (http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/bull_ar/)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Scott Thomson is an improvising trombonist and composer. He works extensively with singer and dance artist, Susanna Hood, and writes songs for her based on published authors' texts to be played in many contexts, from duo to octet and sometimes including Susanna' s choreography. Monicker (with Arthur Bull and Roger Turner), for example, exemplifies Scott's commitment to open improvisation. He co-founded the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto) in 2004 and served as a director until 2009, and co- directed the AIMToronto Orchestra, formed for a project with Anthony Braxton in 2007. In 2016, he convened the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra to play Roscoe Mitchell's music. He founded Somewhere There, a Toronto creative music venue that hosted 850 concerts during his tenure, 2007-10. Scott has composed a series of site- specific works, "cartographic compositions" for mobile musicians and audiences in unconventional performance contexts including, notably, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Scott programs the Guelph Jazz Festival."

-Bug Incision (http://www.bugincision.com/events-2014.html)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Roger Turner (born 1946, Whitstable, England) is an English jazz percussionist. He plays the drumset, drums, and various percussion, and was brought up into the jazz and visual art cultures inhabited by his older brothers, playing drums from childhood in informal jazz contexts.

Turner studied English literature and contemporary philosophy at Sussex University, playing with Chris Biscoe for the British Council in 1968, a first concert in improvisation. His move to London gave him contact with the first and second generation improvisers and he began to play primarily with Lol Coxhill, Gary Todd, John Russell, Hugh Davies, Steve Beresford, and Phil Minton.

In the years immediately after 1974 his work was primarily concentrated on opening the way to a more personal percussion language. This was also a period of intense collaborations that structured many of his future approaches to music-making and saw the formation of two long-lasting acoustic duos with Phil Minton and with John Russell. Recordings of these duos document an extreme attention to timbre and pitch, as well as a constantly shifting speed that typified much of his work at the time. The duo with Minton toured extensively throughout Europe, USA and Canada.

In 1979 he established CAW records with John Russell and Anthony Wood, and recorded the solo album The Blur Between focussing on single surface improvisations: a linear and reduced equipment approach he had started using with Carlos Zingaro and others in live performances.

In addition to forming Trump music with Gary Todd to promote improvised music in London, he also involved himself in formative activities of the London Musicians Collective during this period. He was awarded Arts Council of Great Britain bursaries for solo percussion in 1980, and in 1983 for investigation into percussion with electronics. Extensive festival and club solo work followed, including the Bracknell Jazz Festival and the Brussels Festival of Percussion.

In 1982 the trio The Recedents was formed with Lol Coxhill and Mike Cooper exploring the possibilities of electro-acoustic music, in which Turner initially played drumset and EMS Synthi A as a means of bending the sounds of various metal percussion instruments. This group, still existing, mixes song, jazz, punk/thrash, with acoustic detail in always shifting sonorities, and has worked throughout Europe, Canada and the UK, also recording for the French Nato label. Involvements with experimental rock musics and open-form song included extensive work in duo with Annette Peacock 1983-5, with whom he toured in Europe and Scandinavia. They recorded the album I have no feelings for Ironic.

In 1984-5, he was invited for workshop residences at Alan Silva's Institute Art Culture Perception in Paris, where long-term collaborations with Alan began, culminating in The Tradition Trio with Johannes Bauer. This group was central to his explorations of forms of free jazz, an interest that has seen him working with musicians on both sides of the Atlantic (including Elton Dean, Irene Schweizer, Cecil Taylor, Roy Campbell, Henry Grimes, The Wardrobe Trio and Charles Gayle).

Since the early 1980s his work has focussed on numerous projects with improvising musicians and groups, touring Europe, Australia, USA and Canada. Perhaps the most important of the later groups would be Konk Pack, formed in 1997, with Tim Hodgkinson and Thomas Lehn, a group whose use of volume and sense of detail continues the exploration of an electro-acoustic dynamic that forms one of his main musical concerns. This group has toured extensively in Europe and USA.

He forged working relationships with Japanese musicians over the years: in the 1980s with Toshinori Kondo in the trio with John Russell, but since the mid-1990s in concerts and recordings with guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi in Austria, Japan, and U.K, and in the recent (2009) Hana-Bi three-day event in London that included the guitarist and the pianist Chino Shuichi.

An active involvement in visual art has always been in dialogue with his music, and an inspiration for it. In the forefront of this is his work with Susan Turcot (the investigation/documentation of music and sound-drawing both in Europe and Canada-including the Being Rich box collection --, and music for her 2008 animation film Bitumen, Blood, and the Carbon Climb.

His music for dance/performance includes work with Alexander Frangenheim's Concepts of Doing, Stuttgart ; Carlos Zingaro's Encontros projects in Lisbon and Macau; and most recently in the Josef Nadj production etc.etc. (premiered Vandeouvre, France, 2008) and which is a continuing involvement.

In March 2009 he was invited to travel and perform on the Arctic island Svalbard, and was also invited to attend and play in the Comprovise event in Cologne, Germany in June 2009, set up to examine any possible relationship between improvisation and composition.

Turner's music-making with international improvisers in ad hoc and group collaborations have since the 1970s to the present day included Toshinori Kondo, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, Otomo Yoshihide, Shelley Hirsch, Joelle Leandre, Keith Rowe, Ab Baars, Barry Guy, Barre Philips, Henry Grimes, Paul Rutherford, Gunter Christmann, Marilyn Crispell, Irene Schweizer, Frederik Rzewski, and Malcolm Goldstein."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Turner_(musician))
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Books 17:27

2. More Books 11:05

3. Books More 7:32

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Musique Actuelle
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Canadian Composition & Improvisation
Trio Recordings
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Bug Incision Records.


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