Keith Rowe

[by request]

British guitarist Keith Rowe, a member of AMM, is one of the improvisors who has most contributed to the definition of a new vocabulary for the guitar. Or, better, for the "tabletop" guitar, a guitar plugged into the cacophony of the "perfectly ordinary reality" (usually, a barrage of radios and electronic devices). He has played the guitar virtually in every possible manner and with every possible tool, to the point that the guitar has become a mere object that can be used to produce unusual sounds. His body of work, that references abstract painting, Dada, Edgar Varese and John Cage, is the quintessence of "noise" guitar music.

Interview (2001)

• 1988 - Supersession [with Evan Parker, Barry Guy & Eddie Prévost] - 320 Kbps
• 1993 - City Music For Electric Guitar - 320 Kbps
• 1990 - A Dimension of Perfectly Ordinary Reality - 320 Kbps
• 2000 - Afternoon Tea [with Oren Ambarchi, Fennesz, Pimmon & Peter Rehberg] - 320 Kbps
• 2000 - The World Turned Upside Down [with Günter Müller & Taku Sugimoto] - 320 Kbps
• 2000 - Harsh, Guitar Solo - 320 Kbps
• 2000 - Dark Rags [with Evan Parker] - 320 Kbps
• 2001 - Weather Sky [with Toshimaru Nakamura] - 320 Kbps
• 2001 - Grain [with Burkhard Beins] - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - Ajar [with Otomo Yoshihide & Taku Sugimoto] - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - Honey Pie [with Oren Ambarchi & Robbie Avenaim] - 256 Kbps
• 2002 - Thumb [with Oren Ambarchi, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide & Robbie Avenaim] - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - Flypaper [with Oren Ambarchi] - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - The Difference Between a Fish [with Michel Doneda & Urs Leimgruber] - 320 Kbps
• 2003 - Duos for Doris [with John Tilbury] - 320 Kbps
• 2003 - Rabbit Run [with Marcus Schmickler & Thomas Lehn] - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - Live At The LU [with Fennesz] - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - A View From the Window [with Axel Dörner & Franz Hautzinger] - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - Untitled [with Toshimaru Nakamura, Thomas Lehn & Marcus Schmickler] - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - Untitled [with Burkhard Beins] - 192 Kbps
• 2005 - Untitled [with Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura & Otomo Yoshihide] - 320 Kbps
• 2006 - Squire [with Oren Ambarchi] - 320 Kbps
• 2006 - Debris Field Ambient Wash [with Loren Chasse, Phil Mouldycliff & Colin Potter] - 320 Kbps
• 2006 - Tensions [with Perlonex & Charlemagne Palestine] - 320 Kbps
• 2006 - Between [with Toshimaru Nakamura] - 320 Kbps
• 2007 - The Room - 320 Kbps
• 2007 - Rowe Fuhler [with Cor Fuhler] - 320 Kbps
• 2008 - Untitled - 256 Kbps
• 2008 - Untitled [with Taku Unami] - 192 Kbps
• 2009 - Contact [with Sachiko M] - 320 Kbps
• 2009 - Untitled [with Toshimaru Nakamura] - 266 Kbps
• 2009 - Treatise [with  Cornelius Cardew & Oren Ambarchi] - 320 Kbps
• 2010 - Küchen_Rowe_Wright [with Martin Küchen & Seymour Wright] - 320 Kbps
• 2010 - Live At I-and-E [with  Mark Wastell] - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - E.E. Tension And Circumstance [with John Tilbury] - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - Ф [with Radu Malfatti] - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - Concentration Of The Stare - 320 Kbps
• 2012 - September - 320 Kbps
• 2012 - Untitled [with Christian Wolff] - 320 Kbps
• 2013 - Shifting Currents [with Rick Reed & Bill Thompson] - 320 Kbps
• 2013 - Making A [with Graham Lambkin] - 320 Kbps
• 2014 - Contour [with Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Ilia Belorukov & Kurt Liedwart] - 320 Kbps
• 2014 - Tri [with Ilia Belorukov & Kurt Liedwart] - 320 Kbps
• 2015 - Enough Still Not to Know [with  John Tilbury] - 320 Kbps
• 2015 - Live at Fairchild Chapel - 320 Kbps
• 2016 - The Bakery [with Martin Küchen] - 320 Kbps

In groups:

4g

Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz and Toshimaru Nakamura are four of the most prominent and influential musicians in experimental music today, each with extensive discographies and distinctive styles. In mid-2004, they formed the Four Gentlemen of the Guitar (4g), and played a series of shows in Europe and Canada, three of which are contained on the album "Cloud". The underlying concept of 4g is to unite four artists who each began their musical explorations as guitarists, keeping that mindset as a crucial underpinning of their work as they've each explored increasingly abstract territory, both with and without guitars.

• 2005 - Cloud - 320 Kbps

AMM

Radical free/spontaneous music ensemble founded in the UK in the mid 1960s. Members have included Lou Gare, Lawrence Sheaff, Keith Rowe (up to 2005), Eddie Prévost, Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, Christopher Hobbs, John Tilbury and possibly others. The group currently performs as a duo of Tilbury and Prévost.

• 1966 - AMMMusic - 320 Kbps
• 1972 - At the Roundhouse - 320 Kbps
• 1978 - To Hear and Back Again - 320 Kbps
• 1980 - It Had Been An Ordinary Enough Day In Pueblo, Colorado - 320 Kbps
• 1983 - Generative Themes - 320 Kbps
• 1987 - The Inexhaustible Document - 320 Kbps
• 1988 - The Crypt - 12th June 1968 - 320 Kbps
• 1991 - The Nameless Uncarved Block - 320 Kbps
• 1993 - Newfoundland - 320 Kbps
• 1995 - Combine + Laminates + Treatise '84 - 320 Kbps
• 1996 - Laminal - 320 Kbps
• 1997 - Before Driving To The Chapel We Took Coffee With Rick And Jennifer Reed - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - For Ute / Tower Of Ghost [with Merzbow] -  320 Kbps
• 2001 - Tunes Without Measure Or End - 320 Kbps
• 2001 - Fine - 320 Kbps
• 2005 - Apogee [with Musica Elettronica Viva] - 224-242 Kbps

MIMEO

Phil Durrant (GB) violin, electronics

Christian Fennesz (A) computer

Cor Fuhler (NL) electronics, piano, organ

Thomas Lehn (D) analogue synthesizer

Kaffe Matthews (GB) computer

Jerome Noetinger (F) electroacoustique devices

Gert-Jan Prins (NL) electronics, radio, tv, percussion

Peter Rehberg (A) computer

Keith Rowe (GB/F) tableguitar

Marcus Schmickler (D) computer, synthesizer

Rafael Toral (P) guitar, electronics

Markus Wettstein (CH) metal garbage

London / Vienna / Amsterdam / Cologne / Grenoble / Nantes / Zurich / Lisbon

• 1998 - Queue - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - Electric Chair + Table - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - The Hands of Caravaggio [with John Tilbury & Kevin Drumm] - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - Lifting Concrete Lightly - 320 Kbps
• 2007 - Sight - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - Wigry - 320 Kbps

Music Now Ensemble 1969

A great, lost document, Silver Pyramid fills an important gap in the history of British improvised music. Percussionist Eddie Prévost, most consistent member of improv group AMM since its founding in the early 1960s, usually heads towards completely improvised free jazz when he records on his own. Yet, it appears that participation as part of the Music Now Ensemble performance of a series of so-called contemporary classical creations in 1969, encouraged Prévost to "create" his own "composition" in that idiom. That's what this fine disc reproduces.
The quotation marks are deliberate. That's because "Silver Pyramid" is based not on a score, but a text written by Prévost and interpreted by a group that could be termed AMM plus. The almost 74 minutes that result have a similar relationship to AMM as the 1959 large group versions of Thelonious Monk's music related to the pianist's work with his quartet. Not only do the other players amplify the shape of the composition itself, but they also add their particular talents to influence the final product.
It's instructive to recall that 1969 was the height of psychedelia-influenced art rock and anyone hearing "Silver Pyramid" -- or AMM for that matter -- for the first timemay feel as if they're embarking on what was termed a musical trip. Certainly one credo that this sort of pure improv represents -- that the music is there before the band begins and continues after the group finishes -- dovetails nicely into the free-floating psychedelic experience. But the difficulty of identifying each sound source on the disc and the lack of identifiable rhythmic climaxes would probably frustrate spiritual camp followers searching for an ecstatic trance shortcut.

Instead, the album is a multi-leveled offering. Prévost can likely be heard slowly manipulating his cymbals with a violin bow, repeatedly striking a small bell and bouncing small rubber balls on the heads of his snares. Cellist Cornelius Cardew and violinist Lou Gare are conceivably responsible for the string scratching that can be heard, while tabletop guitarist Keith Rowe probably provides the steady electronic humming in the background as well the sound crescendo of consistent feedback mixed with plucked strings.
But the identity of other sounds that range from what appears to be a door being ripped off its hinges and fire engine sirens suddenly erupting are less clear. Who are the unidentified man and woman carrying on a gibberish conversation in one section, for instance? Who supplies the wordless drone in another? Who plays the piping penny whistle which floats in and out of audio range several times and where does the happy calliope sounds appear from -- the instrument itself or a prerecorded tape?
This performance sounds as old as any pioneering examination of electro-acoustics and as contemporary as any 21st century harnessing of electronics. In short, this CD is both a historical document and a fine listening experience

• 2001 - Silver Pyramid - 256 Kbps

N:Q

The obscurely titled [N:Q] is a superb electro-acoustic recording of a quartet featuring three french musicians and AMM’s Keith Rowe. The single track is an unendingly fascinating and refreshingly sensuous journey of free improvisation, never lacking for ideas and inspiration. Despite the presence of two reed instruments, the general ambience is electronic with drones of varying depths and sonorities predominating. Indeed, while Havard’s alto sax occasionally breaks through with frantic squiggles, Chevalier’s bass clarinet tends to provide a lush companion drone to that generated by Rowe. By maintaining an impressive concentration on one (apparently) slender slice of the sonic spectrum, this quartet is able to unearth a richness and corporeality often lacking in this sometimes arid territory. One is tempted to credit Rowe with the steadying hand here; his playing is at once both extremely assured and democratically deferential to the group. Along with The World Turned Upside Down on Erstwhile, this is one of his finest projects outside of AMM. Fans of that protean group will find much to enjoy on [N:Q], a state-of-the-art document of electro-acoustic improvisation at the turn of the century.

• 2000 - Enregistrement Live • Rennes 20 Mai 2000 - 320 Kbps

The Scratch Orchestra

Alec Hill, Brian Eno, Bryn Harris, Christopher Hobbs, Cornelius Cardew, Dave Smith, David Jackman, Eddie Prévost, Howard Skempton, Hugh Shrapnel, John Tilbury, John White, Keith Rowe, Lou Gare, Michael Nyman, Michael Parsons, Philip Dadson, Roger Sutherland, Stefan Szcelkun

• 1971 - The Great Learning - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - London 1969 - 320 Kbps

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