Alex Ward's debut release, out on Derek Bailey's Incus! Having first played together at Derek's Company Week in the late 80s, the pair clicked on a punk tip, recorded this, and went on to found trio N.E.W. with with John Edwards, who have also enjoyed fantastic releases on Bo'Weavil & Dancing Wayang.  ---  Tracklisting: 1. 8th & HOW - 6:51 2. 6th & WHY - 6:15 3. 4th & WHO - 5:35 4. DOUBLE TROUBLE - 6:09 5. SHAKIN TONGUES - 10:50 6. SAW & CLARINET - 4:17 7. 1/4 TO 3 - 2:44 8. YA BOO, REEL & RUMBLE - 7:43 9. FIN - 5:23 --- Alex Ward / clarinet, alto saxophone Steve Noble / percussion --- Produced by Derek Bailey & Steve Noble. Post Production by John Haddon. Design by Steve Noble & Karen Brookman. Photos by Anne Clvin & Gerald Wright. Tracks 1 to 3 recorded at HOW studio, 11 March 1989; tracks 4 to 9 recorded at PING PONG studio 1 July 1990.

Inspired by Bailey's duo with Han Bennink, Sonic Pleasure (Marie-Angelique Bueler) and T.H.F Drenching sent a brick-and-dictaphone improvisation they’d recorded in a Liverpool Airport disabled toilet to Bailey. Bailey, impressed by the collage artwork and a Manchester postcode, sent them his number and invited them to play at his house on Downs Road, with a very young Alex Ward and Tony Bevan. Built on the percussive duo of Pleasure and Drenching, what follows is one of the weirdest and most underrated Incus records.  "Recording it was lovely. We just did it more-or-less straight through. I think there was only one tune that we didn't include. Derek was in a good mood, and he'd brought mince pies for everyone since it was coming up to Christmas 2002. Everyone's playing really well, all of us are communicating really well. I was proud that Derek let me come up with the titles and the band name I miss Derek, because I didn't feel at all like I'd finished playing with him.”  -THF Drenching, 2017 “At the launch of the Incus CD Limescale aboard Sybil Madrigal’s Boat-Ting venue on the Thames I heard some punters complain at the back: ‘Where’s Derek? I came to see Derek Bailey and I can’t see or hear him!’ It was difficult to explain that, with Limescale, Derek had found the nirvana he stumbled on in drummer John Stevens’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble: the extinction of the ego in a musical collective. Limescale was built on the foundation of the Bueler–Calton rhythm section as surely as the SME was founded on Stevens (or the Joseph Holbrooke Trio on Oxley), and Derek loved it. So right near the end, he rediscovered the collectivity which he’d enjoyed when he first played free music in London.” –Ben Watson --- Tony Bevan / bass clarinet Alex Ward / clarinet Derek Bailey / guitar Sonic Pleasure / bricks T.H.F Drenching / dictaphone --- Recorded at The Moat Studio, London in December 2002 by Toby Hrycek-Robinson. Layout and design by Karen Brookman-Bailey.

On the phone: What you doing Han? I'm practising. Of course.  Me too.  Listen Han, why don't you record something, post it and I'll play with it and I'll record something and you play with that and we'll see what we've got.  Yes! Great!  And this is what we got. --- Derek Bailey / acoustic & electric guitar Han Bennink / percussion --- Tracklisting: 1. 4'08 2. 1'00 3. 1'19 4. 1'21 5. 2'57 6. 3'14 7. 2.45 8. 1'31 9. 5'57 10. 5'51 11. 4'29 12. 6'49 13. 4'29 --- Recording & artwork uncredited. Han's notes from the CD insert below.  ---

“There was no letter, it was just 45 minutes of him practising, of the music - first he was sending it to me and then I was sending one back. Very simple, like how you answer a letter or send someone a postcard. Like a language. But the idea is you shouldn’t listen to it before hand, you should react to it like you’d react on stage. Of course, you could fake it, but knowing him I know he wouldn’t bother. I played with the machine the right away, the first time, not the first time or the second time because you know certain details and that’s not nice. I was living in a shed at the time. I’d been living in that shed for something like eight years. Almost no electricity, one bulb, no toilet. Very weird circumstances, like Vincent van Gogh [laughs] But I like the countryside, I hate the city. The city is nothing for me, it makes me nervous. So I was in the countryside, ‘writing’ to Derek.” – Han Bennink, 2017. --- Derek Bailey / acoustic & electric guitar Han Bennink / percussion --- Recording & artwork uncredited. Han's notes from the CD insert below.  ---

Released in 1998, this was Bailey's first solo record after the magical number of 7 years - realised after a long period of playing with just about anybody that made sense to him. The artwork for the original CD is just textures in greyscale, the font Times New Roman and on the inside sleeve of there are no notes, just the word 'listen' in lower case. Ken Hollings wrote in The Wire upon its release, "this is the end of a dialogue."  'Takes, Fakes' starts with an abrasive 13 min live recording from a '97 concert and builds through eight gaunt and nuanced acoustic studio cuts, each snipped and selected by Steve Beresford. Once we get to 'Dead She Dances', arguably the keystone track on the record, each miniature starts to make sense as Bailey reads a deathly description of a female from his pal Peter Riley's poetry book 'Distant Point'. By the time he picks up his electric Gibson it feels like the perfect solo release - super raw and with purpose. A gem from '98 for sure. In fact, Brian Olewnick called it the best record of 1998. Oosh.   --- Derek Bailey / guitar --- 1 & 10 from a solo concert recorded by Paul Tyson, September 1997. 2-9 studio recordings by Dave Hunt, produced by Steve Beresford, May 1997.  Post Production by Tony Robinson, and desgin and layout by Karen Brookman.  Acoustic guitar built by German cello maker Henner Hardenberger.  Electric on 10 is a Gibson 175. 

"During March 1986, Han Bennink and I played a short tour of England - eight concerts in seven days. Of the many times we have played together over the past twenty years or so, this was probably my favourite bout. For of these concerts were recorded and this disc is a compilation of five excerpts from these concerts. There is no attempt to disguise the edits but the music is presented as two continuous pieces - the way we usually played each concert." - Derek Bailey.  --- Tracklisting: Melancholy Babes, part 1 - 26:09 Melancholy Babes, part 2 - 30:25 --- Melancholy Babes, part 1 consists of three recordings made by members of the audience at three concerts; by Eddie Klak at Essex University, by Chris Atton at The Carmarthen, Leeds and by Michael Gerson at Soho Poly Theatre, London. At Incus, we feel that the techincal variability which is unavoidable side-effect of this method is more than compensated by their acheivement, unusual in recordings of this kind of music, in capturing something of the atmosphere of what went on. We hope you think so too. Melancholy Babes, part 2 was recorded by Michael Gerson at Bethnal Green Music Library, London, in a more orthodox manner. All the recordings were made between 15-22 March, 1986.  --- Post Production: Michael Gerson and John Haddon Cover Drawing: Anthony Monstrom Design: Karen Brookman  ---

"Since leaving Rio, Cyro has been accepted as one of the world's leading Brazillian percussionists, recording with Paquita de Rivera, Ruben Blades, Astrud Gilberto and lots of people like that. We met in New York while I was living there in the winter of 1982 and first played together at the Ear Inn on Spring St. In the following months we played all kinds of places, occasions which figured prominently among the many musical pleasures I enjoyed during that period. One such occasion, thanks to Bill Laswell, was this recording." - Derek Bailey.  --- Derek Bailey / guitar Cyro Baptista / percussion --- Tracklisting: 1. Toca Joga - 5:32 2. Quanto Tempo - 3:53 3. Polvo - 4:53 4. Rio Branco - 5:21 5. Joca Toca - 3:26 6. Que Horas - 5:02 7. Tondo - 7:04 8. Batida - 4:36 --- Recorded by Martin Bisi in October  1982, New York City. Produced by Adam Skeaping and John Haddon. Design by Karen Brookman. Photos by Eleonora Alberto and Karen Brookman.