We've been trying to coordinate for years but now the People's Republic can announce with huge pleasure that the next guest in our 2018 "International Series" will be an icon of improvisation and avant blues since the 1960s... 

MIKE COOPER [UK/Italy]

SUNDAY 15th April
COMMENCING AT 7.30 P.M. [doors at 7 p.m.]

Mike Cooper has traced a path completely his own for the past 45 years as an international musical explorer, lap steel guitarist, singer, improviser and composer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres. stretching the possibilities of the guitar with an eclectic mix of the many styles he has practiced over the years.
Here's one paragraph from his voluminous biography which gives a hint at the breadth of achievement Mike brings to us: "Returning to the UK in the late 1970’s he began to develop a parallel career and establish himself on the avant-garde and free-improvised music scene, working initially with members of the London Musicians Collective, such as Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, David Toop, Steve Beresford, Max Eastley, Paul Burwell, dancer Jo-Anna Pyne. and vocalist Viv Corringham. With saxophonist Lol Coxhill and drummer Roger Turner, they formed The Recedents, a free improvising trio..."
For us, Mike will be bringing an incarnation of his Spirit Songs project, accompanied by a screening of his own films: "For several years I have been working on a number of song texts which are the result of applying cut-up techniques, similar to those used by William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and British artist Tom Phillips, using two of  Thomas Pynchon’s novels, Gravity’s Rainbow and V, as source materials. Both novels that are set in the years of the second World War, when I was born.
The technique is one of erasure, choosing words at random from a page and stringing them together, leaving out the words in between to make a whole new text with a completely different meaning.
Once the texts are completed I then attempt to perform them as songs but with no pre-conceived form or musical accompaniment. The music, both vocal and instrumental backing, is improvised during the performance rendering each performance unique. I also re-arrange the text sometimes even knitting two or more sets together or leaving out sections."

“Cooper’s music, in any of its forms, seems drunk on the intermingling of folk traditions, searching for a spot between them all that renders the strange familiar and vice versa. He is an improvisatory musician, one who generates his music in sheets, loops, and layers, and he seems to accrete these found-sound albums like a spider spins silk, or a vine grows pumpkins. They just appear, fattened and ripe, the fruits of his memories, travels, and idiosyncrasies.” – Pitchfork.
www-cooparia.com

ALL PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC EVENTS ARE FREE WITH GENEROUS DONATIONS INVITED AND ENCOURAGED

PLEASE RSVP TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS [nickshimmin AT zoho DOT com] ASAP FOR FULL DETAILS AND TO CONFIRM ATTENDANCE EVENT IS BYO

Please bring along any beverages you wish, but no food is allowed. 

PLEASE INVITE FRIENDS OR ANYONE ELSE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED BUT... 
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