Thursday, July 20, 2006

Greg Malcolm news/concerts
21.7.2006

I haven’t updated for a while but here’s a burst of news.
In a few days I head to Norway for a 3-week tour, which also includes dates in Sweden. I’ll post the itinerary below. I want to thank Per Gisle from apartment records http://www.apartmentrecords.com/ for his help in organising this tour. Thanks also to Mattias Nilsson from http://www.kningdisk.com/ for organizing the shows in Sweden
Excellent!

28/29: Safe as Milk festival haugesund http://www.safe-as-milk.org/
Wed 2: Bergen Klubb Pilota http://www.pilota.fm/indeksside.htm
Fri 4: Stavanger www.touscene.com
Tue 8: Oslo, BLÅ:four solo guitar performances with Ivar Grydeland / Anders Hana /Ketil Gutvik
Fri 11/8 , Stockholm Ugglan with Voice of the Seven Woods
Sat12/8, Göteborg Kulturhuset Underjorden with Voice of the Seven Woods
http://www.kningdisk.com/
Sun 13: Oslo, Sound of MU




I recently released Hung on Campbell Kneale's label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon . It’s a lovely wee CD and here are some links where you can read a review of Hung or buy it. http://www.vitalweekly.net/532.html

GREG MALCOLM - HUNG (CD by Celebrate Psi Phenomenon)
Since with the last review of a Greg Malcolm solo record, you must be aware
that his solo concert at Extrapool in 2003 was one of my all time favorite
concerts and it's not necessary to repeat that again. 'Hung' is his latest
solo CD. Greg Malcolm plays three guitars at the same time, one with his
hands, and two with his feet. He added some extra strings to his hand held
guitar, contact microphones, but also springs and bells attached to the
guitar on the floor and thus becomes an one man orchestra. The pieces he
plays are improvised on the spot. Its not easy to describe the music of Greg
Malcolm, if you never heard it. Perhaps as always, it doesn't entirely
justify the music. Malcolm strum, plucks the guitar, and bangs out a simple
rhythm. Sometimes he add a small motor device or an e-bow to form more solid
backdrop, but that's not part of the normal routine. The results are always
spacious, free floating tones, that create an intimate atmosphere. Unlike
the previous release, the tracks are shorter here, each creating it's own
biotop and time seems to come to a virtual stand still. Solemnly, slowed
down, but never pathetic or doom loaded, this is just 'simple' played
beauty. Great CD. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cpsip.co.nz

http://www.volcanictongue.com/artist.php?art=Greg%20Malcolm

Brand new album on Campbell Kneale's imprint for one of the Southern
hemisphere's most radically beautiful six string stylists. All-live
recording - no over-dubs - featuring Malcolm on two modified guitars and
percussion played with his feet. Moves from beautiful almost-silent gamelan
sonorities that generate beautiful cylindrical tones through moments of
Mazzacane/Langille-styled midnight apocalypse, wildly skewed post-Bailey
percussive scrabble and those always-amazing post-Ostrich guitar stylings
that sounds like the sun slowly breaking over the roofs of the Lower East
Side sometime in late 65. Highly recommended.



http://foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/review_detail.php?id=1438

Artist: Greg Malcolm
Album: Hung
Label: Celebrate/Psi/Phenomenon
Rating:


New Zealander Greg Malcolm elopes with his guitars from the growing crowd of
Fahey milkers and embarks for gamelan temples and places further afield
(craning his neck beyond the clouds for a glimpse of Bailey's spirit?).
While the sullen bell-like chimes and scrawls that constitute a fair bit of
"Hung" recall Japanese string pluckers Taku Sugimoto and Tetuzi Akiyama,
"Glow" is gonna make you hug your nearest and pissed with a Richard Youngs
style lament. A definite heart stopper. That these hymnals are produced
through multiple guitar performances (one at his side, feet and lap, each
mutated by Malcolm's own hand) with no processing or effects is all the more
impressive. Like a diamond pool full of shimmer and glitter - absolutely and
hauntingly beautiful.- Spencer Grady

https://aquariusrecords.org/cat/experimental34.html

MALCOLM, GREG Hung (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
We raved about Malcolm's most recent lp not too long ago, Swimming In It, a
lovely disc of neo-Appalachian Fahey worship. More of that steel string
swoon and twang we love so much. But it seems like Malcolm realized that
maybe this whole modern Appalachia movement was getting a bit crowded,
especially for someone with Malcolm's experimental tendencies, so he took
his guitar, actually his guitars plural, and struck out on his own to make
the singularly strange and absolutely lovely Hung. Released on fellow New
Zealander Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, Hung is a series
of solo simultaneously played multiple guitar performances. Did you get
that? Multiple guitars, all played at once by the same player. No processing
or effects, just a bunch of guitars. Some contact mic-ed, some with extra
strings and springs and things, one at his side, one at his feet, one in his
lap. And wow is this strange and beautiful. From the opening track of
chiming twinkling melodies with the guitars somehow sounding just like
bells, to the percussive pluck of "Drops" with the guitar sounding like a
marimba, a spare and spacious slow motion meander, to the raga-like "The
Bells" with one guitar offering up a sitar like buzz, one acting as a sort
of scraping percussion, while the other shimmers and glistens. Other tracks
sound like clangy and clanky mechanical music, others like washed out indie
jangle and strum, while others are almost doomlike in their acoustic
dirginess. There's even a Steve Lacy cover, totally and wonderfully
transformed. Absolutely amazing, must be a wonder to see these pieces
performed live too...
"
In other news I have been busy with my first exhibition at the High st Gallery in Christchurch . http://www.hsp.org.nz/index.php?PageID=22&Exhibition=87
Malcontent...if your interested here is a link to a review at Artbash http://www.artbash.co.nz/display.asp?thread_number=668


Oh well signing out now..got to get ready for my travels
See you
greg