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Cheap At Half The Price
''Cheap at Half the Price'' is a 1983 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was Frith's fifth solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on the Residents' Ralph record label. It was the third of three solo albums Frith made for the label. ''Cheap at Half the Price'' was recorded by Frith at his home in New York City on a 4-track machine. He played all the instruments himself, with the exception of bass guitar on two tracks, and drums, for which he used tapes and samples previously recorded by other drummers. The record differed from Frith's previous experimental albums in that it consisted largely of pop-like songs, and he sang for the first time. The LP's release in 1983 caused a stir in progressive circles because of its "apparent simplicity" and its departure from the experimental music Frith had become known for. But a remastered version of the album released on CD in 2004 was better received by critics, who ...
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Fred Frith
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre, and Skeleton Crew. He has collaborated with a number of prominent musicians, including Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, the Residents, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Mike Patton, Lars Hollmer, Bill Laswell, Iva Bittová, Jad Fair, Kramer, the ARTE Quartett, and Bob Ostertag. He has also composed several long works, including ''Traffic Continues'' (1996, performed 1998 by Frith and Ensemble Modern) and ''Freedom in Fragments'' (1993, performed 1999 by Rova Saxophone Quartet). Frith produces most of his own music, and has also produced many albums by other musicians, including Curlew, the Muffins, Etron Fou Leloublan, and Orthotonics. He is the subjec ...
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Pop Music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. '' Rock'' and ''pop'' music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which ''pop'' became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is considered to be pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other st ...
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Samla Mammas Manna
Samla Mammas Manna was a Swedish progressive rock band often characterized by virtuosic musicianship, circus references and silly humour, similar in many ways to the song-writing style of Frank Zappa. They were one of the founding members of the Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement in the late 1970s. In 1979 they were Fred Frith's backing band on his solo album, '' Gravity'' (1980). Musically, they bore a resemblance to the Canterbury scene. The original line-up was Lars Hollmer (keyboards), Hasse Bruniusson (drums), Lars Krantz (bass) and Henrik Öberg (percussion). For ''Måltid'', jazz fusion guitarist Coste Apetrea joined the group. They were on the fringe of the Swedish political "progg" movement, although their lyrics were humorous and not explicitly political. The title of the album ''Klossa Knapitatet'' is a play on the Swedish phrase ''krossa kapitalet'', a common slogan in the 1970s that means "crush the capital", and also the title of a seminal progg song by Blå T ...
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The Muffins
The Muffins were an American Maryland-based progressive rock/ avant-jazz group. They were formed in Washington, DC in the early 1970s and recorded four albums before disbanding in 1981. In 1998 the group reformed and recorded a further five albums and a DVD. The Muffins played at Symphony Space on Broadway in NYC with Marion Brown in 1979, and also performed at a number of festivals, starting with the ZU Manifestival in New York City in 1978, The Villa Celimontana festival in Rome, Italy in 2000, two appearances at Progday in 2001 and 2002, NEARfest in 2005, and the "Rock in Opposition" festival in France in 2009. In 2010, The Muffins headlined at Progday, making a third appearance at this long running festival. The Muffins are largely an instrumental band inspired and influenced by avant-garde jazz, progressive rock, 20th-century music, and the English Canterbury scene. They work in an "underground genre" '' Perfect Sound Forever'' called "the avant-garde side of latter-day US ...
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Fred Maher
Frederick J. Maher is an American drummer, music programmer and record producer. He was a member of the bands Massacre (1980–81), the Dance, Material, Scritti Politti, and has recorded and toured with Lou Reed. In 1984 he released ''Basic'', an instrumental collaboration album with ex-Voidoids guitarist Robert Quine. Maher's credits as a producer include Lou Reed's ''New York'' (1989), Trip Shakespeare's ''Across the Universe'' (1990), Matthew Sweet's ''Girlfriend'' (1991), Information Society's self-titled album (1988, which achieved platinum sales status), their 1990 album ''Hack'', and a track on 1997's '' Don't Be Afraid''. Maher co-produced Lloyd Cole's self-titled debut solo album. Maher regularly works as a studio drummer, and he has often collaborated with entertainment producer Ron Baldwin. Discography Solo * ''Basic'' (1984, with Robert Quine Robert Wolfe Quine (December 30, 1942 – May 31, 2004) was an American guitarist. A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine ...
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Aksak Maboul
Aksak Maboul are a Belgian avant-rock band founded in 1977 by Marc Hollander with Vincent Kenis, and now revolving around Hollander and Véronique Vincent. Aksak Maboul hasn't stopped changing shape and form throughout its existence (the only permanent member being its initiator), exploring diverse musical styles with their own aesthetic approach. Aksak Maboul started out with two studio albums, ''Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine'' (1977) and ''Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits'' (1980), the latter with ex-Henry Cow members Chris Cutler and Fred Frith. They were also active in the Rock in Opposition movement in 1979. Around the mid-1980s, Aksak Maboul went into a 30-year hiatus, during which Marc Hollander fully devoted himself to his Crammed Discs label, before resuming his activities as a musician in 2014 by working on the unfinished third Aksak Maboul album, ''Ex-Futur Album'' (by Véronique Vincent & Aksak Maboul), that had been written and recorded between 1980 and 19 ...
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Massacre (experimental Band)
Massacre was founded in 1980 in New York City by guitarist Fred Frith, bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher as an improvising and experimental rock band. They performed live for just over a year and recorded a studio album, '' Killing Time'' (1981). Frith and Laswell reformed Massacre in 1998 with drummer Charles Hayward, and released four more albums, ''Funny Valentine'' (1998), ''Meltdown'' (2001), '' Lonely Heart'' (2007) and ''Love Me Tender'' (2013). The last three albums were recorded live, the first in London, and the others at European festivals between 1999 and 2008. The BBC described Massacre as "an unholy union of The Shadows, Captain Beefheart, Derek Bailey and Funkadelic". History Guitarist Fred Frith, who was a co-founder of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow, moved to New York City in 1979 after Henry Cow split up. There he met and began performing with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher, both of the jazz ensemble Material. In 1980, ...
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Bill Laswell
William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles. According to music critic Chris Brazier, "Laswell's pet concept is 'collision music' which involves bringing together musicians from wildly divergent but complementary spheres and seeing what comes out." The credo of one record label run by Laswell which typifies much of his work is "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted". Although his bands may be credited under the same name and often feature the same roster of musicians, the styles and themes explored on different albums can vary dramatically. Material began as a noisy dance music band, but later albums concentrated on hip hop, jazz, or spoken word readings by William S. Burroughs. Most versions of the band Praxis have included guitari ...
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Noise (music)
Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a Noise in music, musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music includes a wide range of music genre, musical styles and sound art, sound-based creative practices that feature noise as a primary aspect of music, aspect. Noise music can feature acoustically or electronically generated noise, and both traditional and unconventional musical instruments. It may incorporate live machine sounds, non-musical Vocals#Vocal technique, vocal techniques, physically manipulated audio media, Sound effect, processed sound recordings, field recording, Computer music, computer-generated noise, stochastic process, and other randomly produced electronic signals such as Distortion (music), distortion, Audio feedback, feedback, Noise (radio), static, hiss and hum. There may also be emphasi ...
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Avant-rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with some of the genre's distinguishing characteristics being improvisational performances, avant-garde influences, odd instrumentation, opaque lyrics (or instrumentals), unorthodox structures and rhythms, and an underlying rejection of commercial aspirations. From its inception, rock music was experimental, but it was not until the late 1960s that rock artists began creating extended and complex compositions through advancements in multitrack recording. In 1967, the genre was as commercially viable as pop music, but by 1970, most of its leading players had incapacitated themselves in some form. In Germany, the krautrock subgenre merged elements of improvisation and psychedelic rock with electronic music, avant-garde and contemporary classic ...
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Free Improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its own right. Free improvisation, as a genre of music, developed in the U.S. and Europe in the mid to late 1960s, largely as an outgrowth of free jazz and modern classical musics. Exponents of free improvised music include saxophonists Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Peter Brötzmann, and John Zorn, composer Pauline Oliveros, drummer Christian Lillinger, trombonist George E. Lewis, guitarists Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith and the improvising groups Spontaneous Music Ensemble, The Music Improvisation Company, Iskra 1903, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and AMM. Characteristics In an atonal context, free improvisation refers to where the focus shifts from harmony to other dimensions of music: timbre, melodic intervals, ...
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Speechless (Fred Frith Album)
''Speechless'' is a 1981 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith of the group Henry Cow. It was Frith's third solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on The Residents' Ralph record label. It was the second of three solo albums Frith made for the label. ''Speechless'' was recorded in France, Switzerland and the United States, and featured Frith with French Rock in Opposition group Etron Fou Leloublan on the first side of the LP, and Frith's New York City band Massacre on the second. It is mostly a studio album with extracts from a Massacre concert mixed into four of the tracks on side two of the LP. ''Speechless'' has been described as a mixture of folk music, free improvisation, avant-rock and noise. AllMusic said that it is often regarded as one of Frith's best solo albums. Background and recording ''Speechless'' was the second of a series of three solo albums Frith made for The Residents's record label Ralph Rec ...
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