Here is an extraordinary excavation from the buried history of improvised music, “Cholagogues” is a re-issue of the LP released by the musicians’ collective label Bead in 1977 and, since then, out of stock. The re-mastered album is composed of a single long rack based on a performance at Action Space in London, 1st of April 1977. The performance, reported to be the first and possibly the last of this trio, was recorded by David Toop on a Sony TC164A cassette tape machine and was created with a variety of music instruments and sound producing devices including different kind of flutes, trumpets, whistles, panpipes, drums, cymbals, fiddles, respiratory and vocal sounds, body percussion. Described by Musics’ critic Peter Riley as a prime example of “slow music” (music that shows slowness in its reception, conception and execution) “Cholagogues”, musically speaking, is a very unique affair: alternating ritualistic sparseness with denser moments, mixing hints from various non-European music styles with a minimalist economy of means and a overall sense of playfulness, the record is a lost gem of European improvisation and anticipates not only different styles of experimental music but also some weird rock to come. The CD version of “Cholagogues” has been digitally re-mastered by Dave Hunt with David Toop and comes with a reproduction of the original Lp artwork. (School Map)

BEAD 6