Collaboration has been an abiding interest of mine, and I have been involved in numerous, ranging from one-off and short-run, creating a piece for a certain Classwar Karaoke survey, perhaps. Notable here has been AG Davis, Øystein Jørgensen, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Paul Mimlitsch, Ian Linter, Jean Montag, Marcin Tomczak, Russell CJ Duffy, Travis Johnson, Anton Mobin, Ampersand, Paulo Chagas, Sean Reynard and Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt
Anthony Donovan & Clive Graham
Short-lived live electronics duo, with a smattering of releases and live dates to its name, culminating in an appearance at Colour Out of Space, Brighton, UK in 2011. Graham is better-known as one sixth or fifth (depending) of Morphogensis and as the brains behind the great Paradigm Discs label.
Live Improvisations 2011 (DL / Classwar Karaoke / 2015)
Three slices of raw, straight-to-recording-device tabletop improvisation extracted from various locations
https://classwarkaraoke.bandcamp.com/album/anthony-donovan-clive-graham-live-improvisations-2011
Plaited (CDR / Chocolate Monk / choc.315 / Numbered edition of 45 / 2015)
Chocolate Monk label boss, Dylan Nyoukis, says of this release: 'Classwar Karaoke head (Donovan) & Paradigm Disc proprietor (Graham) haven't always seen eye to eye, famously almost coming to blows at a Toru Takemitsu listening party round at Adam Bohman's hovel in the early 2000's. Anthony was a fierce proponent of the oriental whack and wheeze of 'November Steps' while Clive was all about the 'Film Music Volume 7' compilation and its “kitsch to wild avant strings, mad vocals to Mako style psych and electronics.”. A potential skramash was averted when Bohman, ever the diplomat, diffused the situation by performing an impromptu armpit fart rendition of Takemitsu's 'Bad Boy'. So a Decade later, hatchet firmly buried, the two got together to record a burbling set of electro whodunit unprov with Anthony on light synth, electronics, zither and mics while Clive cooks up on electronics and pre recorded tapes.
http://chocolatemonk.co.uk/available.htm
Photo by Clive Graham
Anthony Donovan & JOHN 3:16
Anthony Donovan & JOHN 3:16
Anthony Donovan & JOHN 3:16
A fiercesome mix of sonorous, drowsy Post-Rock, under-the-radar vocalisations and atonal abstract flights, never straying too far from the song-form, with one album release to-date and currently working on a sequel.
Of the Hex and Its Likenesses (CD & DL / Flood Records / 2015)
Over the course of six elegant tracks, Anthony Donovan and Philippe Gerber (the latter here under his established non de plume, JOHN 3:16) conduct the interested-ear through a thematically diverse array of dense, drowsy grooves, melting into passages of gibbering, sinister abstraction, cacophonous voices and hermetic verse, sung and said by Donovan. Synths cackle and sizzle in the gnostic haze; whilst Gerber's trademark sonorous guitar shines, tweaking such scenes to great melodious effect. Lying somewhere between the pivots of Industrial and Noise and something like Post-Rock, Of the Hex and Its Likenesses is never anything less than uncompromisingly experimental in the best sense. Likely to appeal to fans of Nick Cave, Coil and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
floodsounds.tumblr.com
www.tunecore.co.jp/artist/AnthonyDonovanJOHN316
www.future-music.co.jp/info_001.html
Excerpt here: https://john316.bandcamp.com/album/of-the-hex-and-its-likenesses-flood-records
A fiercesome mix of sonorous, drowsy Post-Rock, under-the-radar vocalisations and atonal abstract flights, never straying too far from the song-form, with one album release to-date and currently working on a sequel.
Of the Hex and Its Likenesses (CD & DL / Flood Records / 2015)
Over the course of six elegant tracks, Anthony Donovan and Philippe Gerber (the latter here under his established non de plume, JOHN 3:16) conduct the interested-ear through a thematically diverse array of dense, drowsy grooves, melting into passages of gibbering, sinister abstraction, cacophonous voices and hermetic verse, sung and said by Donovan. Synths cackle and sizzle in the gnostic haze; whilst Gerber's trademark sonorous guitar shines, tweaking such scenes to great melodious effect. Lying somewhere between the pivots of Industrial and Noise and something like Post-Rock, Of the Hex and Its Likenesses is never anything less than uncompromisingly experimental in the best sense. Likely to appeal to fans of Nick Cave, Coil and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
floodsounds.tumblr.com
www.tunecore.co.jp/artist/AnthonyDonovanJOHN316
www.future-music.co.jp/info_001.html
Excerpt here: https://john316.bandcamp.com/album/of-the-hex-and-its-likenesses-flood-records
A fiercesome mix of sonorous, drowsy Post-Rock, under-the-radar vocalisations and atonal abstract flights, never straying too far from the song-form, with one album release to-date and currently working on a sequel.
Of the Hex and Its Likenesses (CD & DL / Flood Records / 2015)
Over the course of six elegant tracks, Anthony Donovan and Philippe Gerber (the latter here under his established non de plume, JOHN 3:16) conduct the interested-ear through a thematically diverse array of dense, drowsy grooves, melting into passages of gibbering, sinister abstraction, cacophonous voices and hermetic verse, sung and said by Donovan. Synths cackle and sizzle in the gnostic haze; whilst Gerber's trademark sonorous guitar shines, tweaking such scenes to great melodious effect. Lying somewhere between the pivots of Industrial and Noise and something like Post-Rock, Of the Hex and Its Likenesses is never anything less than uncompromisingly experimental in the best sense. Likely to appeal to fans of Nick Cave, Coil and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
floodsounds.tumblr.com
www.tunecore.co.jp/artist/AnthonyDonovanJOHN316
www.future-music.co.jp/info_001.html
Excerpt here: https://john316.bandcamp.com/album/of-the-hex-and-its-likenesses-flood-records
Artwork by Anthony Donovan
Anthony Donovan & Oblivian Substanshall
Anthony Donovan & Oblivian Substanshall
Very much a meeting of don't-minds, where even the ukulele is allowed and encouraged., and trading as Anthony & Substanshall, this duo made two albums during 2012, both released by Ergo Phizmiz via his Chinstrap label. Crucially, Donovan believed Substanshall was resident in Bridport during this time. Very important.
Anthony and Substanshall (DL / Chinstrap Music / 2012)
Phizmiz describes it best: 'Music for an industrial-ukulele-blue-cheese-dream'.
Available as a free DL here: http://chinstrapmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/chin39-anthony-substanshall.html
In character review here: http://www.actsofsilence.com/album-review/gypsies-tramps-thieves/
Culture Is Not Your Friend (DL / Chinstrap Music / 2012)
Described by Ergo Phizmiz as 'an hallucinatory journey down a rabbit hole of filth and magic'.
Available as a free DL here: http://chinstrapmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/chin41-anthony-substanshall-culture-is.html
Artwork by Oblivian Substanshall
Bryan Lewis Saunders & Anthony Donovan
American artist Bryan Lewis Saunders is one of the first people I came to know well via online activities. We encountered one another on Myspace, and, as early as 2006, made tentative inroads towards collaboration. Notably, Saunders was the very first voice-artist to perform my prose - renditions of which ended up on the first Murmurists album, 'I Cannot Tell You Where I Am Until I Love You'. The depth of characterisation which Saunders - and others, such as Pixyblink and Michael Holloway - brought to these disembodied speeches helped define a key way of working for me that persists to this day. Saunders was also supportive about my first forays into film-making; and we worked together on a number of works that ended up on Classwar Karaoke surveys, including 'Remaindermen' and, with Pixyblink, 'Psycho Ecclesiasticus Psycho Jerome'. These are available to view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0wR_uyw4O4 and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXqNTat5-ng
In 2012, Saunders came to the UK, and we performed at Secret Anarchy Garden II, staged at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK, jointly by Classwar Karaoke and My Dance the Skull. The evening also featured Adam Bohman, Daniel Spicer, Blood Stereo, Sharon Gal and Tom White, with additional solo sets by Saunders and by Blood Stereo's Dylan Nyoukis, and a group reading performance led by Bohman and involving all the performers. Film excerpt of the Saunders/Donovan live performance, by David Cunliffe, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOBUHrje6bo Supporting film backdrop I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouUuhDa-mg
In turn, I contributed music to the following Saunders' releases:
Near Death Experience (vinyl / Erratum Musical / 2010)
Contributed music, as Murmurists, to the track 'Brain Death'. Also features John Duncan and Christopher Fleeger. http://bryanlewissaunders.org/discography/Near-Death-Experience/
Stream of Unconscious Vol. 2 (ltd ed cassette with 25 page booklet / Stand-Up Tragedy Records / 2011)
Contributed music, as part of Classwar Karaoke Friends, to the track 'I Pickle All Enemies'
http://bryanlewissaunders.org/discography/Stream%20of%20Unconscious%20Vol.%20%202/
Bryan Lewis Saunders & Anthony Donovan
American artist Bryan Lewis Saunders is one of the first people I came to know well via online activities. We encountered one another on Myspace, and, as early as 2006, made tentative inroads towards collaboration. Notably, Saunders was the very first voice-artist to perform my prose - renditions of which ended up on the first Murmurists album, 'I Cannot Tell You Where I Am Until I Love You'. The depth of characterisation which Saunders - and others, such as Pixyblink and Michael Holloway - brought to these disembodied speeches helped define a key way of working for me that persists to this day. Saunders was also supportive about my first forays into film-making; and we worked together on a number of works that ended up on Classwar Karaoke surveys, including 'Remaindermen' and, with Pixyblink, 'Psycho Ecclesiasticus Psycho Jerome'. These are available to view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0wR_uyw4O4 and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXqNTat5-ng
In 2012, Saunders came to the UK, and we performed at Secret Anarchy Garden II, staged at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK, jointly by Classwar Karaoke and My Dance the Skull. The evening also featured Adam Bohman, Daniel Spicer, Blood Stereo, Sharon Gal and Tom White, with additional solo sets by Saunders and by Blood Stereo's Dylan Nyoukis, and a group reading performance led by Bohman and involving all the performers. Film excerpt of the Saunders/Donovan live performance, by David Cunliffe, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOBUHrje6bo Supporting film backdrop I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouUuhDa-mg
In turn, I contributed music to the following Saunders' releases:
Near Death Experience (vinyl / Erratum Musical / 2010)
Contributed music, as Murmurists, to the track 'Brain Death'. Also features John Duncan and Christopher Fleeger. http://bryanlewissaunders.org/discography/Near-Death-Experience/
Stream of Unconscious Vol. 2 (ltd ed cassette with 25 page booklet / Stand-Up Tragedy Records / 2011)
Contributed music, as part of Classwar Karaoke Friends, to the track 'I Pickle All Enemies'
http://bryanlewissaunders.org/discography/Stream%20of%20Unconscious%20Vol.%20%202/
Photo by Alice Lane / design by Felix Rosier
Destroyevsky
Duo of Annie Dee and Anthony Donovan, producing pieces comprised of field recordings, dreamtalking, and domestic ambience, dubbed 'an ongoing, sporadic series of thoughts and encounters [...] extracted from their life together',
Selections can be found here: http://freemusicarchive.org/search/?quicksearch=destroyevsky
Dee is also a member of Murmurists.
Photo by Anthony Donovan
Familiars
Short-lived Performance Art quartet, comprised of dancers Rebecca Bogue and Jane Munro and musicians Anthony Donovan and Graham Dunning, formed with the express intention of blurring the lines between dance and sound.
I met Rebecca Bogue in 2009, whilst I was a member of Vultures / Vultures Quartet. She performed as part of the group at several gigs, in the UK and in Germany. The same year, VQ was invited to collaborate with Bogue and her associate Jane Munro, as sound and movement elements in an installation by artist Sumer Erek's, staged in a disused shop-front in Edmonton, London, UK. This performance became known as 'Window Meeting', and you can see Erek's documentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMSdA8vprVE
Bogue and I maintained contact after VQ split in 2011, and decided to work further in this direction together. I suggested Familiars as a name for the collaboation, and a first version included artist Sharon Gal. In the event, Gal could not commit to the endeavour, and it was decided to invite Munro and Graham Dunning. I had met Dunning at a gig in Birmingham, we got chatting, and I subsequently researched and was impressed by his work. This four-piece went on to perform just once, at Stranger Than Fiction, Siobhan Davies Dance Studio, Elephant and Castle, London, UK, in 2011. This was filmed by Clive Graham and can viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMZwUJQVZo0
All four members now perform in Murmurists.
Still image taken from Clive Graham's film
Kurouzu
Free improv trio with two live outings to-date, in 2014 and 2015, at The Audacious Art Experiment, Sheffield and at Mopomoso, The Vortex, London, respectively. Film of the latter is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXgM75kcYiI
Charlie Collins: drums and percussion; Anthony Donovan: fretless half-guitar, light-synth & electronics; Ian Simpson: prepared lapsteel & electronics.
Photo by Annie Dee
MaCu
I joined Susanne Hafenscher and Hopek Quirin for a live version of Hafenscher's MaCu project, in a performance given at Avantgarde Festival, Schiphorst, Germany, in 2011. Hafenscher played laptop, Quirin played bass, tapes & devices, I played light-synth & electronics.
A recording of the performance is here: https://macu1.wordpress.com/tag/avantgarde-festival/
Photo by Ulrike Harder
Matt Chilton & Anthony Donovan
Matt Chilton and I met the first time we performed live together, at the first Vultures gig, at Park Road Pilot, Dalston, London, UK in late 2008. When Vultures - by then renamed Vultures Quartet - broke up in early 2011, we continued our association, working together on projects - notably recordings of John Zorn Game-Pieces, at the invitation of Zorn himself, completing work begun during VQ. Other recordings we released under the guise of Manthrewny. This association also included a few gigs, as a duo, and in a series of trios, separately, with Noura Sanatian, Sharon Gal and Graham Dunning. The latter trio we retrospectively named Rindmice. In 2013, we performed, as Ex-Vultures Quartet, in Gdansk, Poland, in support of the VQ album 'Sui Generis', at a concert organised by the Zoharum label who released it. Chilton was also member of the fledgling Murmurists live group for some performances in 2014 and 2015.
Matt Chilton & Anthony Donovan 'Live in Gdansk 21.09.13' (DL / Classwar Karaoke / 2015)
Matt Chilton: electronics, mics, voice / Anthony Donovan: electronics, mics, voice. Recorded and mixed by Anthony Donovan. https://classwarkaraoke.bandcamp.com/album/matt-chilton-anthony-donovan-live-in-gdansk-210913
Parts of this same performance were filmed by Dagmara Naczk. Part one is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R9th- Z2XNo Parts two and three follow on.
Matt Chilton & Anthony Donovan 'From the Manthrewny Sessions' (DL / Classwar Karaoke / 2015)
Selected extracts from live improvised sessions, held in London, UK during 2013 and 2014. Matt Chilton: laptop, electronics, keyboards / Anthony Donovan: fretless bass, electronics, voice, rhythms, objects. Engineered by Chilton / mixed by Chilton and Donovan / assembled by Donovan.
https://classwarkaraoke.bandcamp.com/album/matt-chilton-anthony-donovan-from-the-manthrewny-sessions
Still image taken from Dagmara Naczk's film
Matt Chilton, Anthony Donovan & Noura Sanatian
I first saw Noura Sanatian as an audience member witnessing her remarkable performance as part of an ensemble at Avantgarde Festival, Schiphorst, Germany in 2010 (or was it 2011?). I approached her, we chatted, and afterwards I got in contact, and invited her to join various groups and projects I put together subsequently. Firstly, I suggested that she would be the perfect addition to a John Zorn Game-Piece Vultures Quartet was given to work on by Zorn. After that, we formed half of a quartet I assembled to play at V22, Bermondsey, London, UK, in June 2012 (the other half being Steve Beresford and Clive Graham). A couple of live appearances at John Russell's Mopomoso, at The Vortex, London, UK, followed, in 2013 and 2014. During this time, Sanatian again joined Matt Chilton and I, by this time both of us post-Vultures Quartet, for the recording of another Zorn Game-Piece, as part of a sextet, with Mark Browne, Ian McGowan and Daniel Spicer. She joined the Murmurists live group in 2016.
Film of both of our Mopomoso performances is here:
Mopomoso Christmas Special / Set 15 / December 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q14qrWIp5_I
Matt Chilton, Anthony Donovan & Noura Sanatian / 19th October 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MeMrmn94JY
Photo by David Cunliffe
Mosaic of Teeth
Recording project organised and initiated by Justin Wiggan (of Dreams of Tall Buildings and other things), to which I added substantially to the music, along with Antonio de Braga, Pere Ubu's Keith Moline, Ex-Napalm Death's Nicholas Bullen, and others (I cannot currently find detailed information, either about personnel or download location, etc.). Contrary to the publicity around this project, which touts it as a joint enterprise between Wiggan and Bullen - and either unnamed or entirely un-mentioned others - this was very much a group effort, at least in terms of the creation of its sound. It was realised as a very limited edition art object, in the form of a glass vial filled with volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajökul eruption which occurred in Iceland in 2010, complete with secret download codes displayed on its label. The release itself was in 2014.
The BBC reviewed it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32346162/is-this-the-weirdest-music-format-ever
Photo taken from the BBC page