BATES, MARTYN & MAX EASTLEY — Songs of Transformation

"All of the songs on this collection were chosen initially by Martyn Bates for the personal, transformative significance that they have worked on his life, in strictly personal terms. The choices were then further selected and pared down correspondingly, in accord with Max Eastley’s maverick musical sensibilities. Max, of course is internationally known as a sound artist working with ‘environmental music’, as the occasional inventor of strange instruments, but mostly as an intrepid explorer of avant garde, free musics. However, before all of this, Max was companion to Donovan Leitch, Hurdy Gurdy Man Mac McCloud, Martin Carthy, John Renbourne etc - being steeped in the folk myths & violent pastoral enviosionings of Ramblin' Jack Elliot, to name but one particular hero. First time around however, Max found himself compelled to break his direct connections with this music, as he felt himself somehow unable to get to the essence of folk music. This time, Max feels he has made that vital connection. Insights gained since those days mean that, for Max, the ''sung-spells'' on this disc were akin to a transformative experience: a surprise, a shock! Max's deep receptivity to folk form underlines and informs this whole project. Importantly, all of the instruments played on this record are purely organic: voices ( of course! ), aeolian harp, Arc : an electro acoustic monochord - and, singing stones: stones of transformation that are in turn pressed into service from raw nature to help shape and recontexturalise the fluid character of these archaic, transformative folk-song forms – into something both personal and transpersonal."
[label info]


www.musicamaximamagnetica.com