"Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, Evan Parker and Barry Guy split their differences for a music that touches upon both the classic AMM aesthetic and the more (extended) technical language that Parker and Guy often frequent for something that truly supercedes both approaches for something other. Moments of alien stillness laden with the tension that they may soon be interrupted."- Greg Kelly. --- Evan Parker - soprano & tenor saxophones Keith Rowe - guitar, electronics Barry Guy - double bass, electronics Eddie Prévost - percussion --- Recorded at a concert given in London on 3rd September 1984. Artwork designed by Keith Rowe & Myuh Chun.

IRMA is a 1969 experimental opera by artist Tom Phillips.  The score involved 93 random phrases taken from the 1892 novel A Human Document by W.H. Mallock. They were then divided up into sound suggestions, a libretto and staging directions. In 1988 Phillips invited AMM to perform the piece with guests in London's Union Chapel.  "If any work marks the end of the 60's, it is Irma, composed as it was in the twilight months of that decade, and presaging as it did the world of deconstruction to come. The sixties were the years of revolution: there was often as many as thirty three per minute, some of which featured music. Although it is in the tradition of the Romantic Grand Opera, Irma, with its distancing wit, somehow brings them altogether in a potted Dämmerung. Whereas Wagner had failed in is quest for the true Gesamtkunstwerk, in which the arts of music poetry and visual spectacle are brought into balance in a single work, Phillips succeeds triumphantly. In a recording of course we forfeit the visual element, but close attention to the text will enable the listener to imagine the sumptuous scenic effects and opulant mise en scène. To quote A HUTMENT, ‘The Sound in my life enlarges my prison…’ - H.W.K. Collam --- Eddie Prévost / percussionKeith Rowe / guitarJohn Tilbury / piano, radioIan Mitchell / clarinetLol Coxhill / saxophone, vocalsElise Lorraine / vocalsPhil Minton / vocalsTom Phillips / vocals --- Recorded at the Union Chapel, London, 20th May 1988 by Ray Beckett and Phil Mouldycliff (live mix). Artwork by Tom Phillips. Design by Keith Rowe.

A member of the Scratch Orchestra in the 1970's and a contemporary and collaborator of Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars and John White amongst others, Smith has amassed an extensive body of work that draws on a wide range of influences from contemporary composition to Javanese classical and Albanian folk musics. Here, John Tilbury plays a collection of 12 of Smith's brief sonatas, each focusing on a particular musical genre. --- John Tilbury / piano --- Recorded April 1988 in London. --- Tracklisting: 1 - Charleston 3:282 - Maxixe 2:543 - Ramble 4:204 - Dub 2:585 - Mambo 3:236 - Nocturne 4:327 - Bossa Nova 2:568 - Boomerangs 2:529 - Quasi Tambura 4:3310 - Tango 3:0011 - Thelonious 2:3712 - Allegro Barbaro

Recorded live in London's beautiful Union Chapel in 1987. The organic control of sound on this is spectacular - pretty much a must for serious listeners worldwide. --- Eddie  Prévost / percussion Keith Rowe / guitar, electronics John Tilbury / piano Rohan de Saram / cello --- Recorded at the Union Chapel, Islington, London by Ray Beckett on 10th January 1987. Front cover artwork: 'Rousillon - The Other One' by Malcolm LeGrice.

"The music you hear on this DL has a distinct urgency and excitement. It moves forward in a complicated, constantly mutating web of stylistic references to musical precedents within jazz and twetieth century music, overlapped in a restless search for new textures, moods, dynamic interludes, and possible resolutions. Some listeners may feel - as others have done in the past - that sections of the Quartet's music sounds like be-bop heard at a distance or in a dream. There is certainly something in this perception. But the likeness never goes beyond mood or the resemblance of incidental allusion. Perhaps there are changes of the instrument temporarily foregrounded in the ensemble that are reminiscent of devices for handling over solos in jazz, including be-bop.But you need only listen to the rhythmic and harmonic mutations and uncertainties, or to the continuously re-defined relationships the four instruments enter into with one another, to be made aware that the music never becomes stylistic imitation or pastiche" - Alan Durant. --- Larry Stabbins / tenor and soprano saxophones   Veryan Weston / piano   Marcio Mattos / double bass   Eddie Prévost / drums   --- DL re-release of material previously issued as an LP, together with additional music. Part 1 was recorded at the Bracknell Jazz Festival on the 3rd of July, 1983. Part 2 was recorded at Porcupine Studios London by Ted Taylor. Front cover artwork by Simon Picard

Dense, epochal cloud of unknowing. Essential.  "The only possibility is to surrender to the ebb and flow of the pervasive group sound, until, finally you are lost inside it, mesmerised by it. You notice that the detail in the music is fascinating, no less the overall shape of the performance, which remains just out of grasp, like a landscape too powerful to assimilate in its entirety." - Melody Maker  --- Christopher Hobbs & Eddie Prévost / percussion Cornelius Cardew / piano, cello  Lou Gare / saxophone, violin  --- Tracklisting:  1. Like A Cloud Hanging In The Sky? - 45:21 2. Coffin Nor Shelf - 45:36 3. Neither Bill Nor Axe Would Shorten Its Existence - 18:08 --- Recorded at the Crypt, Lancaster Road, London W11, 12th June 1968 by Bob Woolford.

A reissue of what is chronologically the 3rd full AMM album, following AMM:1966 and The Crypt. Recorded during the years of 1973-75, this marks an unusual and little recognized period in the group's history. For about 5 years, Keith Rowe (and his guitar and electronics) had left the group (along with Cornelius Cardew), leaving AMM as a working duo of Eddie Prévost (drums) and Lou Gare (tenor saxophone). That makes this the most jazz-like version of AMM, but as Martin Davidson noted in the original liner notes, this is not jazz; "absolutely nothing (melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo) was predetermined." This DL includes bonus material added to the 1994 CD release.  ---Lou Gare / tenor saxophone Eddie Prévost / drums --- Tracklisting: 1. Unity First - 7:40 2. To Hear - 21:39 3. Back Again - 13:48 4. Kunstmusik - 13:48 5. Duett - 9:18 --- Unity First was recorded at the Unity Theatre, London, on 1st April 1975 by Martin Davidson. To Hear and Back Again (originally released on vinyl) were recorded at West Square Electronic Music Studio, London on 30th November 1974 by Barry Anderson and John Dodd. Kunstmusik and Duett were recorded at the Academie der Kunste, Berlin in June 1973. Recording engineer unknown.

First released as two LPs in 1979 - two recordings of a concert at the Cambridge College of Art and Technoloy on May 19, 1977. "More thank any other music I know of, improvisation puts the musician at the heart of the matter. Face on and with no time for premeditated artifice: technique, dialogue and heurism are put to a fiery test in performance. And, for a musician to comment upon the aesthetic implications of this work also seems to be a dangerous activity. But I for one (even if from time to time I am roved wrong) enjoy the skirmish." - Eddie Prévost, March 1993.  --- Geoff Hawkins / tenor saxophone Gerry Gold / trumpet and flugelhorn Marcio Mattos / double bass Eddie Prévost / drums --- Recorded at a concert organised by Jane and Roger Giddings given at The Mumford Theatre, Cambridge College of Art and Technology on May the 19th, 1977. Mastered By George Peckham. Recorded By Pete Nesbit. Concert Organized By Jane and Roger Giddings All tracks are as the two original LPs except the short piece "Time Immoral", which had to be omitted to fit the CD format. Front cover artwork by Allen Fisher.

..."as I listened more deeply to the recording, I became more and more conscious of the pauses and the offstage noises, and also of the lack of audience response. Many of the cues that improvising musicians respond to were not there. I began to recall the psychology of the event. The vast cavern of the then unmodified Roundhouse - a huge Victorian brick domes building that had previously been a railway turning shed - was (at least for our concert) all but devoid of an audience. In the silences and pregnant pauses that were a characteristic of our performances you can hear doors swinging open and closes, a child's voice echoes in the distance, and there are other indistinguishable human murmuring and nameless isolating clonks. At the end of our performance - nothing. No applause, no cat calls. Merely the sound of empty indifference." - Eddie Prevost.  "Music from half a lifetime ago - that was a very good creative time musically and maybe a new generation will appreciate what we are doing then and are still doing now. Playing with Eddie in that format, just the two of us, was my most rewarding experience after the breakup of the AMM quartet. I could not go back after the freedom of the duo." - Lou Gare.   "Music with unusual qualities… very searching and balanced… no free jazz excursions… just the AMM connection, but with only two acoustic instruments. All about colour and minimal energy. Beautiful! And a very early example of what is later during the 2000´s happening in the world of improvised music and minimal improv…" - Discaholic Corner.  --- Lou Gare / tenor saxophone Eddie Prévost / drums --- Recorded at the International Carnival of Experimental Sound, or ICES 72, held at the Roundhouse. Also released on CD by Anomalour Records in 2003.

'He spoke about music in its pre-cultural state, when song had been a howl across several pitches, [when] musical performances must have had a quality something like free recitation; improvisation. But if one closely examined music, and in particular its most recently achieved stage of development, one noticed the secret desire to return to those conditions.'- Thomas Mann Doctor 'Faustus' 'We are searching for sounds and for the responses that attach to them, rather than thinking them up, preparing them and producing them.'- Cornelius Cardew 'Everywhere, the orthodox systems of our times anticipate the careful and clear presentation of ready-worked-out on-tap outcomes, throughout our lives. Said systems seldom afford focused vantage on the vagaries, protean problems, the awkward wealth, of investigation itself. Generally, the on-goings of development are hidden, edited or simply unseen; what has been developed over time is rendered public, honed for appreciation after the fact, variously knowable, reproducible and endorsable qua final product or record.'- Seymour Wright Percussionist Eddie Prévost co-founded in the 1960s the seminal improvising music ensemble AMM. In this book he presents a very personal philosophy of music informed by his long working practice and inspired by the London weekly improvisation workshop he first convened in 1999. Perhaps controversially, this view is mediated through the developing critical discourse of adaptionism; a perspective grounded in Darwinian conceptions of human nature. Music herein is examined for its cognitive and generative qualities to see how our evolved biological and emergent cultural legacy reflects our needs and dreams. This survey visits ethnomusicology, folk music, jazz, contemporary music and 'world music' as well as focusing upon various forms of improvisation - observing their effect upon human relations and aspirations. However, there are also analytical and ultimately positive suggestions towards future 'metamusical' practices. These mirror and potentially meet the aspirations of a growing community who wish to engage with the world - with all its history and chance conditionals - by applying a free-will in making music that is creative and collegiate.Softcover, 235pp Copula, Harlow, UK, 2011

The only way we have any purchase on the world is by our own actions. And just the thought of the usual strategies for political and cultural response - applying the democratic process - in the face of the overwhelming odds of tradition and existing economic and political power is immobilising. Our activities must be closer to home, closer to our being. To borrow from William Blake: it is in the development of 'the minute particulars' that we have real power. As musicians our power is in how we decide to create sound. Now we place a sound next to another. How we chime with or divert a musical course in dialogue with others - while at the same time developing the structure, the nature and the dynamic of dialogue itself. As an audience too we must decide how we discern and positively support these practical efforts in music-making, and insist upon such aesthetic priorities. If these considerations begin to command our musical lives and even become the basis for musical appreciation and cultural critique, then the power of those who wish to do things to others is challenged by the determination of those who choose to do things with others.Softcover, 178pp Copula, Harlow, UK, 2004

No Sound is Innocent: AMM and the Practice of Self-Invention: Meta-musical Narratives: Essays Softcover, 188pp Copula, Harlow, UK, 1995 an imprint of Matchless Recordings and Publishing    The improvising group AMM was born some 30 years ago [1965], at a time of extraordinary creative ferment and transformational social possibility. Though its history has not been completely smooth, it continues today to pursue a unique sonic course, unswayed either by academic orthodoxy or the conformist pressures of the market. In this book, Eddie Prevost, drummer and a founder member, explores the reasons it came to be, the influences and refusals that have shaped its history, and the potential and the failings not only of the meta-music AMM is committed to, but all music everywhere: classical, jazz, folk, pop and the experimental avant-garde. In a unique series of acute and often moving dissections and meditations, directly modelled on AMM’s attitudes and practices in performances, Prevost examines the meanings of sound itself, giving them aesthetic, social and political dimension. These, together with an outline of the events of the group’s three decades of existence, of alliances and conflicts within the collective, give voice to a radically contrarian but always thoughtful underground strand in present-day music-making, which adherents all over the world, among players and listeners. It will fascinate and perhaps trouble anyone with an interest in modern music’s deeper currents.   The idea of the performer of a written work as technical executor,or as a kind of curator (as Brendel puts it), precludes the possibility of free dialogue. If musical works could be perceived less as marketable or sacred objects, and more as possible views of the world on which to reflect, greater freedom might develop. Eddie Prévost'ss book, with great skill and imagination, provokes the readers into contemplating such questions. -  Piano Journal This is an inspiring, modest and (to use a word that Prévost is not ashamed to use) beautiful book. Nothing in it is more beautiful than his own cry of resistance: ˜I am something other than what you tell me I am' - The Wire One of the most successful attempts to illuminate the aesthetic, social and political aspects of the modus vivendi of improvised music.Dissonanz (Swiss)

Softcover, 242pp Copula, Matchless, 2020    Percussionist, Improviser and AMM founding member Eddie Prévost's fourth book presents a fascinating series of reflections and challenging insights on music in its various forms, and the development of improvised music at the intersection of contemporary compositional and conceptual forms; alongside a personal history of Prevost's life and his relationship with music. "Part personal history, part provocation, here is a compelling book about musical improvisation. But it's also about so much more."-- Ajay Heble, Director, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph  ".... a very different kind of musician's memoir, a provocative and stimulating account in which the founder-member of AMM questions every aspect of his life and purpose in making music."-Richard Williams  "An uncommon voice that weaves together an extraordinary life of musical exploration and trenchant, relentlessly discomfitting observations on improvised musicking, Eddie Prévost's unsettling An Uncommon Music for the Common Man excoriates critical pretense and academic cant while getting at uncomfortable truths about how and why music matters." Daniel Fischin

"AMM music may initially seem impenetrable, but it sure as hell penetrates you. Soon the desired state is instilled in the listener; a rapt vacancy somewhere between supreme concentration and utter absentmindedness." - Melody Maker On AMMMusic, long tones sit next to abrasive thuds, the howl of uncontrolled feedback accompanies Cardew's purposeful piano chords, radios beam in snatches of orchestral music. AMM's clearest break with jazz-based improvisation concerned the idea of individuality. Initially through an engagement with eastern philosophy and mysticism and later though a politicized communitarianism, AMM sought to develop a collective sonic identity in which individual contributions could barely be discerned. In the performances captured on AMMMusic the use of numerous auxiliary instruments and devices, including radios played by three members of the group, contribute to the sensation that the music is composed as a single monolithic object with multiple facets, rather than as an interaction between five distinct voices." - Francis Plagne --- Cornelius Cardew / piano, cello and transistor radio Lou Gare / tenor saxophone and violin  Eddie Prévost / percussion Keith Rowe / electric guitar and transistor radio Lawrence Sheaff / cello, accordian, clarinet and transistor radio --- Recorded on the 8th and 27th June 1966 at Sound Techniques by Harry Davis and Jac Holzman.