Various: Unknown Public 02 - Common Ground

Bear with me here, because my trusty iMac is being decidedly untrusty, and rebooting itself with zero notice. Someone was due to come today to take it away to Apple Hospital, and then it started to behave OK again for a few hours. So now I write on edge from moment to moment, unsure whether I want the stability that might mean the problem has gone, or the crash that would confirm the problem and the recall of the technical medics. But neither rain, nor snow, not heat, nor gloom of night…

This CD was the first in the Unknown Public series that I got after hearing a Mixing It interview with one of the editors — see earlier entry for the full story.

Listening again 17 years later, I hear quite a few interesting ideas, but only a few moments of joy and pleasure. Elizabeth Parker's evocation of whale music is one of them. Recorded at the famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it reminds me of John Cage's Litany for the Whale, which I also love.

There's a John Cage connection as well with my favourite track (must be more) CRISPY by Mel Mercier and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin. Firstly, it's dedicated to Cage, who died just before this CD came out. But I remembered Mel Mercier from his performance in John Cage's Roaratorio at the 1987 Proms. I have a recording of that performance (off air from Radio 3) and in the interval they interviewed Peadhar Mercier, Mel's dad, who also had a part in the Roaratorio. He gave a lovely and warm account of how an Irish musician from the 'traditional' tradition had at first been bewildered by the cacophany of Cage's piece, but had slowly grown to recognise its extraordinary beauty. Very much in keeping with Cage's own inspiration from James Joyce.

Here's a stripped down version of CRISPY I found on YouTube, without Ó Súilleabháin's piano part.

The notes explain that, "The piece originally existed as a purely rhythmic composition by Mel Mercier, and is still performable in that format… Based on tabla rhythms of North Indian classical music, the Indian techniques of repetition, reduction and extension are used throughout". Mercer junior is also an academic ethnomusicologist.

Details of this album at the Unknown Public site Rate Your Music entry for this album