- Group Listening
- Peiriant
- Dyddiad:
- Amser:
- Pris: £10 / £12
- Cyfyngiadau Oedran: 16+
- Lleoliad: Clwb Ifor Bach
Mae Group Listening yn dod i Gaerdydd ar y 10fed o Fawrth 2022 i chwarae caneuon o’i albym newydd. Tocynnau ar werth nawr!
Group Listening is a new project by Stephen Black and Paul Jones. Their debut album Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol.1 is a collection of ambient works – from the likes of Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Euros Childs and Robert Wyatt – arranged for clarinet and piano.
Having met at Music College, Stephen and Paul went separate ways creatively. Stephen delved into pop, recording albums and touring extensively under the guise of Sweet Baboo, while working with Cate Le Bon, H. Hawkline and others. Paul leaned into the piano, pursuing a career as a jazz pianist and experimental musician. He played with Keith Tippett, formed the Jones O’Connor group, performed with noise improv bands and composed orchestral and chamber music. Reconnecting years later, the pair discovered that their music tastes, bizarrely, met in the middle; they have a shared love of The Beach Boys, Ghost Box Records, Messiaen and Angela Morley. They both like ambient and new age music, bubblegum pop, Artie Shaw, Moondog and the outsider music handbook Songs in the Key of Z.
The new record is the follow up to their stunning debut. Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works, Vol.1, was a haunting, reflective and lovingly considered selection box of musical reworkings. It featured reimagined tracks by the likes of Arthur Russell, Brian Eno and Robert Wyatt. But it was also much more than that. In making their own record of reimagined musical works, the two musicians were doing what all music fans do: comparing favourite tracks, turning each piece over for new meaning and developing a musical understanding of each other in the process.
While their first record was put together over an intense three-day period in a studio, Vol. 2 saw the pair take over Jones’ living room and gradually put its ten tracks together between September last year until March of this. They would record one or two songs over a couple of days then pause for the week, building and ruminating on ideas; it allowed the music to take on a more ambitious nature but also allowed in bits of chat, traffic noise and other creaks and squeaks associated with home recording. “I feel that’s part of the album’s essential character; recorded on and off throughout the pandemic in a domestic environment out of necessity; a testament to how it was possible to work at that time” says Jones.
“Exquisite neo-classical work” Electronic Sound Review
“These are the artists and artworks the world needs….they have produced something golden” Louder Than War
“Canonical ambient works sublimely re-arranged” **** MOJO
“It’s too easy to talk about how immersive ambient music is, but experiencing Group Listening live is an immersive experience….. the music is practically otherworldly” Metronome
“Absolutely beautiful’ Tom Ravenscroft, BBC Radio 6 Music
“Meditative, isn’t it — I just love the way it circles, it’s exquisite on every level…
very wonderful!” Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales