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Poppy, Andrew

The Beating of Wings: 40th Anniversary Edition

Poppy, Andrew: The Beating of Wings: 40th Anniversary Edition (False Walls)

Marking 40 years since its 1985 ZTT release, Andrew Poppy's landmark The Beating of Wings returns newly remastered by Stephan Mathieu, presenting four prescient post-minimal works where Poppy's piano, keyboards, voice and sampler, Glyn Perrin's electric piano, orchestral winds, brass and strings, guitar, bass, Fairlight and drum machine merge acoustic composition with the studio as a compositional instrument.
 

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Product Information:

Personnel:



Andrew Poppy-piano, keyboards, voice, sampler, conductor, composer, arranger, producer

Glyn Perrin-electric piano

Andy Blake-alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone, horns

Rory Allam-bass clarinet

Ali Robinson-cello

Ingrid Perrin-cello

Justin Pearson-cello

Roger Heaton-clarinet, bass clarinet

Geoff Warren-flute

J.J. Jeczalik-Fairlight programming

Steve Rance-Fairlight programming

Jocelyn Pook-viola

Sally Beamish-viola

Andrew Roberts-violin

Ann Morfee-violin

Gillian Cohen-violin

Julia Frape-violin

Elizabeth Perry-violin, leader

Elise Lorraine-voice

Mary Phillips-voice

Dave Roach-alto saxophone

Andy Findon-baritone saxophone

John Lunn-bass guitar, double bass

Matthian Feile-cello

Rhydian Shaxson-cello

Sara Gilford-cello

Susan Dory-cello

Victoria Soames-clarinet

Judith Kleinman-double bass

Sarah Haynes-double bass

Nancy Ruffer-flute

Simon Channing-flute

Andrew Antcliff-horn

Dave Cox-horn

John Harle-soprano saxophone

Paul Nieman-trombone

Roger Williams-trombone

Simon Ferguson-trumpet

Ted Hobart-trumpet

Bruce Nockles-trumpet

David Powell-tuba

Glyn Matthews-vibraphone

Rebecca Wade-viola

Rupert Bawden-viola

Yuko Inove-viola

Cathy Adams-violin

Fiona Higham-violin

Jane Carwardine-violin

Jonathan Rees-violin

Margaret Rosebury-violin

Mark Berrow-violin

Pauline Lowbury-violin

Teresa Ward-violin

Keith Bartlett-xylophone

Jack Hughes-guitar

Stuart Bruce-Linn Drum programming

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Remastered by Stephan Mathieu, with an expanded 24-page booklet including new writing by Andrew Poppy. 2-panel gatefold sleeve.

Label: False Walls
Catalog ID: fw18
Squidco Product Code: 37579

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2026
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold w/ booklet
Recorded at Sarm West, in London, UK, in 1984, by Stuart Bruce. Remastered by Stephan Mathieu.
Originally released in 1985 as a vinyl LP on the ZTT label with catalog code ZTT IQ 5.
Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

Artist Biographies

"Andrew Poppy (1954) is a post-minimal composer, musician, vocalist, writer and record producer with a unique body of work and collaborations. He performs solo (piano/voice/electronics) (London, Dusseldorf, Lisbon, Oporto, Turin) sometimes with his own Sustaining Ensemble and recently as piano soloist in his work Almost The Same Shame with the BBC Concert Orchestra as part of 'The Rest Is Noise' Festival at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Current CD and performance project Shiny Floor Shiny Ceiling is a staged Opera Installation recently heard at London Contemporary Music Festival in 2014.

Teenage musical life included playing bass guitar in an improvising rock band, playing Bartok and Debussy on the piano and making music concrete with his father's tape recorder. He studied music at Kingsway's College and Goldsmiths College, London University, graduating in 1979.

During the 1970s he developed a strong interest in contemporary American composers Cage, Feldman, Riley, Glass and Reich, attended a summer school with John Cage and Merc Cunningham and played in an ensemble with Christian Wolff. In the early 1980s he was an accompanist at the Laban Centre for Dance and pianist and composer with The Lost Jockey, a large ensemble playing pulse based music that became known as Minimalism.

Particularly interested in the creative part recording plays in the music of today Poppy's music moves between conventionally notated scores and studio work influenced by pop production. He was signed as a contemporary composer, recording artist and producer to Trevor Horn and Paul Morley's Zang Tumb Tuum Records (ZTT) in 1984. His first CD The Beating of Wings includes performances of 32 Frames for Orchestra and Cadenza for piano and electric piano and was released in 1985. This was followed in 1987 by Alphabed which featured the Fairlight music computer, the first Akai samplers and vocal performances from Annette Peacock.

During the 90s Poppy continued to record for independent labels: Recordings, includes 14 Poems and Toccatas for violin and piano performed by Elisabeth Perry and Andrew Ball and premiered by them at the Huddersfield Festival. Ophelia/Ophelia, a chamber opera was selected by ISCM for the world music days in Denmark. Rude Bloom contains two contemporary dance scores (for Siobhan Davies and Linda Gaudreau). Time at Rest Devouring its Secret an electro acoustic installation premiered at NRLA and Tramway. In 2005 ZTT Records released a 3 CD box set containing all Poppy's recordings for the label during the 80's and including an unreleased album Under The Son.

A type of experimental music theatre, sometimes based on the composer's own texts or adaptations has been part of his creative initiative. Songs of the Clay People was a collaboration with Impact Theatre in 1983. There are also three chamber operas The Uranium Miners (ROH Garden Venture), Baby Doll (NTS/Cottesloe), Ophelia Ophelia (ISCM nomination). An oratorio Something In The Air (Levitation And Fall) was commissioned by the Estonian National Male Choir and conducted by Kaspars Putnins premiered in Tallinn in January 2006.

Since 1989 he has developed a collaborative partnership with visual and theatre artist Julia Bardsley. Jointly authored projects include Avalanche Thoughts a multimedia work premiered in New York in 2002, Improvements on Nature 2009 was commissioned by the Sacred Festival at Chelsea Theatre London, Clube Redondo 2011 a work for children in Lisbon with Portuguese company Casa Branca.

His unusual body of work constantly explores different musical contexts. There are scores for theatre, film & video, contemporary dance and art installation; writing collaborations and arrangement for industrial rock and synth pop artist including, Black, Psychic TV, Erasure, Nitzer Ebb and duo projects with Claudia Brücken and Bernardo Devlin. There are also a number of remixes for other artists.

Concert works in the 90s include Horn Horn, a double saxophone concerto for John Harle and Simon Haram commissioned by The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Last Light recorded by The Smith Quartet. Concert commissions since 2000s include More Matter Less premiered by Noszferatu at the Cheltenham Festival 2003, Darwin's Sin Draw a violin concerto for Darragh Morgan and The Crash Ensemble, Hatch for The Smith String Quartet, Playing the Pulse for CoMA ensemble, Periscope for prepared piano for pianist Mary Dullea, Hoarding Flap for harpsichordist Jane Chapman, Definitely Disco commissioned by The London International String Quartet Festival as a competition test piece for 9 student quartets. In 2013 pianist Ivo DeGreef commissioned Liberty for the Left hand for the Leftitude Festival.

BBC Concert Orchestra gave the first professional performance of 32 Frames for Orchestra in 2006 and in 2011 invited Andrew to perform a live dub mix with the orchestra in a new version of Revolution Number 8 Airport for Joseph Beuys at the QEH in London."

-Andrew Poppy Website (https://www.andrewpoppy.co.uk/BIOGRAPHY.html)
9/30/2026

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

British composer, performer and keyboardist Glyn Perrin was born in London in 1955 and studied music at Dartington, the University of York, and in California, including composition studies with Bernard Rands, Richard Orton and Elisabeth Lutyens. Active professionally since the late 1970s, his work has ranged across concert music, electroacoustic composition, music theater, contemporary dance and sound art, frequently combining conventional instrumental resources with electronics and studio technology.

Perrin was associated with the experimental ensemble The Lost Jockey, whose members included Andrew Poppy, Orlando Gough, Roger Heaton and other figures who became prominent in British post-minimal and experimental music. He has also worked as a keyboardist and programmer on numerous non-classical projects, while his compositions have been performed by ensembles and organizations including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Endymion, and used in productions by Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Rambert, the Young Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His long association with Andrew Poppy includes the 1984 recording of Cadenza for Poppy's The Beating of Wings, where Perrin plays electric piano opposite Poppy's acoustic piano. Perrin has continued to compose and perform across experimental and interdisciplinary contexts, with a particular interest in the meeting points between acoustic performance, electronics, theater and installation.

-Squidco 9/30/2026

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

"Nancy Ruffer was born in Detroit and received a Master of Music degree from The University of Michigan. She received a Fullbright-Kays Scolarship in 1976 to study at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and she has remained in London working as a freelance flautist specialising in contemporary music. Composers who have written for her include Michael Finnissy, Chris Dench, John White, Christopher Fox, Ian Wilson and Graham Fitkin. In 1984 she was awarded the Kranichsteiner Prize for Performance at Darmstadt and she was elected an Associate of the R.A.M. Nancy Ruffer is principal flute of the ensembles MusicProjects/London, Matrix, Almeida Ensemble and Topologies as well as performing with ensembles of the Royal National Theatre.

In addition she records regularly for the BBC and performs in festivals and concert halls throughout Britain and abroad. In 1999 she toured Canada performing works by, among others, Ferneyhough and Dillon, and in 2002 she toured Georgia and Tennessee with pianist Helen Crayford, performing works by British and American composers.

Ms Ruffer was awarded the Kranichsteiner Prize for Performance at Darmstadt in 1984 and was appointed an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music."

-Divine Art Records (https://divineartrecords.com/artist/nancy-ruffer/)
9/30/2026

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


Track Listing:
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September 2026
Compositional Forms
Electro-Acoustic
Piano & Keyboards
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Duo Recordings
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New in Experimental & Electronic Music
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