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Re: Looper's Essential Listening revisited:



Hi there,

I'll put in a vote for Michael Brook's 1985 album "Hybrid", recorded with 
Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois. As Kim notes, "Cobalt Blue" & "Live at the 
Aquarium" date from 1992. From the 80s, there's also the Captive 
soundtrack (with U2's The Edge & a guest appearance from Sinead O'Connor). 
He's also on Eno's "On Land" and some of Jon Hassell's albums of the early 
80s.

I finally managed to find an old "Sound on Sound" interview, by Mark 
Prendergast, with Michael Brook from June 1990, where he describes his 
working methods as well as discussing the music that would become "Cobalt 
Blue". Some choice quotes :

(Discussing the recording of "Hybrid" in 1985) :
"Well I remember using the Electro Harmonix 16 second digital delay, which 
was pretty radical for that time. You could have 16 seconds of delay and 
play whole phrases on top of each other."

(Discussing his current (1990) equipment) :
"This Bel digital delay line I use live a lot. It produces 13 second loops 
in sync with MIDI, so it's like having a rhythm guitarist who can play for 
13 seconds - that's very important for my live work."

(Discussing the "Infinite Guitar") :
"It's an ordinary guitar that's been modified with added electronic 
components which I built for it ... With the infinite guitar I can play 
longer phrases with a much gentler sound ... If you put a drone on this 
you get an infinitely ringing note, as long as you hold down the string 
... So in reality, what this does is simulate a loud amplifier - it's just 
like having a 200 watt Marshall stack. Then I had the neck scalloped, so I 
could bend the notes like on a sitar. These pedals here are also part of 
the infinite: this is fuzz and these two here are two large volume pedals. 
These are echo volume pedals that I use live, so that I can have the 
guitar repeating and keep the volume just so."

Hope that lot was of interest. I doubt that this interview will be on 
Sound on Sound's web site, as that seems to be mostly from 1994 onwards. 
There may be an interview with him from about the time he recorded "Night 
Song" with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and "Dream" with U Srinivas (about 
1995/6).

- Tony


Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com> wrote [ requesting info about 
Michael Brook, snipped. ]


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