Recorded at the much missed Iklectik Arts Lab, this performance is something special. Isa and Eduard at Iklectik were so great, so kind and so welcoming. Paul and I went to check out the venue before this show and there was a quantam computing trio who (I think) were sending code to a quantam computer in the USA which was then feeding back crunchy beats back into the room. It was wild and exciting. We were in.
Paul is a proper artist and nobody else does what he does. It’s a bit Steve Reich, a bit Stockhausen, but it’s all Paul. He told me that he was going to bring a lap steel player and a trumpeter for the gig. OK. Not sure how that will work, but work it did. Proper artist.
Perched behind my usual place behind the merch table, I was entranced by the trio that Paul had pulled together in this beautiful and intimate venue. Seeing Paul taking, integrating and replacing his tape loops from his on-stage stand and feeling the whole fragility of it all! That anything might fuck up at any point! It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen. The confidence it must take to improv using old tech. The beautiful hiss, the wild crossfades, the spectacle of it all. It was a perfect gig, in that it was something I’d never seen before and that the results of his artistry were everlasting.
I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to bring this album to you. In my late night moments, when I’m lying in bed and allowing myself to wonder what the legacy of CiS will be, I think it’s stuff like this. An emotionally pulverising yet gentle and melodic work of art that happened there and then and will never happen again.
I love Paul. He’s super handsome and just a lovely, lovely guy. The fact that he’s a genius artist as well… In the world I imagine (again, in bed, late at night) this stuff would be playing in Sainsbury’s as we wander the aisles. The trumpet and lap steel floating through our lives as we go about our happy, happy lives. When he does a CiS gig, I steal his set lists because even they are works of art. They are up on the wall of the office.
A final word in thanks to Isa and Eduard at Iklectik. The live recording was in my inbox before I was even back up the A1. Paul and Antony did the edits and mastering and here we are. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. It’s really something special.