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LP
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DC 916LP
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"Anthony Moore's post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright unknown quantity, achieves another dimensional plane with this third archival release from his personal tape library. Home of the Demo triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased OUT (1976, officially issued 2020) and the new wave-adjacent Flying Doesn't Help (1979, reissued 2022), finding Anthony's early/mid-'80s compositions drifting into the actual mainstream, just moments before it began giving way to the inevitable Next Waves. Home of the Demo unpacks ten tracks from what might otherwise be called a lost era. Subtitled 'from the dawn of bedsit recording,' this collection largely represents something nearer to DIY than any of your fancy modern kit! As Anthony remarks in his liner notes, 'We are talking about a few hundred quid's worth of gear balanced precariously on bookshelves and table tops in bedrooms and basements.' And yet, the tracks sound right dreamy. Anthony was a songwriter and musician whose first decade-plus in the music 'business' had brought him outside-in, through experimental/avant projects into the pop music world he'd loved as a youngster. He was an old hand at getting sounds as well; distinctly '80s elements that might abrade the ear instead benefit from his tactile deployment of that gear stacked up on tables and bookshelves in the basement. In this manner, he produced well-appointed, ambitiously clever songs for himself and others, such as his friend David Gilmour's band, who used a couple pieces on Home of the Demo for their 1987 comeback album. Amidst the assiduous work of writing the Next Big One, a relaxed, almost playful mood prevails throughout the pieces assembled here -- as one might imagine at home demo sessions where one man plays all the parts. It's also true for the numbers that feature special guests, such as the ominously monikered 'Page The Oracle' on lead guitar -- or the singer simply dubbed, 'Guest' -- no doubt a safe alias for a hot young Bunnyman rising to his commercial peak in those halcyon days."
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LP
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PD 041LP
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In 1969, both Anthony and David were at the start of their respective careers and both were inspired by the ideas of the avant-garde and the new technologies becoming available to them. David experimented with the various techniques being explored in the medium of film making and Anthony tested the limits of what could be done with tape recorders. It was an open and co-operative exploration. The results of their first collaboration was the film Mare's Tail -- an unusually long 2:30 hour film of non-linear multi layered audio visual collage filmed in a wide variety of locations interspersed with texts coming from readings and talks, Kabalistic texts, recorded phone calls, loops, children's voices and other found material. The musical dimension is mainly supplied by various struck objects/noise/feedback/field recordings and samples. There are instruments too and listeners even get treated to a small section of what was to become a Slapp Happy tune. The blurry dreamscape/nightmare that slowly unfolds is laden with late '60s delirium. The original master tapes are long gone and all that remains is the audio track on existing copies of the film and various bits of the makeup tapes, most of which were used (but some not), in the final cut. The low grade 16mm audio track (a degraded source to begin with) is further worn with age, subsequent duplication and repeated screenings. It all adds to the haze -- a quality that David would have most likely approved. Edition of 500 numbered copies.
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CD
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TO 033-21CD
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Antony Moore: "Touch.40 live at Iklectik. I received an invitation to perform at the 40th anniversary gathering, June 2022. Previous works for the label, 'Arithmetic in the Dark' and 'Isoladrone2020' illuminated the landing strip for a new work. It should be continuous -- a further play on moving and remaining. I wanted to balance the digital output of a CSound orchestra with an analog instrument and chose the Turkish saz, a sound I've loved and lived with for the last six decades. I prepared the ground for the live performance with a graphical interface for CSound and an EBow for the saz (along with some short pre-recordings of picking and strumming). Then, a few days before the concert, I got Covid. On the suggestion of Jon and Mike I recorded a live performance-for-one, (myself at home) which was played back at Iklectik. Unedited, unchanged, here it is."
Three pairs of thin, wire strings on the Turkish saz are struck, and the resulting sound is harmonized, filtered and then sustained in an infinite but gradually shifting chord of harmonics. In addition, an EBow is used to excite the strings in real time. This sound is natural, untreated, and adds layers to the sustained chord. Subsequently, two Csound programs running in parallel are "fed" the natural sound of the saz and the output is heavily affected with filters, resonators, vocoders etc. These sonic gestures are allowed to take over as the original chord fades to leave the more transparent sounds of the Csound outputs. The organum returns with much warmer low end. The saz transformations thin out to leave a keening call. And finally, the last minutes are filled with a deep chord which fades to silence.
Anthony Moore (b. August 1948) is a composer/musician, now based in the UK, formerly professor in Cologne for sound art and music working on the social and technical history of sound. He operates across many genres; ambient drone, musique concrète, electroacoustic, songwriting, and immersive, multi-channel sound installations. He continues to compose, perform and release work on various labels such as Touch, Drag City (Chicago), P-Vine (Tokyo) and others. Anthony Moore conducted a lengthy interview with Julian Cowley for The Wire, which appeared in October 2022 edition.
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LP
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DC 840LP
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"40-plus years since its original release, the pop-punk-new wave inventions of Anthony Moore's Flying Doesn't Help are freshly remastered, blasting the sparkling, angular sounds into today with perfect vitality. After spending the early years of the '70s making experimental music first as a solo artist, then with Slapp Happy and Henry Cow, 1976's OUT sessions had reinvigorated Anthony's youthful love of the naive pop melodies of pop radio, the undeniable excitement of songs. While OUT ultimately went unreleased at the time, the iconoclasm clouding the late '70s air was addictive and transformative for Anthony. England seemed to be roiled as violently as it had been in counter-cultural days a decade earlier; the UK pop charts breathlessly reflected the changing spectrum with equal parts aging hippie and prog delicacies alongside new ascendant sounds: rough-hewn pub and punk rock, plus dub reggae and disco and ska and stiff and krautrock . . . This proved to be an ideal environment for Anthony to make records by exploring, as he puts it, the 'deep connection between minimalism, repetition, working with tape and celluloid and forming the modules of a three minute pop song.' Caught up in a no-holds-barred era, Anthony was more than happy to play the out-of-his-head madman, raving through outrageous exchanges with the press, while 'Judy Get Down' received Single of the Week honors from the NME (with review penned by Brian Eno). Represented by Blackhill Enterprises, Anthony did production work throughout 78-79, on Kevin Ayers' Rainbow Takeaway, Manfred Mann's Earth Band's Angel Station and the first This Heat album, meanwhile cutting his own songs on a dead time deal at Workhouse Studio with engineer/producer Laurie Latham. Through the wee hours of countless nights, the two pieced together Flying Doesn't Help, with a little help from friends (an inspired bunch, including Bob Shilling, Charles Hayward, Chris Slade, Robert Vogel, Festus, Matt Irving, Sam Harley, Bernie Clark, Edwin Cross and Martine Moore on the telephone!) Building upon the axis of pop and experimental impulses that distinguished OUT, and informed further by the raw sensibilities exploding everywhere, Flying Doesn't Help blasts out of the speakers with its own unique blend of sophistication and aggression, Anthony's keyboard flashes between arpeggiations and outright stabs among the noise of slicing guitars, funk basslines and the reverbed blare of the drumkit..."
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LP
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DC 792LP
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2020 reissue. Originally released in 1976. "'Rock and roll was a relief after the rigor of Henry Cow.' That was one of the thoughts in Anthony Moore's brain in the late summer of 1975. Of course, leaving Henry Cow had meant the dissolution of the band he'd founded, Slapp Happy, as the two groups had essentially merged over the previous year. Still, there was plenty yet to do with music, and based on Anthony's propensity for odd left turns, a solo career in the pop world seemed like a fine way to follow up his prior excursions in tape-based modern composition, writing soundtracks for experimental films, avant-pop and experimental rock. Managed and published by Blackhill Enterprises, Anthony signed a solo deal with Virgin -- and while the music he recorded for OUT didn't see release upon completion in 1976 (and wasn't released at all until a CD issue of the late 1990s), we're finally getting those historic recordings for OUT on vinyl after all these years, with the long-lost original artwork restored. It is worth the wait -- an absolute lost chapter from mid-70s, proto-new wave Britain, bringing to mind the bright and subversive sounds of Eno, Wyatt, Ayers, Cale and so many other trail-blazers from that time. A fantastic joy to the ears! The original quality of OUT according to Anthony: folk-rock with weird time signatures. It made sense -- odd bar numbers drifting in and out of sync were a driving aspect of the minimalist records he made for Polydor in '71 and '72, and now, played on piano, they sounded like the beginning of potentially radio-worthy songs. Music was still growing within him -- it had first exploded in a weird, psychic shock that hit around the age of 18, comprised of equal parts youthful heartbreak, drugs and a recognition of the late 60s' decaying zeitgeist. This was the start of a career-long pendulum-swing between opposite poles: experimental and popular music. Never happier than when working with machines and processes, Anthony hadn't really allowed his pure musician self free reign until OUT. For 'the troubadour with Revoxes,' this venture into playing guitar and singing in a professional context was a new thing. But it developed quickly and with the help of a bunch of like-minded studio folk and a hive of artists, writers and friends who revolved around an apartment in West London, the work progressed steadily. From the summer of '75 to spring '76, Anthony was in and out of the studios, along with producer Peter Jenner from Blackhill, working with a cross-section of Britain's finest musicians and engineers at legendary facilities like Abbey Road, Air, and Richard Branson's Oxfordshire getaway, The Manor, to produce the eleven tracks that make up OUT..."
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LP
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LPS 227LP
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2019 reissue. Originally released in 1971. "Pieces From the Cloudland Ballroom is the first solo LP by Anthony Moore, originally on Polydor. It was released in 1971 under the production of Uwe Nettlebeck and featured Anthony Moore on conduction, Ulf Kenklies, Glyn Davenport and Gieske Hof-Helmers on vocals, plus Werner 'Zappa' Diermeier on hi-hat. Moore is best known as a founder of the progressive rock band Slapp Happy but has also written lyrics for Pink Floyd(!) Pure minimalist experimentation with echoes of Richard Young's Advent or even Moondog, done just a month after Faust (who included Werner 'Zappa' Diermeier) recorded their first LP. The missing link between British 'art-rock' and the German 'krautrock' scenes! This reissue is done in collaboration with Anthony Moore himself and comes housed in its original artwork."
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LP
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LPS 228LP
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2019 reissue. Originally released in 1972. "British experimental musician, composer, performer and producer Anthony Moore was a founding member of Slap Happy and has worked with Henry Cow, Kevin Ayers, and Pink Floyd among other great names in the British scene. In 1971 he moved to Hamburg, Germany, and worked in the boiling experimental scene of the city. As a result, two LPs were issued on Polydor Germany in 1971 and 1972, right before forming Slap Happy with old school pal Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause. Secrets of the Blue Bag, Moore's second solo LP, was issued in 1972 but recorded in the Fall of 1971, just a bit before Slap Happy were backed by Faust on the recording sessions of their first album. Anthony Moore was joined by soprano Geeske Hof-Helmers, violinists Toni Sen and Patrick Strub, celloist Rolph Braun and Wolf Schreiber on fagott. The missing link between British 'art-rock' and the German 'krautrock' scenes! This reissue is done in collaboration with Anthony Moore himself and comes housed in its original artwork."
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