The Squid's Ear Magazine


MacLean, Steve & Chris Cutler: Year of the Dragon (Recommended Records)

Instrumental and song work from Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, &c.) and Steve MacLean (Dr. Nerve) with Julie Thompson as vocalist, subtle non-linear songs created using unusual processes.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Steve MacLean-guitar, prepared guitar, piano, electronics, software devices

Chris Cutler-drums, flotsam

Julie Thompson-voice

Frank Gross-bassoon


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UPC: 752725030625

Label: Recommended Records
Catalog ID: ReR CCSM1
Squidco Product Code: 16348

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2012
Country: Great Britain
Packaging: Jewel Tray
Recorded in Summer 2011 by Steve MacLean.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"A collection of 5 songs and 4 instrumental pieces that explore equally - and simultaneously - spontaneous performance values, close compositional detail and extensive processing. Made out on the rocky coast of Maine with just a TV eye keeping tabs on a world skidding to hell in a handcart, all the basic work was done by MacLean and Cutler with Julie Thompson (voice) added later alongside additional parts played by Frank Gross (bassoon), Michael Bierylo (laptop, samples, circuits) and Titus Abbot (bass clarinet and saxophone). These are complex, focused pieces, some highly rhythm-rooted - mostly at rapid bpm rates - generally wide open with a close receptivity to timbral nuance and non-linearity."-Recommended Records


Artist Biographies

"Steve MacLean is an assistant professor in the Electronic Production and Design Department at Berklee College of Music. A guitarist, composer, producer, and engineer, he has been evolving with music technology since the early 1980s, when he worked in a New York City recording studio and got hands-on experience with early versions of the Fairlight CMI, DX-7, Linn Drum, automated mixing consoles, and digital audio samplers. Later, he founded his own recording and production studio and produced/engineered hundreds of artists and numerous award-winning projects including scores for more than 200 commercials and soundtracks, as well as a prolific output of his own acclaimed works.

An active performer and composer for more than 30 years, he was cofounder of the Portland Experimental Music Collective, has performed original compositions at numerous new music festivals, including several pieces for New Music Across America and similar events. An innovator in the new music circuit, he was curator for a series of concerts called 2001 New Music Odyssey, and continues to release recordings internationally on Recommended Records, U.K., and others.

MacLean has been a music technology educator independently and with Berklee. He also was a product specialist/clinician with a variety of manufacturers for more than 20 years."

-Berklee University Website (https://www.berklee.edu/people/steve-maclean)
3/27/2024

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

"Chris Cutler started messing about with banjo, guitar and trumpet at school, settling for drums and playing shadows and other instrumental covers in his first band in 1963. Subsequently he played in R'n'B and Soul Bands, winding up in 1967 playing in London's psychedelic clubs. At the start of the seventies, with Dave Stewart, he co-founded The Ottawa Music Co, a 22 piece Rock composer's orchestra, eventually joining British experimental group Henry Cow with whom he toured, recorded and worked in dance and theatre projects until it's demise in 1978. In 1977 Henry Cow, The Mike Westbrook Orchestra and Frankie Armstrong formed a big-band and toured around Europe. After Henry Cow, Cutler went on to co-found a series of mixed national groups Art Bears, News from Babel, Cassiber, The (ec) Nudes, P53 and The Science Group. He was a permanent member of American bands Pere Ubu, Hail and The Wooden Birds and now works sporadically with John Rose, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, Iancu Dumitrescu, Peter Blegvad and Stevan Tickmayer.

Other lasting collaborations have included Aqsak Maboul (Belgium), Lussier/Derome and Les Quatre Guitaristes (Canada), The Kalahari Surfers (Africa), Perfect Trouble (Germany), Between (Sweden), N.O.R.M.A., (Italy), Telectu (Portugal), Mieku Shimuzu (Japan),The Hyperion Ensemble (Romania), The Film Music Orchestra, 'Oh Moscow', Gong, The Work and Towering Inferno (UK), The Residents (USA), and stateless Tense Serenity and Mirror Man. There have also been countless improvisational groupings and solo performances. Recent projects include Radio pieces with Lutz Glandien and Shelly Hirsch, Live Soundtrack for Carl Dreher's Vampyr (with Italians Musci and Venosta), his Timescales project and work with David Thomas and Linda Thompson.

He also founded and runs the independent label and distribution service ReR/Recommended and, until 1991, the East European specialist label Points East. He is editor of the New Music magazine Unfiled and author of the theoretical book File Under Popular as well as of numerous articles and papers published in 14 languages. He lectures intermittently on theoretical and music related topics. He has appeared on more than 100 recordings."

-Chris Cutler Website (http://www.ccutler.com/)
3/27/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. The New Apothecary 3:12

2. Liquid Crystal 6:43

3. La Trahison Des Clercs 5:13

4. Medusa 7:29

5. Moloch 7:24

6. CityGrid 9:49

7. GodsMills 3:56

8. Time Study 7:28

9. Small Is Large 6:05

Related Categories of Interest:

Recommended Records

Rock and Related
Progressive Rock
RIO (Rock in Opposition)
Song Based Music
Cutler, Chris
Instruments with Preparations

Search for other titles on the label:
Recommended Records.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Isildurs Bane / Peter Hammill
In Disequilibrium
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The second collaboration between the Swedish chamber rock band Isildurs Bane led by keyboardist and composer Mats Johansson and lyricist, vocalist and guitarist Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator) presents two new multi-part suites with lyrics by Hammill--"In Disequilibrium" and "Gently (Step by Step)"--detailed, astute and powerful works of sophisticated progressive rock.
Cutler, Chris
Solo
(Recommended Records)



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