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Alphaville presents..Group Listening
+ Support from Ancient Plastix
Live at The White Hotel, Salford
Group Listening is Stephen Black and Paul Jones. Their first 2 records, Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol.1 & Vol.2 are collections of ambient works - from the likes of Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Euros Childs, Laaraji, Neu and Robert Wyatt - arranged for clarinet and piano. These records saw the band tour across Europe with headline shows as well as alongside Cate Le Bon, Gruff Rhys, Teenage Fanclub and Jose Gonzalez. As well as festival performances at End of the Road, Green Man, Hidden Notes, Le Guess Who?(NL), Sonic City(BE).
Their 3rd album titled ‘Walks’ released via Prah is there first of originals. “Some of the places are real, while others are invented. Many of them are from actual walks that Steve and I took - mostly when on the road while touring, between shows, exploring” says Paul Jones of Group Listening on the new record.
Walks draws from the field recordings of Ernest Hood; the abstraction of Harold Budd; the saxophone of Sam Gendel; the “heightened naturalism” of a Martin Parr photograph; the clarity and site-specificity of Japanese ambient, environmental & new age music of the 80s and 90s, and, prominently, Robert Walser’s pseudo-biographical novella The Walk — an appreciation of the philosophical space gifted by walks to walkers.
An ode to the gently psychedelic potential of wandering around in some place, any place, every place: the places in one’s own mind, Walks invites you to listen and think; to slip through the fabric of time a little or a lot, depending on how long you’ve got. Over all, to paraphrase Walser, it invites you to glow and flower yourself in the glowing, flowering present.
“Exquisite neo-classical work” Electronic Sound Review
“Supremely serene” Uncut
“Hazy, bright and sleepy - a dreamtime soundscape” Elizabeth Alker, BBC R3
“Inspired…brimming with life” Aquarium Drunkard
“Canonical ambient works sublimely re-arranged” **** MOJO
Ancient Plastix is the producer pseudonym of Paul Rafferty. Music for the night time made with technology from another life.
£12 adv from See & Dice
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The White Hotel, Salford, United Kingdom
Tickets
