Began work on a new music project Saturday, working with Adrienne Pierluissi on her songs for a studio recording that will take place in August: recorded her singing 8 pieces, then we reviewed albums in my record collection, searching for things that fit her ideas about the mood and arrangements; both inspired by Robert Wyatt’s, “Comicopera,” and both of us know we have to do something quite different. Watched a bunch of Bill Hicks performances over the weekend, he was so strangely prescient, his comments about music and politics could have been made yesterday, not 20 years ago. The beginning of the week was consumed with selecting B&W photos for an upcoming lp by Lean Left, 16 images to be used for the cover and booklet; there will be two volumes, one of music by the band and Steve Noble, the other with Ab Baars; one album will use photos from Andy Moor, the other will be the pictures I selected. Going through the images taken through the last year, then editing them down to 16, felt like mixing an album- necessary work but somehow unpleasant, staring at your ideas through a microscope and seeing all the flaws… Hopefully the label and Terrie, Paal, and Andy will be happy with my selection. Started watching Peter Greenaway’s, “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,” late Monday night, couldn’t turn it off and was up until 4am, mesmerized. But Nyman’s score, particularly the singing boy, such a poor contrast to Greenaway’s originality and vision (is Matthew Barney sending Greenaway a monthly check to pay him back for borrowed ideas?). On the recommendation of Bob Weston I started reading “In The Blink Of An Eye,” Walter Murch’s book on film editing (best know for his work on “Apocalypse Now,” “The Conversation,” and “The Godfather Part II”), fascinating stuff. Called in at the last minute to dj some music at Wednesday night’s concert at the Hideout, a rare performance by Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra (this night with Frank Rosaly and Steve Hunt on drums; Joshua Abrams and Jason Roebke on bass; Dave Rempis, Mars Williams, and Keefe Jackson on saxophones; Jamie Branch on trumpet; Tomeka Reid on cello; and Aaron Zarzutzki on electronics); picked Reggae figuring it would be pretty far afield from what Fred would conduct the band to do. A great collection of players, the show underscored for me the the fact that the content of an improvisation is not just based on how a player starts but also how they choose to end an idea- making the point complete; it’s a “determinant” way to create music, not indeterminate. Made To Break from our show in Barcelona this past November:
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