To err is human, but to persevere diabolical...

About the new Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red release "Mosaics", nothing can be said about the wonderful 3CDs clamshell box packaging (with the brilliant idea of a box containing the three original Harvest albums reproduced in their splendid replica sleeves)... maybe much about the quality of my writing (a cut & paste taken from the previous enhanced CD booklets) but... hold on...

what about the big mistake to invert again the titles of "Fire" and "Water" on the second album track-list?

I warned Mark Powell with a mail in May to remember him to correct that oversight on the 3CDs enhanced edition of "Third Ear Band", released in 2018...

Dammit! Another missed opportunity to do a perfect  (at least philologically) job!

 

no©2021 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first).

Stereolab's Tim Gane included TEB's track in a Jazz compilation!

Stereolab founder Tim Gane included in April 2016 TEB's "Fire" in a Jazz & Avantgarde mix compilation edited for Fact, a Web magazine. 

At http://www.factmag.com/2016/04/04/fact-mix-544-tim-gane-cavern-anti-matter-stereolab/ you can listen to a two-hours sequence of beautiful music played by giants of the English Jazz scene as Ian Carr, John Surman, Mike Westbrook, Lol Coxill, Mike Taylor, Michael Garick, The New Jazz Orchestra... and avantgard musicians as Cornelius Cardew, AMM, Scratch Orchestra... and surprisengly TEB's "Fire".

Apart the TEB's tune you can listen also to the marvellous Mike Taylor's "Pendulum" with Dave Tomlin playing the soprano...

"Tim Gane knows a thing or two about jazz.

The Essex-born musician and studio maverick may be best known for absorbing krautrock, psychedelic pop and freaky library music into the peerless back catalogue of his band Streolab, but the jazz ethos of freedom and experimentation has always been a key influence on his approach.

Currently fronting his new band Cavern of Anti-Matter, a kraut-informed trio that’s just made its epic debut with a triple-album, Gane has put his motorik impulses on pause momentarily to produce this two-hour odyssey into the undersung corners of avant-garde and free jazz.

“British jazz and other new music that’s mainly from the ‘60s and ‘70s, but that’s not to make any particular point about that,” is Gane’s concise introduction to the mix, which spans the radical minds of free improvisors Lol Coxhill, Cornelius Cardew and AMM, library music from Basil Kirchin, pioneering jazz-rock from Ian Carr and much more. Two hours!

It’s easily one of the most head-spinning mixes we’ve ever had the pleasure to bring you, and serves as a proper education if, like a lot of us, you’ve ever wanted to dig deeper into jazz but weren’t quite sure where to start".

 no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)        

Avantguarde French composer Bernard Parmegiani died on last November 21th.

Avantguarde French composer Bernard Parmegiani has died on last November 21th at 86. He played on June 24th, 1970 with the Third Ear Band at the "Sun Wheel Ceremony", a concert promoted at the prestigious Royal Festival Hall of London.

The I.T. ad

That evening the band played with Bernard Parmegiani two traks, "Fire" and the unpublished 34'56" "Freak Dance" (other title: "Pop Secret", from the Parmegiani official Web site). On "Melody Maker" (July 4th, 1970), Chris Charlesworth wrote about the event: "The hall was barely half full. Accompained at times by electronic machines making weird sounds Third Ear Band droned through two lenghty pieces which were well accepted by their fans. Their music has no title and is 90 per cent improvisation. It just starts and finishes when the band feel like it. There's a vague anonymity about their music. However violinist Richard Coff, who hate make announcements, did mention that one piece was called "Freak Dance". This contained some haunting oboe work from Paul Minns, and I rather enjoied it. Their second piece was more ambitious and, I thought, less enjoyable. At one stage I actually saw Richard tapping his foot!".

Quite different Carolyn Looker's memories of the event (April 2012): "Parmegiani concert was at Festival Hall. It didn't work too well in my opinion. TEB's music was organic, the French were music concrete, it didn't got".

You can listen some original Parmegiani's compositions (from 1965 and 1971) at http://www.ubu.com/sound/parmegiani.html or download his "De Natura Sonorum" (1984) at https://archive.org/details/agp140

 

His official Web site at http://www.parmegiani.fr/ and a very good tribute (with fabulous music excerpts!) at http://www.inagrm.com/sites/default/files/mini-sites/parmegiani/co/Bernard_Parmegiani.html
Lastly, a very good 2008 essay on Parmegiani's music by electronic sounds expert Simon Reynolds at http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.it/2008/08/bernard-parmegiani-loeuvre-musicale-en.html

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

A review on "Third Ear Band" by American musician Elliot Knapp

American musician Elliot Knapp, on his personal blog at http://www.elliotknapp.com/2011/02/third-ear-band-third-ear-band.html, has reviewed TEB's second album, the seminal "Third Ear Band". Frequently on the Web fans and journalists use to write on the band, testifing the great interest for the TEB is not expired, and this review is particularly smart...

"Third Ear Band's second album, 1970's self-titled (now sometimes retroactively titled "Elements") builds on the oboe melody-led excursions of "Alchemy" by assigning each of its four songs to an element. While the instrumentation is still basically the same as the debut, the songs are considerably more identifiable from each other.

Every time I listen to this album I'm amazed at how fun a listen it is without being particularly melodic: the opener, "Air" gently coalesces out of the ether based on a repetitive tabla beat and some probing oboe and cello/violin groans and fails to present any melody except for an occasionally repeated violin riff. And yet, its smoky mystery is utterly compelling and lushly gorgeous, especially considering how few instruments produce the music. "Earth" shifts gears completely, with the strings playing pizzicato over a much more minstrel-like beat from the drums. Dual oboes improvise gently, probing Eastern-scales, while the tempo subtly gathers pace. All of a sudden it's an ecstatic frenzy, then just as suddenly the tension disappears, the rhythmic pattern slightly shifts, and the process starts again. Despite the general mood and ever-present tonal center of the music, there's no real melody to speak of - clear and quite listenable evidence that melody needn't reign supreme as the only musical element worthy of close attention.

"Fire" is a brilliant study in high-register drones and another shift in texture, with a relentless wavering feeling not unlike that of a dancing flame. "Water" closes the album with an actual melody (imagine that) over sustained violin with just enough dissonance to remind us that we're not in any territory that had been scouted at the time of the album's release, or really a whole lot more since. As I listen and re-listen in rapture to the strange and evocative sounds these instruments make together, I'm not always sure how the structures pertain to the elements they're named for, but in reality it's immaterial - by consciously giving each suite a distinct mood, the band stretched itself beyond its impressive but sometimes nebulous debut and gave structure to another forty odd minutes of rare beauty with memorable compositional elements".

no©2011 Luca Ferrari