With Cornelius Cardew, Lou Gare, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, Lawrence Sheaff
The first AMM record was released in 1967 and soon deleted thereafter. Despite its short commercial span the record appeared briefly in the Melody Maker jazz chart and for the last couple of decades it has been an increasingly sought after collector's item.
AMM were one of the first contemporary improvising ensembles who did not owe any of their conventions or playing characteristics to American jazz - although their one time manager Victor Schonfield once mischievously described AMM's music as being "John Cale jazz".
AMM became a legend and were enormously influential on the margins of Progressive Rock, Free Jazz and Art Rock. They seemed to belong to the geneological history of all these apparently different forms. Recently they appeared as progenitors of Industrial and Thrash music, playing alongside such teen cult heroes as Sonic Youth, Faust and Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino. But they do and will continue to turn us as "originators and influences" because they set an agenda and mapped out an aesthetic ground first and definitely.
Nor can AMM be considered apart from their radical and uncompromising politics. Theirs is a critical and creative answer to easy consumption and smooth alienation, they are not and never were cigarette music. It is a tribute to the depth of their critique that time has not mellowed in any way the challenge of their aesthetic.
This CD contains twice as much material as the
original LP. What you hear are the antecedent and continuing parts of
the pieces edited out to form the LP, as well as other pieces from the
same sessions. This is, in several senses, history. It is also
continuity. AMM continue their work, both on this "documentary" CD and
in their contemporary live performances and recordings.
source: RéR promotional onesheet