For many years now i’ve been following the output of Joseph Kramer and Noé Cuéllar’s experimental duo Coppice. Their music is not only difficult to categorise, utilising a vast array of appropriated, re-purposed, handmade and/or otherwise kludged bits of elaborate mechanical paraphernalia, but also impossible to predict. ‘Frictional’ is a word that would once have gone some way to characterising the basis of their sonic palette, but over the last few years the range and nature of the sounds they’ve employed has expanded to the point that, if you weren’t told what was being used, it would be nigh-impossible to work out. And Coppice (not unlike Matmos) have always been supremely good at detailing the appliances they wield, testifying to the sense of pride the duo has in them, and in the case of their latest release, a 30-minute album titled Surreal Air Fortress, the list of ‘instruments’ is typically eclectic, including a ‘reconstituted copper plate’, a ‘barbed object’, ‘pining object’ and ‘dead air object’, a ‘Prepared pump organ’, a ‘fake Leslie Cabinet’ and ‘fake Rhodes’, a ‘modified boombox’ and some ‘no-kink corrugated tubing’. Such a variety of sources points to either the kind of pell-mell whimsy where random things are thrown together, or to a fastidious, considered approach to the juxtaposition of elements. i think there’s a bit of both, actually – even at their most austere, Coppice display more than a trace of caprice – though overall it’s the apparent care taken in the creation of their music that’s most evident and consistently impressive.
Even making allowances for Coppice’s unpredictability, Surreal Air Fortress came as a genuine surprise. There are words! They sing!! Described by Cuéllar and Kramer as “songs for physical modelling and modular syntheses”, the essence of the two tracks on the album undeniably fits within an expanded notion of ‘song’. Each takes the form of a triptych, only the first of which, Privacy and Difference, contains words. The opening section establishes a paradigm for the whole album, specifically an intriguing lack of clarity about whether it’s the duo or their apparatus that’s the driving force, making most of the decisions. Indeed, ‘decisions’ may not really be the best word, as one of the key attributes of Surreal Air Fortress overall is incidentality: a strong sense that the collection of pulsed episodes we pass through – to call them ‘beats’ would be absurd, and even describing the music as ‘rhythmic’ is stretching a point – have emerged inadvertently as a by-product of the literal machinations of the equipment. Read more
North of North is a trio project in which Pateras and Veltheim are joined by trumpeter Scott Tinkler, and their latest self-titled album, released a couple of months back on the trio’s own label _offcompass_, is a three-part improvised journey called Church Of All Nations. Where improvisation is concerned, there’s an important distinction to be made between short-term and long-term perspectives. The most interesting improvisations i’ve heard don’t simply pay equal attention to both these perspectives, but unfold in such a way as to keep throwing emphasis on one such that our understanding of the other is enriched. The effect on the listener is akin to cinematic zooms and panning, pushing in to scrutinise filigree surface details, pulling out to reveal their broader context. As far as Church Of All Nations is concerned there’s an immediate hint, even before listening, that long-term considerations have been borne in mind, since the three parts are presented in the non-sequential order 1-3-2, an interesting decision that perhaps says something about the overall tone and content of the piece. 
From the lofty architecture of Sentralen, day two of the 
The extent to which contemporary music is well-represented in ‘the provinces’ of the UK, away from major cities, is extremely variable and in the case of Cornwall it’s not really pushing a point to describe it as being almost non-existent. Kevos (Cornish for ‘contemporary’), a six-piece ensemble formed in 2016 by Patrick Bailey (who directs the group) and dedicated to new music, is therefore not merely an honourable exception to the rule, but something altogether more rare and vital. Nominally based in Truro, in the middle of Cornwall, Kevos take a peripatetic approach to their concerts, performing as far afield as Newlyn to the west, Falmouth to the east and the lovely 
A couple of performances of my work are coming up soon. Most imminently is the #EarBox series of art and music performances organised by the University of Kent. Their next event features my 2012 ambient work 
