MIKE COOPER
“The icon of post-everything music” - Lawrence English (::Room40::)
”…. he mines a sort of netherworld of sampled loops and hypnotic rhythms to create a garage sale of music. Let’s call it post space-age folk music.” – (Radio Paradise Review – Is It Jazz?)
“What came across most strongly was Cooper’s openness to all sounds and musics, an openness not always seen in free improvisers. but then there are few that have taken such a unique route as him.” (From Richard Sanderson’s blog)
Welcome to those who already know my music and to those who don’t….I play acoustic and electric lap steel guitar, electronics and I sing. I am an improviser and composer.
“For the past 40 years Mike Cooper has traced a path completely his own as an international musical explorer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres. With his roots lying in acoustic country blues he has, arguably, stretched the possibilities of the guitar even more than his better known contemporaries Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, etc. by pursuing it into the more avant-garde musical areas also occupied by contemporary guitar innovators such as Elliott Sharp, Keith Rowe, Fred Frith and Marc Ribot. with an eclectic mix of the many styles he has practiced over the years. Ranging freely through traditional country blues, folk, original songs, free improvisation, pop songs, exotica, electronic music, electro-acoustic music, and ‘sonic gestural’ playing utilising open tunings and extended techniques.
He is also a soundscape artist; film and video maker and composes and performs live music for classic and contemporary silent films.
His favored instruments – his voice, a vintage 1930’s National tri-cone resophonic guitar and a handmade carbon fibre copy of the same guitar (a gift from the late Allen Timmins) both played acoustically and/or ‘treated’ through a series of digital sampling and looping devices..
He is also a music journalist, writing features for magazines, particularly on Pacific music and musicians, a collector of Hawaiian shirts, runs his own Hipshot record imprint and appears on more records than he can remember.” Happy surfing.
VIDEO
Live in Kuranda 2013 - http://youtu.be/6eKkHDtAqL0
SOUNDCLOUD - http://soundcloud.com/mike-cooper
My YouTube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/cooparia?feature=mhee
VIMEO - https://vimeo.com/user5823267/videos
“Hail the Happy Accident – an Interview with Mike Cooper”
http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/view/1324
Exotica, Ambience and Pacificism – A dialogue with Mike Cooper & Professor Philip Hayward Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor of Research Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia.
http://www.islandresearchph.com/uploads/6/4/0/0/6400760/exotica_ambience_pacificism.pdf
Switching Tracks: Improvising Music for the Screen – A Discussion with Mike Cooper - Prof. Philip Hayward
http://www.screensoundjournal.org/issues/n2/10.%20SSJ%20n2%20Hayward.pdf
PHANTOM ISLANDS by Tam Patton
“There are islands that have been believed to exist, islands which have appeared on maps and have even had expeditions mounted to locate or conquer them, yet they have still evaded our observation. Some are eventually established as imaginary; daemonic. Others are seen only on old maps and charts, disappearing in more modern depictions, dismissed as mistakes. Others still are unsuccessfully sought for decades, and dismissed as fanciful or mythic, and then embarrassingly found in plain view, under another, more familiar name. Mike Cooper is perhaps one of these islands. Born in England in 1942, his 40-plus years of constant re-invention, experimentation and quiet genius in a myriad of musical styles has evaded categorization, perhaps as a side-effect of having been almost completely ignored by history. Encompassing Blues, Folk, Roots music, Electronica, Jazz, Exotica / Lounge, Dance, Noise, Modern Composition or Improvisation (amongst others), Cooper’s expansive remit blasts orthodox categorization into the befuddled librarian’s realm where it belongs.”
‘The Limits of My Language are the Limits of My World’. Wittgenstein.
