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LP
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TDP 54006LP
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Trading Places present a reissue of Mike Cooper's Oh Really!?, originally released in 1969. The guitarist and singer-songwriter Mike Cooper was a key figure in the British blues boom of the late 1960s. Born in Reading in 1942, Cooper began playing guitar as a teen in local skiffle groups. After seeing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee perform in 1961, Cooper caught the blues bug and began to play the harmonica and formed The Blues Committee, supporting John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Alexis Korner, and Long John Baldry, while Cooper was also performing solo. Acquiring a lap steel guitar in 1963, he studied Blind Boy Fuller's work and in 1965, teamed with Dave Hall to support Bert Jansch, Al Stewart, and others; after releasing work on the Kennet, Sydisc, and Matchbox labels, Cooper soon began incorporating country blues aspects into his work, drawing from Son House and Mississippi Fred McDowell, as well as non-blues artists such as David Bowie, John Martyn, Roy Harper, and Dave Van Ronk. Then, in late 1968, Cooper was approached by producer Peter Eden, resulting in debut album Oh Really!? for Pye; aside from agreeable covers of Son House's "Death Letter" and Blind Boy Fuller's "Bad Luck Blues", the rest of the disc is pure Cooper, with his deft picking accompanied by Derek Hall's guitar work only on "Leadhearted Blues" and "Electric Chair". 180 gram vinyl; 45rpm. Licensed by BMG.
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LP
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RM 496LP
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Room40 offer a re-mastered, re-edited 2019 version of Rayon Hula, originally released in 2004. From Mike Cooper: "After several trips, beginning in 1994, to the Pacific and its Island Nations, Australia and subsequently to South East Asia, I conceived the idea of making an updated more 'now' version of some of the Exotica music that originated in 1950's America. Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny were the two I mostly had in mind at the time, but I didn't want it to sound like them and the two words 'Ambient' and 'Electronic' had to figure large. I was deeply influenced by the ambience of the places I was visiting (Australian birds are scarily creative) and lo-fi electronics were something I had been working with in my free improvisation gigs since the '80s . . . No-one was issuing recorded work by me, so I started my own DIY cd.r. label, Hipshot, and sold them via the internet. I was free to record whatever I wanted and I did, starting in 1999 with Kiribati . . . The summer of 2004 house sitting in Palombara, 40 minutes outside of Rome, at our friend Jo Campbell's house, in the company of several dogs and numerous cats, I set to work outside in the shed with a Zoom Sampletrack ST-224, two mini disc recorders and a Tascam four track cassette machine; a pile of Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny CDs and my lap steel. My intention was to create a kind of music that I had hoped to hear when we visited Hawaii in the early '90s (some kind of Hawaiian Futurism maybe?) which we never did. Rayon Hula appeared from the shed and was initially released as Hipshot c.d.r. HIP-007. I submitted it to the Ars Electronica awards in Austria and was very surprised when it received some kind of a prize. I think that David Toop had something to do with that, as he was on the jury (thanks David). It was picked up by Cabin Records, a new label initiated by Pete Fowler and Graham Erickson and released as a double 10-inch vinyl set . . . Although the idea was an homage to Arthur Lyman, it was also an homage to Steve Feld who introduced me to the concept of 'lift up over sounding' in his book Sound and Sentiment, a study of the Kaluli people of Papua and their relationship with their aural environment. From it I gleaned, among other things, the idea of looped sounds played simultaneously but out of sync. An idea which had in fact guided me from the beginning of the series."
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LP
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BW 024LP
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A new Mike Cooper release is always a great event. Mike Cooper on the recording: "Distant Songs Of Madmen was recorded live in Palermo and was my solo set in a concert organized by Lelio Gianetti and Curva Minore, which included Truth In The Abstract Blues and Eugene Chadbourne. My set was free improvisation; some cover versions of folk and pop songs and some of my own songs. The title of the record and some of the improvised pieces were taken from Sam Shepard's writing. Sam, one of my favorite writers, has sadly died since I recorded this record and I dedicate it to his memory." Artwork by Italian artist Carla Indipendente. Mastered for vinyl by Brian Pyle (Ensemble Economique). Includes insert; edition of 300.
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LP
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CREP 058LP
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It's 2018 and it's time for some new discoveries into Mike Cooper's limitless exploration in his collection of guitars. The title itself, Tropical Gothic references Cooper's beloved areas of "the South" with a Gothic, dark, remote interplay... he explains: ''Tropical Gothic includes, but is by no means limited to, a reflection on a region where European colonial powers fought intensively against indigenous populations and against each other for control of land and resources.'' On each side, Mike Cooper studies different approaches to his method of uniting guitar and field recordings into a constant stream of sound, where he delivers chaos and melody -- not necessarily in that order. Side A is composed of shorter pieces. Each of them offers a myriad of images and sensations, between the enigmatic and terror ("The Pit"), joy, happiness and freedom ("Running Naked") or pure contemplation ("Onibaba"). "Onibaba" runs as a fitting introduction to Side B and its 18th minute magical piece "Legong/Gods Of Bali". A mix of ambient exotica music, silent film soundtrack and distorted rhythms that dance around Mike's guitar. It keeps reinventing and transforming itself throughout those eighteen minutes, summing up the dexterity and muscle of Mike Cooper's music of the last two decades. With another grand collage artwork by Evan Crankshaw.
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LP
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RM 484LP
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Mike Cooper's output of the past half century has been described as "post-everything". It's a fitting phrase really when you consider he has been at the beating heart of so many critical musical moments; from the development of the blues touring circuit in the UK, through the growth of the folk scene and into the explosion of free improvisation that came to define a generation of UK musicians. Amidst it all, working at stitching these disparate forms into some kind of de-territorialized zone, was Mike Cooper. It's fitting that he explores the notion of journey on his latest full-length edition. Even more fitting that he examines the vessels that carry us on journeys. With Raft, Cooper charts his interests in ambient exotica and collides it with his research into various South Pacific musical traditions. The record extends his palette considerably, stretching away from the hypnagogic flows of his master piece Rayon Hula (2004), into a more oceanic setting. "Raft 21 - Guayaquil To Tully", for example, sets out a lilting rise and fall of harmony which erupts with spluttering electronics. Specifically inspired by Vital Alsar and William Wills, sailors who undertook some of the 20th century's most impressive solo voyages, Raft reflects upon the determination of the solo traveler. In a musical sense, Mike Cooper's work of recent years has very much reflected a determined solo traveler work ethic. In his commitment to travel alone, he has developed a range of strategies that he works against as a means of surprising himself and uncovering unfamiliar sonic relations. This approach has proved an incredibly fertile pursuit for Cooper, arguably producing some of his most affecting and engaging works, his Room40 albums Fratello Mare (RM 462LP, 2015) and White Shadows Of The South Seas (RM 454CD, 2013) amongst them. Raft is a vital record that sets its sights beyond the horizons of convention and in doing so reveals a perspective that is only available to lifelong voyagers such as Mike Cooper. From Mike: "Raft is my tribute to William Willis, Vita Alsar, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louis Becke, Adolph Plate, Jacques Brel, FW Murnau and to all sailors, scribblers and drifters everywhere."
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LP
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CREP 038LP
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The "icon of post-everything", Mike Cooper, returns to Discrepant with a recording of a live set recorded at the Controindicazioni Festival of Improvised Music in Rome in 2003. Originally released as a CDr via his Hipshot label. The music moves very slowly through four movements: "Reluctant Swimmer", "Movies Is Magic", "Virtual Swimmer", and "Dolphins". Praise from an unknown source: "Floating in out of the exotic ether and disappearing like smoke, engulfed in the alien hugeness of nature... a very elegant set by a visionary artist." Mike Cooper on the recording: "The first half is played on my old 1920s National tri-plate lap steel guitar and the second half on my Vietnamese electric lap steel. I also sing two songs along the way. 'Movies Is Magic' by Van Dyke Parks and 'Dolphins' by Fred Neil. It was the first time I had ever sung the last song." RIYL: Exotica, Andrew Pekler, Dolphins Into The Future.
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LP
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IDEA 027LP
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Mike Cooper's Blue Guitar is a collection that first appeared on Cooper's Hipshot CDr label in 2010 in a limited edition. It is presented here on Idea Records, for the first time on vinyl. Upon its initial release Cooper wrote: "For the past couple of years I have been collating a body of text culled (mostly) from Thomas Pynchon's novels Gravity's Rainbow and V and making cut-up collage pieces in the spirit of William Burroughs, Kurt Schwitters, Tom Phillips and others. Those two particular novels interest me because they are set in the period that I was born, however no reference to that period is intended in my pieces. Hopefully a more contemporary comment was found lurking within the words, lines, pages and paragraphs. Recently my interest in playing the guitar in a more or less 'traditional' manner, but still incorporating various 'extended techniques' (as opposed to using it purely as a sound source) has been re-kindled along with a renewed interest in blues, Greek rembetika, flamenco, Portuguese fado and other traditional and improvised music around the Mediterranean which in turn brought out the singer in me again... I have lived in the Mediterranean region for 30 years and listened to its music and I wanted to make something that would hopefully have some of its spirit without making reference to any of it musically." "Things as they are / are changed upon the blue guitar" --Wallace Stevens, Man With The Blue Guitar (1937) "Sometimes when you cut into the present the future leaks out." --William Burroughs. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Cover design by Tom Recchion. Comes on 180 gram vinyl; Includes a lyrics insert; Includes a postcard insert; Linen Wrapped/Foil Stamped; Comes in an Old Style Tip-On jacket.
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LP
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CREP 021LP
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First vinyl release of Kiribati, the first installment in the acclaimed Ambient Exotica Soundscapes series by veteran English experimentalist Mike Cooper. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 500. "This was the first release on my Hipshot c.d.r label in 1999. I wanted to create an album of imaginary soundscapes from imagined exotic places based on my travels in the Pacific Islands and South East Asia. Kiribati was the first in a series of three CDs of Ambient Exotica Soundscapes -- played on lap steel, electronics, prepared guitar, sampler, live environmental recordings (from Bali, Malaysia, Australia and Italy) and acoustic and electronic percussion. (The other two are Globe Notes and my award winning Rayon Hula.) Kiribati was (and is) dedicated to the people and islands of Kiribati because they were slowly sinking into the Pacific Ocean. Although the palm trees are often 25 metres high, the islands themselves, made from gravel and sand, are only 4 or 5 metres above sea level and a rise in sea levels of just 15 centimetres, as has happened over the past 100 years due to global warming, is a disaster. Kiribati was recorded in my studio on a four track cassette, using a Casio SK1 sampling keyboard. A tool I used for many years both for recording and live sampling." --Mike Cooper
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CD
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RM 454CD
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It's difficult to know how to summarize the meandering journey that has been the life and times of Mike Cooper. Having just celebrated his 70th year of mischief making, here's what we can tell you: a young Mike Cooper can be spotted playing a beatnik guitarist on an anti-nuclear march in London beat cult film That Kind of Girl. His first band, The Blues Committee, played with and supported blues legends such John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and Jimmy Reed. Cooper was central in launching several of the first folk and blues venues outside London, especially in and around Reading. He was a regular on John Peel's program from 1969-1975, recording numerous sessions. His free music group The Recedents was formed in 1982, threading directly into London vibrant improvisation community. He moved to Italy in 1988 after a slew of musical projects during the '80s in the UK and EU. Since 1994 he has spent increasing amounts of time touring and exploring Oceania. One of the outcomes of his exploration is Beach Crossings-Pacific Footprints -- a radiophone work commissioned by Italian and Australian radio -- that traces the history of colonization in the Pacific by Europeans from Tahiti up to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His recordings have been re-issued numerous times by labels across the globe. Original pressings are found for obscene prices via various outlets. White Shadows in the South Seas is his latest offering and follows up directly from his lauded Rayon Hula album. It's a pacific sunset-like dream spanning the horizon in pulsing waves of richly-colored rhythms, tropical sound fields and pacific-inspired slide guitar.
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LP
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QBICO 091LP
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Recorded in NYC, 2000. "Live At The Hint House might be considered a field recording in as much as it is a recording of an ambience or soundscape. Made on my first ever trip to mainland America to play music this is the 2nd set of that evening, the 1st set had been an acoustic one of songs and slide guitar. At the start of the 2nd set I quickly realized that my guitar was not working and rather than stop and attempt to find out what was wrong I decided to just continue and improvise with what was at hand on the table in front of me. A Casio SK1 sampler keyboard, a Yamaha SU10 sampling unit with some pre-recorded samples loaded, a mini disc with some tropical ambience rec. from Malaysia and a pitch shifter delay pedal. I was not very happy with what happened that night and when Matt Zwed gave me two CD-Rs the next day I don't remember giving much attention to the 2nd set. Five years on, coincidently to the day as I write this, I realized he had captured more than me trying to get through the piece. It was me, the people in the room, the dog that ran around barking, the traffic sounds coming through the door that was open right behind me and a whole host of magically transported tropical birds and insects that suddenly found themselves reciting whatever it was in the loft space on the edge of Harlem, competing or colluding with all of the above to produce a piece of urban exotica." -- Mike Cooper
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