DGM SoundWorld.
It's that time again! Yes, it's The Late Shift.
David, barely recovered from the DVD Crim - Undead Twice , and Robert, beginning to recover from Crim - Killing You Loudly With Its Songs, are working on the first of several CD projects discussed on my arrival from London this afternoon.
Amphamagoria - The Improvising Crimson (Live In Europe 2000) is/will be a double CD. The first volume is mostly improvs available on Volume Two (Shepherds Bush) of the DVD. The second volume is to be a compilation of Oyster Soup with a pile of solos from various performances of the song, edited together back to back. Something like the Schizoid Man conglomerate of the Mel, Boz & Ian incarnation, but featuring Ade, Trey, Pat & Boppin' Bobby rocking out on Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum Piece A Theme.
That's there we are beginning and we'll see where the notion carries us.
This morning I drove from Chez Horse in Chiswick to Studio Eno in Notting Hill. We began around 10.20 and, after three hours, had some 25 minutes of useable recorded music (by Brian's count). I play less notes in three hours with Brian than I do in one minute with Crimson. Wonderful. There is no other person I work with who doesn't turn a hair (not that Brian has many spare to turn anyway) if I play one note for a very long time before playing a second, and then stopping for a while to consider future options.
A friend of Brian's came by for lunch, which we had sitting outside in bright sunshine. What are you doing? they asked. No idea, I replied. That is the beauty of working with The Captain.
Today's was the session that has been cancelled on three occasions. On our last session, Brian had several specific pieces for me to play on. Today, it was begin-and-keep-going featuring new technology & equipment that Brian is using. Beginning was the guitarist tuning the 3rd. & 4th. strings to A harmonics, getting ready to be about-to-be-ready to begin, and finding that Brian had begun already.
21.49 Now to DGM SoundWorld and an improv that wasn't used on the DVD. For the 2000 EuroTour Pat was almost completely electronic and, whatever limitations this imposed on Pat as a player & the live mixing for George Glossop, on record it presents Crimson 2000 as a very different kind of Crim creature. A Techno Crim kind of creature. And lots of fun, surprisingly, for those that know The Serious Crim as a close friend for snuggling up to on a dark night while embracing the farther shores of essential uncertainty & existential dread.
So, the CD projects discussed today --
Elektrik - the audio version of the Japanese DVD.
Into The Frying Pan - the audio version of the Shepherds Bush DVD.
Amphamagoria -double improvising CD of the EuroTour 2000.
Frame By Frame - Second Edition - a revisited 4-volume compilation of Crimson studio albums from 1969 to date, taken from the re-masters.
Not discussed was The Great Deceiver - Second Edition. David has been mentioning a pile of live 1973-74 Crimson improvs from Europe that we have in the tape store, on 2-track, that have never been released. These have been in the archive for almost 30 years and most of them I haven't heard since Johnnie, Billy, Davie & Bob pulled them from the air. Or did they pull us from the air? Whatever their origin, David says they are hot. So they might become part of The Great Deceiver - Second Edition or even a separate release: The Great Deceiver -New Lies, More Deceit.
22.13 Techno Crim is hot and thrusting. Were I to describe the band as wooden, it would be complimentary. Moving associationally along, with the notion of Improvising Crim, I recall we were told that some of the Pixar engineers listened to Thrakattak while working on Toy Story in those far off, early days of digital animation.
22.55 Completing our SoundWorld work & going to the kitchen for vibration.
23.54 David has just left with many interesting & exciting future views discussed.
"Silence is an invisible glue."
