Moving On

Paranormal Music Society

Artwork used in cover design: Rudolf Crivici.

What can I say that doesn’t sound like a tired music industry bullshit press-release/publicity kit… or the reminiscing and ravings of an (almost) old man, holding on to his moments of… slowly fading meaning, or relevance….?? So, here I am, once again, trying to write something for the website, late in the evening on the Moving On album, but this time I actually play it, and the perceptions/intuitions come flooding in; it’s many years since I’ve really listened to it, (come to think of it, is many years since I’ve even had a copy of the album!)

I realise that some things can only happen at certain times in one’s life, and ultimately depend upon that perfectly strange, almost incongruous …but fortuitous chemistry of the right combination of individuals … -and there we were; Linsey Pollak, (ex-serious classical clarinet player turned Balkan folk and weird wind instrument player/maker) Blair Greenberg (inveterate dabbler and sometime serious purveyor of world music –tabla, African instruments and electronic tuned percussion, singer-songwriter) and myself (a classically trained misfit/improviser in the process of letting go of the mirage of becoming a straight classical musician in a respectable symphony orchestra) …. and the music came from a shared space of intense, almost child-like play, usually in front of an audience, but often just as creative during the sound-check before a show, or simply getting together and improvising because….because… well, we needed to; the group space we shared, both with each other and our audience was, ….. well, I guess you had to be there, really……

Even though a lot of the material in our shows was totally improvised, we would on occasion get together for a week or so before a tour and work up some repertoire, (so as not to be totally at the mercy of improvising to audience requests) and this album, in part, was the outcome of one of those sessions.
R.C. -21st Feb, 09