Paradise of Bachelors is proud to present the first artist-sanctioned reissues—and first-ever vinyl reissues—of iconoclastic English-born, Rome-based folk and experimental music legend Mike Cooper’s classic trio of early 1970s avant-folk/rock records: Trout Steel (1970), Places I Know (1971), and The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper (1972). The latter two titles are presented for the very first time as the definitive double album, as Cooper originally intended them to be released.

Listening to Cooper’s recordings retrospectively in sequence reveals a rangy narrative of perennial reinvention from document to document through a playful approach to the deconstruction of “folk” musics and all that gross genre signifier implies and denies. By the time the Rolling Stones invited him to join the band in the early ’60s, and he politely declined (true story; Brian Jones took the gig), he had already progressed far beyond the circumscribed bounds of their early, hip-histrionic Albionic blues. By the time he was rumored to have retired from music in the mid ’70s, disappearing from his home in Southern England into Southern Spain to become a fisherman (an amusing fiction; he suffers from seasickness), he had already moved beyond his heady homebrew of progressive, free jazz-framed songcraft into increasingly less conventionally structured frontiers of open improvisation and later, electronic composition.

The Machine Gun Co. band (named for the 1968 Peter Brötzmann album) coalesced around Cooper’s desire to continue the improvisatory path forged on Trout Steel in a more sustainable manner, with a steady core group of likeminded musicians able to buttress its daring, long-form improvisatory vaults with a bedrock foundation. Peter Eden (Donovan, Bill Fay, Clive Palmer) produced the historic sessions, which veered from the impeccable conceptual folk-rock artistry of Places I Know (as Cooper explains, “the secret of the title of this record is that it was meant as a kind of covers record, or an homage to some musicians and songwriters that I liked at the time, the ‘places’ in the title—I was interested in seeing if I could emulate some other people without actually sounding like them”) to the utterly singular “songmaking” deconstructions of the more radical The Machine Gun Co., wherein the band erects lapidary arrangements reminiscent of Tim Buckley, only to dismantle them into virtuosic passages of Beefheartian free-jazz scree and skronk. According to Cooper:

What was initially planned was a double album, with one record played by the Machine Gun Co. and the other with arrangements by Mike Gibbs and his orchestra. Those two records were conceived as a double album aimed at covering the wide range of music I was interested in and gently leading the listener from the more accessible Places I Know, with its Mike Gibbs arrangements, into the more (for the times) extreme areas of The Machine Gun Co. That never happened, and they were released as two separate records a year apart.

Places I Know/The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper is Paradise of Bachelors’ attempt, two years in the making, to correct this historical oversight and offer this masterpiece as it was designed to be experienced, as an extraordinarily ambitious document spanning Cooper’s song-based and improvisation-based styles of the early 1970s.

+ First-ever artist-sanctioned and vinyl reissue
+ Includes 16 pp. chapbook with an essay by Mike Cooper, lyrics, and never published color photos
+ Available on 150g virgin vinyl as a gatefold 2xLP, in a deluxe limited edition, as well as on gatefold CD and digital formats
+ Vinyl edition includes digital download coupon

www.paradiseofbachelors.com/pob-14

ces I Know/The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper

Places I Know/The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper

Mike Cooper - Places I Know/The Machine Gun Co. : "Paper and Smoke" (1971-72/2014, PoB-14)

Berlioz - Deep In It (GRIGGY's Afters Edit)

G.EDIT004

Free Download

Berlioz - Deep In It (GRIGGY's Afters Edit)

Despues de Las Seis - Agustin Pereyra Lucena

Berlioz - Wash My Sins Away (Border Bootleg)

Independent artist bass music from Toulouse, France.

Identité artistique :

L'univers de Border est marqué par une ambivalence assumée entre le percussif et le mélodique, oscillant entre mainstream et une bass music sombre et borderline. Sa sensibilité à de multiples sonorités et styles a contribué à la constitution d'une identité à la fois personnelle, musicale et cinématographique où peuvent se lier l'esthétique, la mélancolie et la force. 

Since 2018

Abonnez-vous, likez, et ou, partagez pour me soutenir. 
Retrouvez aussi mes autres plateformes :

Soundcloud : iamborder

Instagram : iam.border

YouTube : iamborder

Contact : borderdnb@gmail.com

Berlioz - Wash My Sins Away (Border Bootleg)

Berlioz - Hot - House slowed

Berlioz - Joycelyn's Dance (Fulminate Remix)

Ode to rahsaan - Berlioz (slowed + reverb)

berlioz – joycelyn's dance

A little bit of fun playing with older sounds. Not sure what inspired, maybe some looking back to my early days. None the less, enjoy.

Chord Mess

Tail! [Mae Kane's CatBrained Extended Club Mix]

Joss Moog delivers a 1st EP for the new Ondulé downtempo project.

Joss Moog - Hours In The Morning

Bookings: contact@groovecutz.com
-------------------------------------------
Oldskool Sound. Fresh Energy.

Synonymous with ravey, good-feel grooves, GRIGGY started his production journey during the 2019 pandemic, driven by a passion for the 90’s UK rave scene. With a mission to deliver his oldskool sound infused with fresh, timeless energy, GRIGGY's music captures the essence of classic rave while creating new, unforgettable experiences on the dance floor...