The Squid's Ear Magazine

Hubback, Steve

The Last Free City

Hubback, Steve: The Last Free City (FMR)

Also known as Metal Moves, Welsh improvising drummer/percussionist and instrument-maker Steve Hubback creates metallic sculptures that he performs on alongside drums, gongs, bells & cymbals, this new album presenting three extended recording for sound sculpture and percussion, particularly the mesmerizing title track featuring a mobile sound sculpture made of aluminium.
 

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Steve Hubback-percussion


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Label: FMR
Catalog ID: FMR695
Squidco Product Code: 34978

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: UK
Packaging: Digipack - 3 panel
Recorded at Massart Studio, in Boston, MA, in November, 2023, by Davide Aiden Capobianco.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Steve Hubback is a Welsh free improviser-drummer-percussionist who began his career as a musician in the late seventies and since the nineties also as a unique craftsman of gongs and cymbals and for his percussive installations. His sonorous creations were used by Scandinavian drummers and percussionists like Paolo Vinaccia, Marilyn Mazur, Knut Finsrud, Audun Kleive and Michala Østergaard-Nielsen.

Hubback's new solo album The Last Free City is described as "music for sound sculptures and percussion" and it was recorded at Boston MassArt (Massachusetts College of Art and Design) in November 2023. It was mixed and mastered by American polymath Elliott Sharp.

The title piece is a 17-minute featuring Hubback's self-crafted mobile sound sculpture made of Aluminium. Hubback plays this sculpture with bows and delicate touches that highlight its distinct resonant timbres while creating an otherworldly-sounding tension and sketching a loose dramatic-rhythmic narrative that ends with a quirt, almost spiritual meditation. The following two short percussive pieces - "The Workshop of Amazing Creations" and "The Last Free Thought" are playful and demonstrate Hubback's idiosyncratic aesthetics on his devised percussive or drum set, augmented with his gongs and cymbals, as a rare free spirit who always searches for new sonic adventures."-Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts


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Artist Biographies

"Steve Hubback is from Barry in South Wales where his musical career began in 1978 playing in local rock and rock and roll groups and later attending the Barry Jazz and Improvised music Summer School where he met and was inspired by Tony Oxley. Gordon Beck. Evan Parker. Alan Holdsworth. Phil Wachsman. Trevor Tomkins. Roy Babington. Keith Tippet. Alan Skidmore. Fred Van Hove, Peter Brotzmann and many other great musicians. It was a life changing experience.

He started a jazz club in Barry in a big hotel which became well known in Wales and soon after a Friday night rock club in the same venue. After turning professional Steve left Wales for Paris in early 1981 which was a fantastic cultural and learning experience. During his time in Paris he first played in a rock 'n' roll group and later in the rock group Splat with Goffo and Joe Hamilton.. He also began performing solo and performed surrealist theatre with Italian Artist - dancer/sculptor Loredana Celi who is an amazing artist and Steve learnt a lot from Loredana about working with visual and movement as well as sound. In 1983 Steve also had the opportunity to perform in Versailles with the legendary Bob Vatel. 'He saw me playing in Paris and invited me to play a concert with him and that was a fantastic experience for me.

In the mid 1980's Steve founded and led It's My Head originally with rock guitarist 'Goffo' from London. Peformed in Denmark. Norway and Sweden. Goffo left in 1986 and Steve invited the phenomenal Swedish guitarist Jorgen Cremonese to join. The highly acclaimed debut CD was recorded in Aarhus with Danish guitarist R L Lunding from the band Picnic and the rest at Jorgen Sangsta's Urania Studios in Gothenburg Sweden with Jorgen Sangsta contributing a rythym track on Mime For The blind. Steve played drums, motorized guitar, keyboards and made recordings of live smashing glass and metal sheets dropped from a stairway in an abanded factory and recording angle grinders which are all intergrated on the recordings. Jorgen Sangsta played lead guitars and keyboards.Norwegian photographer Per Talleraas had joined the group in 1985 intergrating his film and slide projections and his photo's were always used on IMH covers and art. Most of the live performances were in Scandinavia and included a legendary performance at Hennie Onstad Senter outside Oslo. In 1988 through Dossier Records in Berlin Steve toured for 2 weeks in the DDR (East Germany) with Dietmar Diesner and performed solo at Druga Godba in Slovenia. Steve was also was in the original line up of the Danish chamber group Atlantis Transit.

In 1996 invited to tour South Korea as part of Lim Dong Chang's 'World is One' ensemble. That was an incredible experience. ' I learnt a great deal about movement and breathing and space in music through Lim Dong Chang. In 1996 together with Danish artist Harald Viuff co founded The Hydronorts in Denmark for very large scale performances. Steve created a series of floating sculptures along with Paul Burwell from Bow Gamelan Ensemble. The sculptures were moored in Kolding Fjord for the Summer of 1996. Later that year The Hydronorts gave large scale performances in Copenhagen harbour which included The Hot pipe Organ - Bastiaan Maris, Geo Homsey and Stock and high voltage sculptor Barry Schwartz.

In 2000 An invitation to participate in The Kortrijk Percussion project led by Belgian master drummer Dirk Wachtelaer and which featured English drummer Trevor Taylor. Dirk was working with his electronic sounds. Trevor Taylor was playing Sculptures Sonores by the Baschet Brothers and Steve was performing on his sound sculptures and percussion creations.

In 2002 In Iceland was founding member of the Icelandic group Jord Bifast together with Egill Johannsson and Siggi Hrellir. Due to logistics Jord Bifast only performed live in Iceland. That same year Steve formed Recreator together with Nick Le Beat and Theo Travis (Soft Machine and Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree).

Since 1999 Duo performances and recordings with Dutch pioneer sax and reeds improviser Ad Peijnenburg. Also in 1999 Steve began performing and recording with Norwegian saxophonist and clarinetist Frode Gjerstad.

In 2008 Steve was invited to perform on The Large Hot Pipe Organ at Robodock in Amsterdam and Blast in Birmingham. 'I was playing electric drum pads to trigger the explosions in the pipes which was strange as the sound was generated a few seconds later. In London recorded together with Paul Clarvis on sound sculptures and gongs on the soundtrack of State of Play (Russel Crowe, Ben Aflack and Helen Miren) Music was composed by Alex Heffes.

In 2009 Steve began performing with the highly respected Celtic harpist Nadia Birkenstock. Their first performance was at the International Harp festival in Selstad outside Barcelona. They have continued since then as The Glow Within. Performing in Germany. Czech Republic. Italy. Netherlands. France. Spain and Portugal."

-Steve Hubback Website (http://www.stevehubback.nl/about-me/)
10/2/2024

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Track Listing:



1. The Last Free City 16:08

2. The Workshop Of Amazing Creatures 2:33

3. The Last Free Thought 2:26

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Percussion & Drums
Solo Artist Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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