Tuesday 26 November 2019, 7.30pm
AMM and Formanex played together in 2002 at the Musique Action festival in France. It was 17 years ago : a meeting between two generations of musicians all influenced by the work of Cornelius Cardew. Once again, the two bands will meet for a new musical experience at the edge of genres
The event will start promptly at 8:30pm with an AMM set (c. 45 minutes), followed by AMM plus John White and Formanex in a version of (section from) Cardew’s Treatise.
AMM is a British free improvisation group that was founded in London, England, in 1965. The group was initially composed of Keith Rowe on guitar, Lou Gare on saxophone, and Eddie Prévost on drums. The three men shared an interest in exploring music beyond the boundaries of conventional jazz, as in free jazz and free improvisation. AMM has never been popular but has been influential in improvised music. Most of their albums have been released by Matchless Recordings, which was run by Eddie Prévost. In a 2001 interview, Keith Rowe was asked if "AMM" was an abbreviation. He replied, "The letters AMM stand for something, but as you probably know it's a secret!"
"AMM music may initially seem impenetrable, but it sure as hell penetrates you. Soon the desired state is instilled in the listener; a rapt vacancy somewhere between supreme concentration and utter absentmindedness." - Melody Maker
On AMMMusic, long tones sit next to abrasive thuds, the howl of uncontrolled feedback accompanies Cardew's purposeful piano chords, radios beam in snatches of orchestral music. AMM's clearest break with jazz-based improvisation concerned the idea of individuality. Initially through an engagement with eastern philosophy and mysticism and later though a politicized communitarianism, AMM sought to develop a collective sonic identity in which individual contributions could barely be discerned. In the performances captured on AMMMusic the use of numerous auxiliary instruments and devices, including radios played by three members of the group, contribute to the sensation that the music is composed as a single monolithic object with multiple facets, rather than as an interaction between five distinct voices." - Francis Plagne
Eddie Prévost / percussion, Keith Rowe / electric guitar and transistor radio, John Tilbury / Piano
From it's creation, in 1997 FORMANEX ensemble was interested in the production of new musical forms in the contemporary music.
This direction, follows the continuity of the history of the experimental music. Formanex is composed of three members, each from different musical backgrounds: electroacoustic music, improvised music, experimental music, sound art, sound poetry, punk, rock'n'roll, noise and jazz.
The early works of Formanex falls between improvisation and composition, taking graphic elements as a starting point. Two of the members, then student in artschool brought a reflexion towards creating music on the boundaries of visual arts.
The influence of electroacoustic music and the visual arts led Formanex to develop spatialisation works, thought of in terms of interventin-performance in a given situation. The cross over of these approaches engaged a radical change to their instrumentation during the first years reheasing together. This change opened up new artistic routes.
Whereby the instrument is central to the musician, but the musician adapts, invents, and rebuilds his instrument according to the needs' of his musical thought.
In 2000, two of the members of the group along with musician KEITH ROWE (one of the founders of the improvised music group AMM) intrduced them to graphical scores. Scores for determining the evolution of the group, such as: “TREATISE”, a graphic composition by CORNELIUS CARDEW.
Anthony Taillard (guitar, electronics), Julien Ottavi (Percussion, laptop, electronics)
