Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols have been performing together for close to half a century, with their first recorded collaboration being 1977's landmark "Voice" release on Ogun Records, which documented a 1976 London performance alongside Brian Eley and Julie Tippetts. Despite appearing together on numerous recordings since then however, this is remarkably their first ever duo release.
This set, recorded at OTO in October 2022 on the first event of a three-day residency with Maggie, finds the duo in customary, playful, curious and generous form. Over 20 packed minutes, the pair craft a dizzying interplay whose seeming effortlessness belies the sheer amount of craft on display. Weaving astonishing virtuosity with an easy intimacy, this is an unmissable performance from two improvised music greats.
"In describing how we can find meaning in unconventional vocal sounds, Nicols and Minton also criticize ideologies that dismiss these sounds as worthless or dangerous. Their devotion to these sounds, despite such pervasive denigration, should inspire us to do more to help make marginalized sounds, voices, and people heard." – Social Virtuosity and the Improvising Voice; Phil Minton & Maggie Nicols Interviewed by Chris Tonelli
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Recorded by Billy Steiger
Mixed and mastered by Oli Barrett
Cover photograph by Phil Minton
Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. Erunim - 19.14
Maggie Nicols joined London's legendary Spontaneous Music Ensemble in 1968 as a free improvisation vocalist. She then became active running voice workshops with an involvement in local experimental theatre. She later joined the group Centipede, led by Keith Tippets and in 1977, with musician/composer Lindsay Cooper, formed the remarkable Feminist Improvising Group. She continues performing and recording challenging and beautiful work, in music and theatre, either in collaborations with a range of artists (Irene Schweitzer, Joelle Leandre, Ken Hyder, Caroline Kraabel) as well as solo.
For a long time now Phil Minton has been working as a improvising singer, solo and in groups and situations at various locations all over the place, deserts, quarries, concert halls, pubs, holes, dodgy clubs, containers, up trees, in prisons, on mountains, in churches, under bridges and cafe oto etc.
Phil Minton comes from Torquay. He played trumpet and sang with the Mike Westbrook Band in the early 60s - Then in dance and rock bands in Europe for the later of part of the decade. He returned to England in 1971, rejoining Westbrook and was involved in many of his projects until the mid 1980′s.
For most of the last forty years, Minton has been working as an improvising singer in lots of groups, orchestras, and situations. Numerous composers have written music especially for his extended vocal techniques. He has a quartet with Veryan Weston, Roger Turner and John Butcher, and ongoing duos, trios and quartets with above and many other musicians, including tours with American singer Audrey Chen - with whom he has sang far and wide in the last ten years.
Since the eighties, His Feral Choir, where he voice-conducts workshops and concerts for anyone who wants to sing, has performed in over twenty countries.
