Se conoscete gli Akron/Family dovreste già immaginare di che pasta è fatto Miles Cooper Seaton, che della band californiana è stato il leader fondatore. Miles si è fatto portavoce negli anni di certe qualità mistiche della tradizione musicale americana mescolate con un gusto freak e punk tra improvvisazione, folk e ambient. Arriva giovedì 14 aprile a Palazzo Pepoli, ospite di ArtRockMuseum, per presentare in anteprima assoluta il suo album solista Phases in Exile, realizzato in collaborazione con la super band psichedelica C+C=Maxigross, IL collettivo musicale che ha preso forma nel 2009 in una baita sui monti della Lessinia, fra le province di Verona e Trento.

Per arrivare preparati ci siamo fatti mandare da entrambi un una playlist di pezzi che hanno segnato il loro stile. Godetevela.

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Miles Cooper Seaton

It’s always a challenge for me to make lists of “songs”. The format often feels impatient and aggressive – while I was compiling this list I was reminded of this as I looked at my listening habits and found that almost everything I return to with regularity are pieces at least 15 minutes in length. So, fuck it – here’s what I came up with! Baci!

Gavin Bryars – Jesus’ blood never failed me yet
This piece always brings tears to my eyes. As the piece develops, the arrangement to build in density and volume but never feels the need to be more musically “avant garde” in some text book alienating way is moving both as a piece of music and also as a study in restraint.

 

Lucrecia Dalt – Mirage
A master of the VIBE. Of patience. Of restraint. The whole thing sneaks up on you, and before you know it, you’re underwater.

 

John Coltrane – Alabama
It should be obvious that to pick a “song” from John Coltrane is like a joke. But – Alabama is one of the most beautiful and heart-breaking pieces of music on earth. Every single time I listen to it I cry. Every single time. The piece was written in response to the bombing (by a white supremacist group called the Ku Klux Klan) of the 16th street baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 that killed 4 girls.

 

Francis Bebey – Bissau
Francis Bebey’s has been a major influence on me these last years. The music on this record is based around the kalimba or thumb piano. The rhythms are incredible and addictive.. But it’s the singing that really stands out. The strange overtones and harmonics are the absolute focus. Totally unique. I was very inspired by this song when I improvised the vocals on the song “Persona” from Phases in Exile.

 

Crass – Systematic Death
I would really prefer to put the entire album (“Penis Envy”) on this list. This band, this music, and this record absolutely and completely altered the course of my life and my thinking. It is not only incredibly sonically forward thinking, the words taught me about feminism and about the way that our social paradigms and the violence they engender are damaging to the fiber of our humanity. Totally critical messaging for the young and uninitiated!

 

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C+C=Maxigross

 
Captain Beefheart – Moonlight On Vermont
Riff blues decomposti come se fosse pittura cubista.

 

Neil Young – Will to Love
Un pezzone “normale” in rappresentanza della forma canzone strofa/ritornello/strofa. Registrata davanti a un camino come tutti i nostri dischi, con lo scoppiettio che rientra nei microfoni e riscalda un po’ il cuore.

 

Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me (ft. Kendrick Lamar)
Ascoltare questo “hip hop” evoluto e futuristico ha sicuramente ampliato molte nostre prospettive.

 

Pharoah Sanders – Heart is a Melody of Time
Nel titolo tutto c’è tutto quello che ci dovrebbe bastare.

 

Tony Conrad – From the Side of the Machine
Un omaggio dovuto al re dei droni che è appena scomparso con questo brano tratto da un discone suonato con i Faust, mica gente a caso. Drone music e Kraut sono sicuramente due mondi che ci stanno ispirando molto.