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Time to celebrate the genius of British composer and music producer David Cunningham (b.1954), otherwise known as The Flying Lizards. For many people their tunes are familiar via their quirky cover versions of “Summertime Blues” and “Money,” the latter of which takes a popular Beatles tune and plays it out in truly economical style, playful, unsettling and still startlingly modern. I love this dismantling of familiar pop music and then rebuilding it with tape loops, deadpan vocals, dub space and conceptual wit. I have huge admiration for the astonishing costs of this production, as he apparently recorded it with a budget of about £5.00, “and a couple of bus tickets.” David’s work outside of the ‘hits’ is very impressive though and a huge influence on my own work. He’s performed with everyone from John Cage to Pan Sonic, produced and recorded bands as varied as This Heat, Sn**ch, and Jayne County and the Electric Chairs, produced music for Peter Greenaway’s films and BBC television, and created simple, mind-blowing sound installations at places like the Tate Britain, ICC Tokyo, and random lifts in apartment buildings. His soundtrack to the Ken McMullen film Ghost Dance (1983) is one of my absolute favourites, and amazingly features Jamie Muir, formerly of King Crimson! And yes, we’ve worked together quite a few times. We first recorded music together in 1995, and went on to perform together in London, Oslo and other places, combining electronics and guitar in wonderful improvisations. And remember, “the recording contains analogue tape distortion, noise and hiss which, besides being unavoidable, at times form an integral part of the music.” Decades later, his minimalist gestures still echo through contemporary music culture. It’s ssential listening for anyone fascinated by the beautiful tension between pop and experiment

Poster for forthcoming shows I'm performing at in Prague, with Eno and Bryars next week, and then Stockhausen and Oliveros in June which is exciting.

Hope to see some of you there then!

Brian Eno

So pleased to hear my sound installation today at Malagola Ravenna as part of their permanent collection. It’s very difficult to capture an 8-channel surround sound work in a little clip, but it offers an idea at least.

The work is entitled ‘Together’ and I wanted to take that single word—spoken, whispered, fractured, overheard—and stretch it across the shifting emotional terrain of our current world. We live in a moment defined as much by distance as by connection, where unity feels essential yet increasingly fragile.

Each iteration of together is stretched, folded, granulated or submerged, sometimes surfacing with clarity, sometimes dissolving into abstract textures. As the layers accumulate, they form a sonic ecology that is both intimate and collective, echoing the precarious balance of community today.

In this space, the word together becomes a chorus of many, a reminder that even in troubling and uncertain times, our connection to one another remains one of the most powerful forces we possess.

It's that time of the month again, with EarSpace episode 35 on Slack City Radio

Slipping between the past, present and future of electronic music, this month I bring you another colourful array of sounds.

There’s beautifully elegiac music from Flin van Hemmen and Anichy & Lyemn, dubbed out beats from Trois-Quarts Taxi-System and Alan & Jan, blasts from the past with Panasonic and Snd, and new sounds from Venetian Snares, Plaid, Aspetuck, Thomas Brinkmann, Ezekiel Honig, Suzanne Ciani and Actress.

Music to dream to, and music to dance to.