Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman Band
Nyman's album bears all the hallmarks of his distinctive early style. Powerful, propulsive rhythms on bass guitar, strings and keyboards are held in check by bold-as-brass harmonic patterns,...
Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman Band
Purchase product
Nyman's album bears all the hallmarks of his distinctive early style. Powerful, propulsive rhythms on bass guitar, strings and keyboards are held in check by bold-as-brass harmonic patterns,...
About
The first Michael Nyman Band Album originally released in 1981.
Includes first recording of In Re Don Giovanni
Beautifully packaged in a 6 panel digipack and including two limited edition posters of the the original UK and Japanese LP artwork.
Critically acclaimed as Nyman’s groundbreaking record that combined minimalist, experimentalist music and jazz improvisation for the first time, this album has only ever been available on the rarest of long-since deleted vinyl.
Most of the music on Michael Nyman was material from the early films by Peter Greenaway such as “Bird Anthem” (Act Of God) and “Bird List Song” (The Falls). The album also includes his first concert work for the band, “In Re Don Giovanni” which was released as a single on Les Disques du Crepuscule (home of Cabaret Voltaire, Durutti Column and Josef K amongst others) under the title Mozart. The most groundbreaking track on Michael Nyman, however, is “Waltz in F”, a piece Nyman wrote for art students whilst teaching at Trent Polytechnic in 1977, Nyman subsequently commandeering two modern jazz improvisers, Evan Parker and Peter Brotzman, to “destroy” this piece. Ultimately, Parker and Brotzman ended up playing over and around ten separate tracks whilst Nyman and Cunningham mixed in their Waltz.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
April 2012
Nyman's album bears all the hallmarks of his distinctive early style. Powerful, propulsive rhythms on bass guitar, strings and keyboards are held in check by bold-as-brass harmonic patterns, repeated in ever-increasing cycles...It's a wonderful combination of chaos and control, aided by the edgy, raw nature of the performances
13th January 2012
The serio-comic tone helps sustain the music's appeal, compared to the joylessness of much American minimalism: this is music full of affirmative bustle, aware of its lurking pomposity, and not afraid to embrace the free-jazz squawks of Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann on "Waltz".