K.LEIMER - 'LAND OF LOOK BEHIND (REMASTERED & EXPANDED)'

Formats

• POL09 - LP

  700261447155

• POL102013 - CD

  885767499881

Details

*CD NOW AVAILABLE* The Land of Look Behind soundtrack returns to vinyl in a remastered and expanded edition that includes a download of three previously unheard and unreleased tracks from the original sessions. Alan Greenberg, who wrote and directed this film documenting the funeral of Bob Marley, provided K. Leimer with location tapes which were used to originate many of the rhythmic patterns for Land of Look Behind. Loops of the monologues and phrases that exhibited more distinctive cadences and pacing, the words, glottal stops, clicks and coughs of witnesses were used as cues for the percussion instruments. In effect, speech became the organizing principle of the musical score. By eliminating the accuracy of click tracks, musicians were prompted to rove through the inconsistent intervals of the voice-derived patterns. Also included is a four-page insert featuring an essay by Paul Dickow. K. Leimer founded Palace of Lights in 1979. Leimer’s early work has recently been reissued by Autumn and RVNG, and his early cassette work is in the critically acclaimed VOD box set American Cassette Culture. Leimer has been actively producing music since the mid 1970s — his current catalog includes seventeen albums plus two collaborative albums with Marc Barreca. Leimer’s work is included in the collection of The British Library.

Tracks

1. Two Voices
2. Confusion In Belief
3. Testimony And Honor
4. The Outpost 5. This Land
6. Gun Court 7. The Cockpit
8. The City Far Below
9. Shettle Wood (digital only)
10. Four Paths (digital only)
11. The Cockpit ? Extended (digital only)

Press

Audio & Video

DEAD SHEERAN - 'DEAD SHEERAN'

Formats

• CASE01 - LP (COLOURED)

  5060446124871

Details

Solitary artist, well versed in the dark side of the Force. One man and a trusty laptop, everything made at home during lockdown season. Like an all star tag team of the Sleaford Mods, Crass and the Cockney Rejects going for it. All influences proudly worn on the sleeve, no apologies. Born from frustration at the state of everything. Don’t like the Tories, don’t trust Labour either...no win situation. Transparent Green. Limited to 300 copies Signed and Numbered

Tracks

Side A
The Fonz
It?s Mental These Days
Things Were Better in the Eighties

Side B
Bled by Science
Mentality Street
Wanking With Tears In My Eyes

Press

Audio & Video

RED LIGHTS - 'S/T'

Formats

• ITR357 - 12"

  759718535716

Details

***“Prior to forming the GUN CLUB, JEFFREY LEE PIERCE (1958-1996) fronted THE RED LIGHTS. While 1980 is viewed as ground zero for Pierce’s career—his autobiography Go Tell The Mountain starts with the founding of the Gun Club—Pierce was active as a rock critic for Slash magazine and had started songwriting years earlier. Throughout the late 1970s, Pierce’s primary musical interests were power pop and reggae. He was the president of the Blondie fan club and had interviewed Burning Spear. So when the Red Lights, Pierce’s first serious attempt at forming a band, started rehearsing it’s unsurprising that power pop (with a hint of reggae) was the group’s musical direction. The Red Lights existed throughout 1978. The lineup for the band’s debut show on July 14, 1978—opening for The Germs and The Middle Class at the Whisky—was Jeffrey Lee Pierce (vocals and guitar), ANNA STATMAN (bass), VITUS MATARÉ (keyboards) and JACK REYNOLDS (drums). Mataré and Reynolds were members of THE LAST; Anna Statman was a contributing writer to Pleasant Gehman’s Lobotomy fanzine. This lineup was short-lived. Mataré dropped out afterwards; Jack Reynolds stuck around a little longer. Thanks to Flipside’s gig reviews, it’s known that the Red Lights played at least two more shows: one at The Arena in Culver City and another one at The Rock Corporation in Van Nuys on August 9, 1978, opening up for The Weasels. By the end of 1978, Pierce had moved to New York City, effectively ending the Red Lights At some point in the second half of 1978, The Red Lights recorded a demo. Little is known about the session. Mataré had already left the band, Statman vaguely remembers recording it. Unfortunately, Jack Reynolds passed away in 2009. The Red Lights were obscure; people familiar with the band were likely committed Gun Club fans. Few were aware that this demo tape existed; those who had a cassette copy likely received it from Pierce directly. Fast forward four decades and what’s surprising about the Red Lights’ material is how advanced Pierce’s songwriting was at 19 years old—the songs’ dynamic range, that voice—this is clearly the Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Again, it’s all here.”—Ryan Leach

Tracks

1. Jungle Book2. Kisses For My President3. Kitty4. Debbie By The Christmas Tree

Press

Demo of pre-Gun Club Jeffrey Lee Pierce band, extremely obscure and rare!? Power-pop from 1978

Audio & Video

THREE POINT CIRCLE - 'LAYERED CONTINGENCIES'

Formats

• PoL05.2020 - CD

  700261481890

Details

The origins of Three Point Circle go back to 1980, when K. Leimer, Marc Barreca, and Steve Peters met for two sparsely-attended shows in Olympia, WA. Some forty years later, they have regrouped as Three Point Circle. Perhaps better described as a process than as a musical group, Three Point Circle has developed a collaborative system that replaces standards of improvisation and authorship with a new, independent, compositional identity removed from the individual habits and traits of the members. Layered Contingencies presents the first results in this quest for uncertainty—five long form pieces of sharp and smooth contrasts taking place in a soundstage of rest, unrest, shallows, and depths that manage to maintain an unpredictable coherence.

Tracks

1. A Disproven Theory
2. Vertical Hold
3. Aurora
4. Unrest
5. The Wyatt Dreams

Press

Debut of ?supergroup? featuring electronic
cult heroes of the ?70s and ?80s K. Leimer
and Marc Barreca

Audio & Video

CCR HEADCLEANER - 'STREET RIFFS'

Formats

• ITR341 - LP

  759718534115

Details

“The Bay Area in 2019 is a fucked up place. I’m living in the shadow of brand new tech tower nursing my beer at the horseshoe bar of Jonell’s, the last of the great TL haunts. I stumbled here past numerous encampments of tired souls driven to the streets by the same people who walk by everyday with brand new air pods and upturned noses, actively disdainful of the people whose problems they have helped create. Despite my disenchantment I can’t shake the ringing in my ears from blasting tunes in my SRO... “Street Riffs, the new album from a band called CCR Headcleaner, who I figured—like everyone else—had left the Bay long ago for greener pastures, maybe somewhere like LA…it turns out these mutants have been slugging it out, trudging through the gutters of the Bay Area since I first heard of them. The live shows were legendary. Fire, walls of noise, Tom Petty covers, guitars played with machetes, acid fueled freakouts, sweaty basement shows and big venue blowouts. Borrowed gear on borrowed time. I even heard the guitar player burned the merch money handed to them in front of a bright eyed young fan who had just purchased the record. “So the cover of Street Riffs, crowded with cranes and construction really conveys the claustrophobic catastrophe of modern city living. And the music! Brash frenetic riffs and primordial thundering rhythms weave in and out of ethereal melodies in a surprising amalgamation of experimental underground and working peoples rock and roll. “I heard these boys enlisted local SF stalwart producer Eric Bauer, aka King Riff, to help clean the walls without changing the paint. And believe me this sucker sounds huge. As I sit here in this bar, a vestige of days gone bye, wondering if I’ll ever clean up my act, I can’t help but find solace in these miscreants fighting the tide of repackaged riffs and bullshit psychedelia. A middle finger to the face of modern rock and roll. These are street riffs.” —Mike Plaid

Tracks

1. Hi Def
2. Half A Tooth
3. Oxygen
4. Office Buildings
5. Star Cry
6. Sweets
7. Hairspray Run
8. Save The Song
9. Cocoon
10. L.A. Street Riff

Press

Audio & Video

KIM SALMON - 'LET'S ALL GET DESTROYED / UNADULTERATED'

Formats

• ITR351 - 7"

Details

***Two brand new songs from SCIENTISTS front man KIM SALMON exclusive to this very limited edition colorvinyl single pressed to coincide with the release of the new book Kim Salmon and the Formula for Grunge. A LAST minute USA RSD title.. we are getting a scant handful.. UK INDIE STORES ONLY 

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'MAN AND BOY: DADA'

Formats

• MNRCD1012 - 2xCDs

  5060099970016

Details

The generously packaged, slip cased 2-CD set contains a four-colour 44-page booklet with complete libretto. Man and Boy: Dada is the first in a triptych of chamber operas written by Nyman with librettist Michael Hastings. It tells the story of the unlikely friendships between the ageing Dadaist artist Kurt Schwitters, who is exiled in war-torn London; a 12-year-old boy called Michael, who shares the artist's obsession with collecting London Transport bus tickets; and Michael's mother, widowed by the war. The recording reunites the cast from the UK premiere performance at the Almeida Theatre in July 2004 – tenor John Graham Hall as Schwitters, William Sheldon as the boy, and soprano Vivian Tierney as the boy's mother. Paul McGrath conducts the Michael Nyman Band. Nyman's identification with the storyline runs deep, for as a child growing up in South Chingford in the 1950s, he hoarded bus tickets as part of a collecting mania that also included cigarette cards, matchbox labels, coins and train numbers. In 2001, Hastings approached Nyman to suggest collaborating on a radio play about a post-war London boy who collected bus tickets. Nyman naturally recognised himself in the main character. But he also had an extra element to contribute to the story line. He had recently returned from Dusseldorf where he saw a Schwitters exhibition and discovered the artist's recurring use of bus tickets in his collages. The fusion of the two characters' mutual fixation leads to a friendship which drives the opera's plot which also reveals the terrible loss suffered by Schwitters as he was forced by the Nazis to leave Germany.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE PIANO SINGS'

Formats

• MNRCD103 - CD

  5060116570472

Details

'The Piano Sings' was the long-awaited first release on the MN Records label. The album features music originally recorded for film soundtracks from 1993 to 2003 including Gattaca, Wonderland, The Diary of Anne Frank, End of the Affair, The Claim, Man with a Movie Camera and The Piano. With their more familiar band and orchestral settings removed, the pieces return to a point echoing their origins. Nyman commented "all of my music starts out as piano music – much of it in song form, so the opportunity to get back to that essence appealed to me, hence the decision to make the album". The album deliberately focuses on the lyrical side of Nyman's piano laying, hence the title. The Piano Sings presents Michael Nyman's most intimate recording to date, neatly encapsulating the qualities that have made his compositions loved by millions of listeners around the world. While the composer's piano playing is a central element of his touring band and a familiar sound to the many people who've bought & loved his albums, this is the first time he has devoted a complete recording to solo piano. While the term "classical crossover" has become akin to a swear word in some quarters, Nyman's music has displayed an ability to reach a mass audience and cross over in the best sense – with no compromise expected on behalf of composer or listener. The Piano Sings is the ideal album for both his large fanbase and the more occasional classical music buyer.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE LIBERTINE'

Formats

• MNRCD104 - CD

  633367058225

Details

Original Soundtrack Music composed by Michael Nyman Performed by the Michael Nyman Orchestra Working alongside director Laurence Dunmore, Nyman has composed the music for his latest film – The Libertine. The film is a version of the celebrated Stephen Jeffreys play and stars Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Samantha Morton. It tells the story of the 17th century Earl of Rochester (Depp), his friendship with King of England Charles II (Malkovich) and his affair with actress Elizabeth Barry (Morton). The Earl of Rochester was a legendary rake of the era and the film has been described as "outrageously sexy". He managed to reconcile being a sensitive poet and a pornographer, was simultaneously a republican and friend of King Charles II and was passionately in love with both his wife and mistress. The film captures the sense of new possibilities at the dawn of the age of enlightenment. Nyman has been fortunate to work with directors who understand that music can add greatly to the overall impact of a film, directors who have allowed the music to have a solid presence in their films rather than simply act as background filler. Director Laurence Dunmore has wanted to work with Michael since he first heard his music in 'A Zed and Two Noughts'. For Nyman, there's a direct link back to his first major soundtrack The Draughtsman's Contract as both films are 17th Century based, visually stunning, comedies of manners. Once again the composer and his long-standing band deliver a stunning score, rich in detail with driving, baroque influenced tunes counter-balanced by a series of haunting, elegiac melodies of the sort that has made Nyman's work familiar to millions.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE DRAUGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT'

Formats

• MNRCD105 - CD

  5060099970030

Details

"The purpose of the Composer's Cut series is to present music from my soundtracks in a state of continuous evolution. As I transferred particular cues from film to concert hall both musical structures changed and performance styles developed, enabling the music, perhaps, to realise its true potential. So these recordings represent the Michael Nyman Band's state-of-performance as of spring 2005." – MN August 2005 Michael Nyman and Peter Greenaway had already collaborated on six experimental films prior to 1982's The Draughtsman's Contract, but it was this film, made with a full cinematic release in mind that brought both director and composer to the attention of the more mainstream film audience. To match the film's 17th century setting, each of the pieces composed for the film took an element of a piece – some quite fragmentary – from English composer Henry Purcell as an inspiration or starting point. While this allowed the music to match the period portrayed, Nyman's use of elements in the Michael Nyman Band such as saxophones and electric bass, instruments that hadn't existed in Purcell's time, along with his own compositional style gave the music a late 20th century modernity that resonated with the audience. The soundtrack became Nyman's first international success in the area of film music and some of the pieces composed for this film remain hugely popular with concert audiences to the present day. As the composer notes in his introduction to the album, the music has altered and expanded in 23 years' of concerts. Most of the musicians in The Michael Nyman Band are long-term members and their knowledge of every element of the music and confidence with the material is reflected in the quality of these performances recorded at Abbey Road Studios in April 2005. The music for The Draughtsman's Contract is familiar to a vast audience who've almost certainly never even seen the film as it has been extensively used in advertising and is among the most frequently played contemporary music on classical radio stations around the world.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'NYMAN/GREENAWAY REVISITED'

Formats

• MNRCD106 - CD

  5060099970047

Details

Nyman/Greenaway revisited is a collection of the most popular music from the five soundtracks provided by the composer for Peter Greenaway's feature films from 1982 – 1991. Music from The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts, Drowning By Numbers, The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover, & Prospero's Books is included. Greenaway & Nyman had a very different relationship from that of most directors/composers, with Greenaway giving Nyman immense scope for the music. Nyman responded in kind with some of the best film music of the last quarter century. The working methods even varied from film to film. While the score of Zed and Two Noughts was composed without the composer even having seen a single frame of the film, the climactic scene of The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover was quite deliberately choreographed to the pre-existing piece Memorial. The music for these films became widely known & hugely influential on a succeeding generation of composers and directors. One of Nyman's most recently completed film scores (for The Libertine) returns the composer to a film with a 17th century setting, with director Laurence Dunmore claiming it was the memory of hearing the music to A Zed and Two Noughts many years ago that led him to commissioning Nyman for this film, while Michael Winterbottom (a director who has also worked extensively with Nyman), used music from The Draughtsman's Contract for his newest film A Cock and Bull Story. This collection of music has also become immensely well known to a wide public audience. Among the most frequently performed contemporary music, whether on classical radio stations, or through use in film, TV programming or advertising use, these pieces are as familiar to a mainstream audience as many contemporary pop and rock songs. Recorded in April 2005 at Abbey Road Studios, this album is the definitive compilation of the music from the Nyman/Greenaway collaboration.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE PIANO'

Formats

• MNRCD107 - CD

  5060099970054

Details

“The purpose of the Composer’s Cut series is to present music from my soundtracks in a state of continuous evolution. As I transferred particular cues from film to concert hall both musical structures changed and performance styles developed, enabling the music, perhaps, to realise its true potential. So these recordings represent the Michael Nyman Band’s state-of-performance as of spring 2005.” – MN August 2005 Michael Nyman’s score for Jane Campion’s 1993 film The Piano is one of the most successful film soundtracks of all time. The film itself won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival in 1993 and went on to win several Oscars at the 1994 Academy Awards. Holly Hunter’s role as Ada the film’s central role was that of an elective mute who chose to communicate via her playing. If having the music feature so prominently in a film was unusual, for the music to additionally convey the dialogue of the main character is unique. The soundtrack of the film went on to become a multi million seller. Perhaps surprisingly for music with such strong ties to its original source many of the pieces from The Piano were subsequently used in a variety of other settings in film, television and advertising making it some of the most performed/frequently heard orchestral music of the last twenty years. The concert suite for The Piano as performed by The Michael Nyman Band also became a staple of the band’s concert repertoire and has been performed all over the world with the composer taking the roles of pianist and conductor. It is this expanded form of the soundtrack that Nyman chose to record as his own definitive edition in Abbey Road studios in April 2005. The piano pieces again form a dialogue, though here the dialogue is purely musical between pianist and orchestra rather having the piano pieces act as speech substitute as they did in the film. The resulting album is a wonderful example of film music transformed to a distinctive stand alone concert work.

Tracks

1. The Heart Asks Pleasure First
2 To the Edge of the Earth
3. A Wild and Distant Shore
4. The Promise
5. Here to There
6. Big My Secret
7. Silver-Fingered Fling
8. Lost and Found
9. The Embrace
10. The Mood That Passes Through You
11. All Imperfect Things
12. The Wounded
13. Dreams of a Journey
14. The Heart Asks Pleasure First/The Promise

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'SIX CELAN SONGS / THE BALLAD OF KASTRIOT REXHEPI'

Formats

• MNRCD108 - CD

  5060116570564

Details

Six Celan Songs/The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi and Acts of Beauty/Exit no Exit are two new recordings that present compelling examples of Nyman's vibrant approach to word-setting, song structure and subject matter. Six Celan Songs/The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi couples two of Michael Nyman's major vocal pieces of 1991 and 2001 and two favoured singers of the composer, Hilary Summers and Sarah Leonard. Six Celan Songs is Michael Nyman's most profound song cycle, composed in 1990 for Ute Lemper. Nyman selected six of Paul Celan's less hermetic texts, accidentally, perhaps, all featuring flower symbolism in a kind of 'negative theology', representing Celan's attempt as a poet to come to terms with the impossibility, according to Adorno, of writing poetry 'after Auschwitz'. The songs, individually and collectively, express both the horror, the emptiness of the writer in exile and are cast in a musical language which attempts to 'reinvent' an imaginary emotional world related to the Romanian background in 1920s Bukovina, where Celan was born. The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi, unlike the Six Celan Songs, deals directly with a war situation – an 18-month- old Kosovan boy left for dead during the Kosovo war, found and re-named by the Serbs and 6 months later reunited with his parents. It is the most recent in Nyman's series of collaborations with visual artists, in this case the American feminist/conceptualist Mary Kelly. Kelly provided the composer with a complex text in a simple ballad form which Nyman brilliantly subverts in his continuous 18-minute piece, written for Sarah Leonard and the Nyman Quartet and first performed surrounded by Kelly's visual representation of the text in the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2001.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'ACTS OF BEAUTY / EXIT NO EXIT'

Formats

• MNRCD109 - CD

  5060116570571

Details

The MN Records catalogue is significantly enriched with a second set of CDs to add to the 6 released in 2005. Two major albums are released on 24 July featuring Nyman’s non-operatic vocal music: Six Celan Songs/The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi and Acts of Beauty/Exit no Exit are new recordings that present compelling examples of Nyman’s vibrant approach to word-setting, song structure and subject matter. The album Acts of Beauty/Exit no Exit couples two world premiere recordings. Acts of Beauty is a song cycle based on miscellaneous texts on beauty from a 1556 text of Vincenzo Cartari, which looks at the measurements of beauty by comparing buttocks to beauty in the urban environment as viewed by Kurt Scwitters and Dzuga Vertov to Martial’s Epigrams on another kind of sexual measurement: the weighing of penis. It presents an entirely different Nyman approach to vocal writing than is found in Six Celan Songs/The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi. Exit no Exit began life as Beckham Crosses, Nyman Scores, a ‘homage’ to the England football team as part of an extended documentary broadcast on BBC Radio 3 to celebrate the end of the World Cup finals in Japan/Korea in 2002. Nyman decided to take extracts from John Motson’s commentary to the England v Argentina match and sample, loop and ‘instrumentalise’ them in the manner of Steve Reich’s Different Trains: translating the loops repeating rhythmic and melodic patterns played without variation. Rewritten for the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company in 2006, John Motson’s voice is now replaced with a bass clarinet which not only imitates the commentator’s highly idiosyncratic speech patterns, but also takes off from these with a concertante part of some virtuosity. A completely new, multi-section closing 10 minutes sequence was written specially for Exit no Exit, premiered on 7 February 2006 at Brighton’s Gardner Arts Centre. ACTS OF BEAUTY: Cristina Zavalloni (soprano) Sentieri Selvaggi Carlo Boccadoro (conductor) EXIT no EXIT - Premiere recording: Andrew Sparling (bass clarinet) Nyman Quartet Music composed by Michael Nyman

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN / WINGATES BAND - 'NYMAN BRASS'

Formats

• MNRCD110 - CD

  5060116570588

Details

The two main sequences on the album are from the scores to The Ogre [Volker Schlondorff, 1996] and The Libertine [Laurence Dunmore, 2005]. The Ogre was never seen in the UK and the soundtrack not released here, so this will be the first time many people will have heard this music. Originally composed for brass ensemble with saxophones, Wingates Band's performance is not hugely different from the original. The album is completed with the Michael Nyman Band classics, In Re Don Giovanni and Chasing sheep is best left to shepherds from The Draughtman's Contract [Peter Greenaway, 1982], where the music sounds very different from the original performances. Michael Nyman says, 'the whole sound-world was transformed. Things like repeated rhythms which I originally gave to piano are punchier, edgier, more dangerous on cornets and trombones.' Wingates Band was formed in 1873 by the members of the Bible Class of Wingates Independent Methodist Church in Westhoughton, Bolton, in response to a challenge from the members of Westhoughton Old Band, which had been in existence since 1858. By the turn of the century, led by legendary 'giant' of the British brass band movement Willaim Rimmer, Wingates had been turned into one of the top bands in the country. In 1906 the Band achieved national fame by winning the 'double': the British Open and the British National Championships. The following year Wingates astounded the brass band world by completing the double again. Michael Nyman described it as 'a privilege' to work with Wingates. Although his music was very different from the kind that the players were used to, he said they 'picked up the style, especially the formality of the music, and it soon sounded second nature to them… I loved the spirit of the playing, the instant dedication and the energy in what is a very new sound world for me.'

Tracks

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Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'LOVE COUNTS: AN OPERA IN TWO ACTS'

Formats

• MNRCD111112 - 2xCDs

  5060116570618

Details

An Opera in two acts composed by Michael Nyman with libretto by Michael Hastings. The generously packaged, slip-cased 2CD set contains a full colour 44-page booklet with complete libretto The tenth release on MN Records, and the second opera recording for the label, Love Counts is a love story between the unlikeliest of couples: Avril, a lecturer in mathematics at a major college who has divorced a man who physically abused her, and Patsy, a middle-weight fighter at the end of his career who cannot read or recognise numbers. Michael Nyman uses Riemenschneider's collection of 371 Bach chorale harmonisations to help Patsy find his voice – they are harmonically fragmented, sped up, slowed down, overlaid with themselves. Just as Dr P, the Alzheimer's suffering protagonist of Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, has 'his' Schumann, so, in Love Counts, Patsy, a parallel sufferer, has 'his' Bach. Award-winning writer Michael Hastings had previously worked with Nyman on the libretto for the opera Man and Boy: Dada, also available on MN Records. Love Counts was commissioned by the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlesruhe, Germany and first performed there on 12th March 2005, directed by Robert Tannenbaum. This is a recording of the Almeida Theatre (London) production of Love Counts where it was performed in July 2006 by the Michael Nyman Band, bass baritone Andrew Slater and soprano Helen Williams, designed by Peter McKintosh and directed by Lindsay Posner. The production received great critical-acclaim with four-star reviews from The Independent, The Times (London) and The Guardian.

Tracks

Act 1 (CD 1)
1. Excuse me. Excuse me.
2. This lah-di-dah dame
3. Wore these my first pro win
4. How much does this bill say?
5. This is a set
6. Patsy, my love
7. Let?s suppose for today

Act 2 (CD 2)
8. They say nothing is secret
9. Forty seven, sixty three
10. It?s for you. Why is it for you?
11. Now, in Hebrew mathematical art
12. You didn?t tell me you did this every morning
13. Instrumental 1
14. You look as though you have lost something
15. Give me my card back!
16. Hello, guv?nor, yes, it?s me
17. Instrumental 2
18. I?ve tried to tell you what I think
19. Instrumental 3
20. I?ve spoken to the guv?nor at the gym
21. There you are? and that tree

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'MOZART 252'

Formats

• MNRCD113 - CD

  5060116570595

Details

Mozart 252 is a 2008 album by Michael Nyman with the Michael Nyman Band, Hilary Summers, and Andrew Slater, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth. Although "Revisiting the Don," one of only two newly written works on the album, was commissioned and performed in 2006, the album's title is a joke on its lateness as an album, released 252 years after Mozart's birth ("it seemed more appropriate to miss the beat by two years"). The album also includes "In Re Don Giovanni," Nyman's first composition for the band, which is based on the first fifteen bars of "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" from Don Giovanni, six selections from Peter Greenaway's film, Drowning by Numbers, in which he was instructed to base the music on the slow movement of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante K. 364, and two duets and an aria from Nyman's television opera, Letters, Riddles and Writs, in this recording featuring bass Andrew Slater as Leopold Mozart and contralto Hilary Summers as Wolfgang. Featuring: The Michael Nyman Band Hillary Summers (contralto) Andrew Slater (bass-baritone)

Tracks

1. In Re Don Giovanni
2. Revisiting the Don
3. Trysting Fields
4. Not Knowing the Ropes [otherwise known as 2M6]
5. Wedding Tango
6. Wheelbarrow Walk
7. Fish Beach
8. Knowing the Ropes
9. O my Dear Papa
10. I am an Unusual Thing
11. Profit and Loss

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - '8 LUST SONGS / SONETTI LUSSURIOSI'

Formats

• MNRCD114 - CD

  5060116572452

Details

Nyman’s music is set to the erotic poems of the 16th century poet Pietro Aretino. The poems were inspired by Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings of couples in various positions of sexual intercourse. The poems and engravings have been called a Renaissance equivalent of the Kama Sutra. They caused huge outrage at the time of publication, banned by the Papal authorities and nearly all copies destroyed. They are the most important erotic texts of the period and have gone on to inspire writers and artists alike for centuries. Marie Angel sings the male and female roles. As Nyman composed the music the words came to life for Marie and the characters revealed themselves to her. Her interpretation is thus not only key but unique, colourful and very entertaining.

Tracks

1. Questo cazzo voglio io
2. Fottiami anima mia
3. Io ?l voglio in cul tu mi perdonerai
4. Tu pur a gambe in collo in cul me l?hai
5. Dammi la lingua
6. Et saria pur una coglioneria
7. Mettimi un dito in cul caro vecchione
8. Apri le coscie, accio ch?io veggia bene

Press

Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'MGV THE PIANO CONCERTO'

Formats

• MNRCD115 - CD

  5060116572889

Details

MGV (Musique à Grand Vitesse) was commissioned by the Lille Festival, France. It was first performed on 26th September 1993 for the inauguration of the TGV North-European line. The rhythm, melody, harmony, motives and texture are constantly changing and is therefore one of the most exciting and inspiring pieces Michael Nyman has written. Leading international choreographer Christopher Wheeldon was gripped by MGV’s energy, dynamism and emotion. He was so inspired that he made new choreography to the music of MGV for The Royal Ballet in 2006. Due to popular demand, the resultant work, DGV (Dance a Grande Vitesse), will be revived by The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, London, on the following dates: 31st January, 6th, 9th, 20th and 21st February 2009. The Piano Concerto is based entirely on material selected from the soundtrack for Jane Campion’s film The Piano. It is a single movement work in four phases. 3 of them feature 18th and 19th century popular Scottish song tunes, which formed the basis of Ada’s music in the film. It is a wonderfully powerful and evocative score and there are planned performances of the Piano Concerto in the UK in 2009.

Tracks

MGV (Musique ? Grand Vitesse)
The Piano Concerto

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DAVID MCALMONT & MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE GLARE'

Formats

• MNRCD116 - CD

  814199010036

Details

David McAlmont’s voice is one of the most praised instruments in British music. He has been favourably compared to Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Philip Bailey and Curtis Mayfield by The Daily Telegraph; The Guardian writes that he is “Both an extraordinary soul singer and one of British pop’s most chameleon-like performers”. As a collaborator he has worked not only with film composers such as Craig Armstrong, David Arnold and now Michael Nyman, but he has also performed and recorded with Courtney Pine, Terence Blanchard, Cyndi Lauper and Guy Barker. Most famously he created two memorable top 40 albums as one half of McAlmont and Butler, a partnership that yielded the unforgettable songs ‘Yes’, ‘You Do’ and ‘Falling’. He has also had success as a songwriter writing for himself and Bernard Butler, and with Gary Clarke, Boo Hewerdine, Tommy D, Pascal Gabriel, Craig Armstrong, Jools Holland; and with David Arnold and Don Black for KD Lang, the song ‘Surrender’ for ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ and more recently for Shirley Bassey. McAlmont and Nyman - The Glare David explores pertinent subjects as varied as 21st century piracy (‘Going to America’), trafficked prostitution in Europe (‘City of Turin’), sexually-charged world leaders (‘In Rai Don Giovanni’), assisted suicide (‘Friendly Fire’), reality television (‘The Glare’), African orphan migration (‘Fever Sticks and Bones’), banking errors (‘Take the Money and Run’) and drug mules (‘In Laos’). David felt strongly that the songs were most effective if written from the first person point of view of the individual characters discovered in the researched reports to create an emotional engagement with the subjects that is lost by the time their stories emerge in the glare of the 24 hour news media. The result is The Glare, one of the most startling, beautiful and extraordinary records of the year.

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MICHAEL NYMAN & MOTION TRIO - 'ACOUSTIC ACCORDIONS'

Formats

• MNRCD117 - CD

  5060211140044

Details

The fusion of Michael Nyman and the Motion Trio was an idea born especially for the 7th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival project originated and realised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London and financially supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of POLSKA! YEAR. Janusz Wojtarowicz (Motion Trio leader) writes: “Michael Nyman’s music has been a part of my musical life for years. The first time I encountered it was in Peter Greenaway’s film “The Draughtsman’s Contract” and I was dazzled. I remember the theme “Chasing Sheep” stayed in my head for many days. Following that, I listened to Michael’s soundtracks to “Drowning by Numbers”, “Prospero’s Books”, “A Zed and Two Noughts”, “The Hairdresser’s Husband” and many others, with equal amazement. I realised then that Nyman’s aesthetic – the exceptional drive and ruggedness of this music, combined with a deep lyricism – is very close to my own and that of Motion Trio as a whole. So when we received the proposition to play some of Michael’s film music with him, I promptly selected and arranged those pieces that I thought would sounds best rendered on three accordions. After this experience, I know that what’s resulted from it is a new kind of sound and I’m not the one whom credit is due for this. 

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'VERTOV SOUNDS'

Formats

• MNRCD118 - CD

  814199010050

Details

“The Michael Nyman Band has never played better than they do here, and the sound quality is excellent. If you only buy one Nyman disc, this is the one to get.” Haskins (American Records Guide) VERTOV SOUNDS the composer’s cut series vol. IV Michael Nyman has now completed scores for the three major films that the pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov made in the late 1920s. To ‘Man with a Movie Camera’ he has added ‘The Eleventh Year’ and ‘A Sixth Part of the World’ and as a unique experiment for MN Records he has created a new Michael Nyman Band work - by making a montage of material from both of the soundtracks into a single, continuous piece which runs for 77 minutes. VERTOV SOUNDS is the fourth release on MN Records as part of the composer’s cut series. "I wrote the score for Man with a Movie Camera in 2002 and now, with A Sixth Part of the World and The Eleventh Year, I am in the privileged position of having written soundtracks for the three major films that Dziga Vertov made at the end of the 1920s and on which his reputation is based in the west. In the same way as I avoided reading Vertov’s background notes to the music he designated for Man with a Movie Camera when I wrote my score, so with A Sixth Part and The Eleventh Year research was deliberately limited and most of my interest seemed to focus on the similarities and differences between those two films and Man with a Movie Camera (and had me musing on an interesting trio of self-borrowers -Handel, Laurence Sterne and Vertov, with whom I have a strong affinity!) My reaction was to Vertov’s images and the process of their organisation - to the two interrelated, but dissimilar worlds that he presented and promoted in these two films. Subsequent research, with the help of Barbara Wurm and other archivists from the Austrian Film Institute (which has released a DVD of the two films with the new soundtracks), has allowed me to appreciate differently the content and the context (both cinematic and political) of these two films. And my discovery of the book ʻLines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties, edited by Yuri Tsivian (2004) has thrown up some wonderful supplementary texts like the critic Izmail Urazovʼs appraisal of A Sixth Part of the World. He writes very powerfully about the musicality of Vertov’s film, which instinctively had influenced my score: ‘Vertov edits sequences like a composer’ That is the cause of the emotion which the film arouses. You cannot relate it; there is no plot, no intensification of the action, but there is an intensification of emotion. Like in music. That is where the emotion comes from. Vertov leads the ʻmelodyʼ, returning to it, playing with dissonances, using the exoticism of the polar snows and the burning hot sands, almost like something beyond sense, almost like a composer using the texture of the sounds. And within Vertov’s sequences there is a rhythm, with which he infects the viewer: ʻa Negress with a child on her back, hammering into your consciousness the tempo and rhythm of the montage of dancing legs, linked to the rhythm of a dance, of the movement of machines…ʼ (Tsivian, p 187) VERTOV SOUNDS represents a very different approach to the way of processing a soundtrack album: since the music for both films is sectional but continuous and, like Vertov, constantly refers back on itself, there are no ʻnamed tracksʼ that can be separated out in the way that, say, ʻChasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherdsʼ from The Draughtsmanʼs Contract has become an independent concert work. So the music for the films is presented as a non-stop montage of alternating sequences (sometimes quite complex in themselves) from each film." Michael Nyman August 2010

Tracks

1. A Sixth Part of the World 1
2. The Eleventh Year 1
3. A Sixth Part of the World 2
4. The Eleventh Year 2
5. A Sixth Part of the World 3
6. The Eleventh Year 3
7. A Sixth Part of the World 4
8. The Eleventh Year 4
9. A Sixth Part of the World 5
10. The Eleventh Year 5

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Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'SANGAM'

Formats

• MNRCD119 - CD

  5060211140068

Details

Sangam – a Hindi word meaning ‘a coming together’ or ‘meeting point’ – is the culmination of a two year musical odyssey by Michael Nyman which began with a month-long visit to India at the end of 2000. Initiated jointly by the Asian Music Circuit and the British Council with support from the Arts Council of England, Nyman’s brief was an exciting but challenging one: to create a ground-breaking collaborative work between a major figure in British contemporary composition and leading Indian musicians, which reflected both the commonalities and the differences between the Western experimental and Indian classical music traditions. Performed by the Michael Nyman Band with U. Shrinivas, Rajan Misra, Sajan Misr, Ritesh Misra, Rajnish Misra, Sanju Sahai, conducted by Michael Nyman.

Tracks

Three Ways of Describing Rain Nyman / Misra
Sawan: First Rain
Rang: Colour of Nature
Dhyan: Meditation

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FIDELIO TRIO - 'MICHAEL NYMAN PIANO TRIOS 1992-2010'

Formats

• MNRCD120 - CD

  5060211140082

Details

Piano Trios 1992-2010 includes the World premiere recordings of Poczatek and The Photography of Chance Presented in a 6 panel digipack with an accompanying 12 page booklet containing extensive notes written by Michael Nyman Poczatek contains five movements derived from the score to the film of the same name including selected extracts from classic Polish feature and documentary films of the 50s, 60s and 70s. The Photography of Chance refers to the re-seeing of industrial reality in early Soviet photography. Aleksandr Rodchenko drew attention to the new type of photographer as someone who photographs ‘facts’ and who is able, through photography, to fight against ‘looking like art’ with high quality examples, and to do this you have to experiment, going as far as the ‘easelisation’ of the photographic art. The work is dedicated to the memory of John Peel, the British radio disc jockey who died during the final stages of its composition. Yellow Beach piano trio is a transfigured version of 'Come Unto These Yellow Sands'. The title Time Will Pronounce is taken from the last lines of Joseph Brodsky’s poem Bosnia Tune which deals with the horror of the unnecessary unacceptable daily deaths in Bosnia during the 1992 (and still in 1993): “Time, whose sharp blood-thirsty quill parts the killed from those who kill, will pronounce the latter tribe as your type”.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'FACING GOYA: AN OPERA IN FOUR ACTS'

Formats

• MNRCD121122 - 2xCDs

  5060211140099

Details

MN Records releases Michael Nyman’s ground-breaking opera Facing Goya, the first- ever opera based on the subject of genetics and cloning, just as his first opera, The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, was the first to use a neurological case study. Written during the media frenzy around the human genome discovery and Dolly the Sheep, this conceptual thriller tracks Goya’s skull – from the artist’s death to its rebirth as a sinister 21st century clone in a Frankenstein experiment designed to genetically engineer genius.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'S/T'

Formats

• MNRCD123 - CD

  5060211140105

Details

The first Michael Nyman Band album originally released in 1981 which includes the premier recording of 'In Re Don Giovanni' this beautifully packaged CD re-issue includes two limited edition posters of the original UK and Japanese LP artwork. Critically acclaimed as Nyman's trailblazing record that combined minimalist, experimentalist music and jazz improvisation for the first time, this album had only ever been available on the rarest of long-since deleted vinyl. Most of the music on Michael Nyman was material from the early films by Peter Greenaway such as "Bird Anthem" (Act Of God) and "Bird List Song" (The Falls). The album also includes his first concert work for the band, "In Re Don Giovanni" which was released as a single on Les Disques du Crepuscule (home of Cabaret Voltaire, Durutti Column and Josef K amongst others) under the title Mozart. The most ground-breaking track on Michael Nyman, however, is Waltz in F, a piece Nyman wrote for art students whilst teaching at Trent Polytechnic in 1977. Nyman subsequently commandeered two modern jazz improvisers, Evan Parker and Peter Brotzman, to "destroy" this piece. Ultimately, Parker and Brotzman ended up playing over and around ten separate tracks whilst Nyman and producer David Cunningham mixed in their Waltz.

Tracks

1. Bird Anthem
2. In Re Don Giovanni
3. Initial Treat/Secondary Treat
4. Waltz
5. Bird List Song
6. M-Work

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BALANESCU QUARTET - 'MICHAEL NYMAN'S STRING QUARTETS 1-3'

Formats

• MNRCD124 - CD

  5060211140129

Details

The classic Balanescu Quartet recordings of Michael Nyman’s String Quartets 1-3 Presented in a 6 panel digipack with an accompanying 12 page booklet containing extensive notes written by Michael Nyman “The three string quartets were not conceived as a series, as they owe their origins to three very different sets of circumstances, however, re-viewing these three quartets together for the Argo/Decca recording, revealed a consistency of compositional approach which quite unwittingly unifies them and sets them distinctively apart from the majority of my other compositions. Each quartet is built around the principle of conflict - not necessarily conflict between the instruments, as is the traditional view of the quartet medium, but more interestingly (since it was not a conscious approach) conflict [or maybe dialogue!] between sets of musical material which appear to be at odds with each other: between the pre-formed and the freely-composed. 'String Quartet No. 1', for instance, the conflict is between two 'found' musical objects, separated both by their cultural origins and by a distance of around 300 years; in 'String Quartet No,2' the apparent contradiction is between strictly-observed South Indian rhythmic systems and a doggedly European sensibility; while 'String Quartet No. 3' bridges the gap between a choral work written in the summer of 1989 and its transformation into a string quartet, partly through a visitation by a number of Romanian folk music fragments. Michael Nyman 2012

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE PIANO SINGS 2'

Formats

• MNRCD131 - CD

  5060211140204

Details

The Piano Sings 2 is the second collection of piano music which Michael Nyman has performed and released on his label, MN Records. It covers a wider range, in terms of both chronology and dynamics, than The Piano Sings (MNRCD103) which launched the label in 2005. It features well-known music from well-known films (The Draughtsman's Contract and The Piano), unknown music from unknown films (Conor McPherson's The Actors and Michael Winterbottom's Everyday) and also music from Enemy Zero (1997) which resurfaced in Michael’s soundtrack for Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera and in his own film NYman with a Movie Camera. The album also contains two compositions which have no connection with film: Sadie's Song (1999) and Through the Only Window (2012). Franklyn from Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland is self-evidently the model for The 7th Visit and is included on this album as a fond memory of The Piano Sings.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'SYMPHONIES No.5 & No.2'

Formats

• MNRCD134 - CD

  5060211140228

Details

Michael Nyman on The Symphonies ‘At the end of 2014 I decided to write a series of 17 or more symphonies, of which around12 are already completed, being worked on and recorded. Since around 1979 the Michael Nyman Band has always been my ‘travelling symphony orchestra’: the instrumentation is somewhat classical (strings, woodwind, brass - with a piano/bass guitar ‘rhythm section’), volume is given through amplification. Equally important was the fact that the Band gave me the opportunity to continue being a performer/ music director and to develop a wider audience that might never knowingly be familiar with the sound of an orchestra. When I have written large-scale compositions for soloists, I did of course use the orchestra, rather than the Band - there are concertos for Gidon Kremer, Elisabeth Chojnacka, Kathryn Stott, the Labeque Sisters, John Harle, Julian Lloyd Webber, Christian Lindberg, and Colin Currie, amongst others, and Musique à Grande Vitesse (MGV) is essentially a large-scale Concerto Grosso for the amplified Michael Nyman Band and unamplified orchestra. However now, the Symphony Series dispenses with amplification and a soloist and allows me to create a greater textural diversity, more sophisticated structures for an audience that is familiar with the concert stage, filled with a large number of acoustic instruments. ‘Symphony No.11: Hillsborough Memorial’ (a kind of transcription of ‘Memorial’ that I wrote for Sarah Leonard and the Michael Nyman Band in the wake of the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985), has already been released on MN Records and now Symphonies Nos. 5 and 2 are presented as the next in the series of the Symphonies. Symphony no. 5. Is based on A Dance He Little Thinks Of plus the 6th movement of String quartet no. 2 (1988) and Ah! Ca Ira from La Traversee de Paris (1989) Symphony no. 2. Is based on the Polish film score Jestem which was reworked to produce Pozcatk, plus Ex Votos Song Cycle and Empresa Cines Merida score

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Audio & Video

MICHAEL NYMAN - 'SYMPHONY NO.11 HILLSBOROUGH MEMORIAL'

Formats

• MNRCD136 - CD

  5060211140242

Details

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING / Commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial 2014 World Premiere Performance September 5th 2014 at Liverpool Cathedral Michael Nyman Symphony No. 11: Hillsborough Memorial. Tribute to the 96 fans of Liverpool Football Club who, after travelling to see their team play at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, tragically lost their lives in 1989 and, following decades of UK Governmental and Police cover-up, justice has only recently been served. Nyman's emotionally charged opening movement respectfully sets the names of the 96 victims to music. This powerful opening section, ‘The Singing of the Names’, is elegantly performed by the Liverpool born mezzo-soprano Kathyrn Rudge. The names of the 96 are included within the booklet notes along with Michael’s own thoughts written especially for this album release. Josep Vicent conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra who perform alongside the Liverpool Youth and Training Choirs. “unspoken, unplayed, unsung, beneath the surface of this Symphony is the history of family pain and my personal anger with the corruption of the Thatcher government and her duplicitous police force.” Michael Nyman © 2014 Testimonies from the World premiere performance Jill Thompson "It was truly moving and incredibly powerful... thank you" Bryan Shearer "An experience we will never forget." Ray Wood "a fitting tribute to the 96...full of reverence and hope." Jane Hughes "a magnificent tribute – so very beautiful. The sections with the soloist and children’s choirs were particularly moving and I know that I was not the only one brought to tears by the whole experience."

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'WAR WORK: 8 SONGS WITH FILM'

Formats

• MNRCD138 - CD

  5060211140266

Details

Taking poetry from the First World War as his inspiration, Nyman has crafted here an eloquent song cycle to film (“a film essay”, as he describes it), presented in two groups of four songs, each preceded by several instrumental movements. The texts were all written by poets who - with the exception of the English artist-poet, David Bomberg - all sadly lost their lives during the First World War. The starting point for the music is the title of a series of poems by French writer, Gaston de Ruyter (shot down on 7th October 1918) - ‘Chansons vielles sur d’autre airs’ (‘Old songs to other tunes’). The ‘chansons vielles’ are the poems by English, French, German and Hungarian poets (mostly sung in their original languages) and the ‘autres airs’ are by English, French, German, Austro-Hungarian, Polish and Italian composers of the 17th and 19th centuries. The film element, edited by Max Pugh, has been designed around footage sourced from French, German and American First World War film archives and the chosen excerpts deliberately focus on material that previous documenters of the First World War have ignored. There is no voice-over so as to allow the potency of the images in combination with the music to take centre stage.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'THE TEMPEST'

Formats

• MNRCD140 - CD

  5060211140297

Details

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare, MN Records is re-releasing a double album containing the two works Michael Nyman wrote around ‘The Tempest’ in the 1990s - ‘Prospero’s Books’ and ‘Noises, Sounds and Sweet Airs'.

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SMITH QUARTET - 'MICHAEL NYMAN'S STRING QUARTETS 5 & 4'

Formats

• MNRCD141 - CD

  5060211140303

Details

Michael Nyman on Quartet No.5 & No.4 String Quartet No. 5 (2011) is the first of my quartets not only to have a subtitle but, more importantly, not to be based on pre-existing musical material. The subtitle ‘Let’s not make a song and dance out of this’ refers to the fact that the piece is made up of movements that could either be considered as songs or dances or not! The first movement may be a dance, the second may be a song, the third a song, the fourth a dance - maybe a tango, the fifth a dance that might be dangerous to dance to, while the sixth movement refers back to both the second and first movements. It was written for The Smith Quartet in 2011 and receives its premier recording on this CD. String Quartet No. 4 was composed in the winter of 1994/5 and, like my first three quartets, is based on pre-existing material. In 1993 I was commissioned by Yohji Yamamoto to write a solo violin work for his autumn fashion show in Paris. The work I composed for Yohji, Yamamoto Perpetuo, is a substantial, virtuosic concert piece in its own right and was written for the Camilli Quartet who gave the first London performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, on 21 April 1995. It is dedicated to the memory of Alan Bush who had a powerful influence on my musical and political world at the Royal Academy of Music between 1961 and 1964, and who died on 31 October 1995. The Smith Quartet: Ian Humphries – violin Risk Koster – violin Nic Pendlebury – viola Deirdre Cooper - cello

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'MCQUEEN OST'

Formats

• MNRCD145 - 2xCDs

  5060211140341

Details

Lionsgate UK release the film documentary of McQueen June 8th, 2018. The film documents the rise from ‘Rags to Riches’ of Lee Alexander McQueen as a selfdescribed “unremarkable” working class boy from East London, he harnessed his demons and went on to become a global one-man fashion brand and one of the most iconic artists of the century. As soon as fellow directors Ian Bonhȏte and Peter Ettedgui began to develop the story of Lee Alexander McQueen as a cinema documentary, it became clear to them there was only one composer for this film. Michael Nyman’s name kept cropping up as they researched Lee’s life; colleagues and friends they interviewed recalled how long nights in his design studio were inevitably accompanied by CDs of Michael’s music, in particular his score for ‘The Piano’ (Lee’s favourite film and soundtrack). They sourced the music from Michael Nyman’s vast output on MN Records and the soundtrack to the film will be released on June 8, to coincide with the theatrical release of the film. Michael Nyman’s music - and its unique connection to Lee - was by their side throughout the edit, leading them, nudging them to explore the myriad emotions provoked by McQueen’s remarkable story. From the raucous iconoclasm of Lee’s early years, to the darker aspects of his character; from the celebration of his life to the tragedy of his death. The Track Dealing for the Sarabande, commissioned by Alexander McQueen in 2006, from Michael Nyman, receives its premiere recording on this album.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'SOUNDTRACKS'

Formats

• MNRCD202 - 3xCDs

  5060211140013

Details

This box set contains 3 CDs that are also available separately on MN Records. The Piano Nyman and Greenaway Revisited The Libertine Michael Nyman's score for Jane Campion's 1993 film The Piano is one of the most successful film soundtracks of all time. The film itself won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 1993 and went on to win several Oscars at the 1994 Academy Awards. The soundtrack of the film went on to become a multi-million seller. Perhaps surprisingly for music with such strong ties to its original source many of the pieces from The Piano were subsequently used in a variety of other settings in film, television and advertising making it some of the most performed/frequently heard orchestral music of the last twenty years. Nyman/Greenaway revisited is a collection of the most popular music from the five soundtracks provided by the composer for Peter Greenaway's feature films from 1982 – 1991. Music from The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts, Drowning By Numbers, The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover, & Prospero's Books is included. Working alongside director Laurence Dunmore, Nyman has composed the music for his latest film – The Libertine. The film is a version of the celebrated Stephen Jeffreys play and stars Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Samantha Morton. It tells the story of the 17th century Earl of Rochester (Depp), his friendship with King of England Charles II (Malkovich) and his affair with actress Elizabeth Barry (Morton).

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'OPERA'

Formats

• MNRCD203 - 4xCDs

  5060211140020

Details

This 4CD Box Set contains albums that are also available separately on MN Records. MNRCD101-2 Man and Boy: Dada – an opera in two acts MNRCD111-2 Love Counts – an opera in two acts Man and Boy: Dada is the first in a triptych of chamber operas written by Nyman with librettist Michael Hastings. It tells the story of the unlikely friendships between the ageing Dadaist artist Kurt Schwitters, who is exiled in war-torn London; a 12-year-old boy called Michael, who shares the artist's obsession with collecting London Transport bus tickets; and Michael's mother, widowed by the war. The recording reunites the cast from the UK premiere performance at the Almeida Theatre in July 2004 – tenor John Graham Hall as Schwitters, William Sheldon as the boy, and soprano Vivian Tierney as the boy's mother. Paul McGrath conducts the Michael Nyman Band. Love Counts is a love story between the unlikeliest of couples: Avril, a lecturer in mathematics at a major college who has divorced a man who physically abused her, and Patsy, a middle-weight fighter at the end of his career who cannot read or recognise numbers.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'COLLECTIONS'

Formats

• MNRCD204 - 3xCDs

  814199010074

Details

Collections is a unique combination of Michael Nyman’s work as a composer, filmmaker and photographer. Available now in a Box set with a luxurious 52 page hard back photo book, a digipack containing a CD, DVD and additional booklet notes written specially by Michael.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'COLLABORATIONS'

Formats

• MNRCD205 - 3xCDs

  5060211140136

Details

This box set contains 3 CDs that are also available separately on MN Records. The Glare Acoustic Accordions Sangam This three disc collection presents three very different modes of collaboration that Michael Nyman has been involved with in recent years. Acoustic Accordions [2009] The collaboration with the Motion Trio simply involved the accordionists 'translating' familiar Nyman music into their personal sound world. “Nyman’s music is so wonderful it even sounds good on the accordion.” (Janusz Wojtarowicz, the Motion Trio) The Glare [2009] With 'The Glare’, the soul singer David McAlmont was encouraged to write his own vocal lines and lyrics to an agreed selection of Nyman’s pre-existing music. “once heard, you’ll want never want to live without it” (Independent on Sunday about The Glare,) Sangam [2012] 'Sangam' presents two compositions that Nyman jointly wrote with musicians from the Indian classical tradition: Khyal singers, Rajan and Sajan Misra and electric mandolinist, U. Shrinivas.

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MICHAEL NYMAN - 'PIANO'

Formats

• MNRCD206 - 3xCDs

  5060211140143

Details

This 3CD Box Set Collection contains three albums of piano-related and 'The Piano'-related music to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nyman's soundtrack to Jane Campion's film. The Piano Sings The Piano MGV / The Piano Concerto “Since I write all my music at the piano, it seemed logical to make this album a personal statement as composer and pianist. Since I deliberately focused on my more song-like material the album title suggested itself” Michael Nyman, about ‘The Piano Sings’

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