Whirled Music

Whirled Music

(1978/2022) - Re-creation

performance installation co-produced with the Archipel Festival, Geneva

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In 1978, four improvisers from the London scene created a performance in which they produced their sounds solely by twirling instruments and other heterogeneous objects, bought or cobbled together. Whistling, whirring and other mysterious sounds follow one another throughout the performance. The musicians are masked, and the audience is protected by a net.

The few versions of Whirled Music performed by Max Eastley, Steve Beresford, David Toop and Paul Burwell in London, Bristol, Zagreb and Paris have become iconic, representative of a joyous movement of musical freedom and promiscuity following a first wave of more rigorous improvisers. In 1976, this revival gave rise to the London Musicians Collective, a solidarity movement but above all an important stimulus for new improvised music.

In 2022, the project was revived as part of the Archipel festival in Geneva, in collaboration with ÉDHÉA's PALEAS unit. In the spirit of transmission, three of the original members - Paul Burwell passed away in 2007 - revive Whirled Music through instrument-building workshops, practical and theoretical research, and the performance itself. New workshops are scheduled for this autumn, which will further enrich the reactivation of the piece during the Son Biennale.

A record was released in 1980 on David Toop's Quartz label, based on the improvisations of the time. In 2018, the Black Truffle label offered a richly documented contemporary reissue.

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Max Eastley, Steve Beresford, David Toop and Paul Burwell

‍

In 1978, four improvisers from the London scene created a performance in which they produced their sounds solely by twirling instruments and other heterogeneous objects, bought or cobbled together. Whistling, whirring and other mysterious sounds follow one another throughout the performance. The musicians are masked, and the audience is protected by a net.

The few versions of Whirled Music performed by Max Eastley, Steve Beresford, David Toop and Paul Burwell in London, Bristol, Zagreb and Paris have become iconic, representative of a joyous movement of musical freedom and promiscuity following a first wave of more rigorous improvisers. In 1976, this revival gave rise to the London Musicians Collective, a solidarity movement but above all an important stimulus for new improvised music.

In 2022, the project was revived as part of the Archipel festival in Geneva, in collaboration with ÉDHÉA's PALEAS unit. In the spirit of transmission, three of the original members - Paul Burwell passed away in 2007 - revive Whirled Music through instrument-building workshops, practical and theoretical research, and the performance itself. New workshops are scheduled for this autumn, which will further enrich the reactivation of the piece during the Son Biennale.

A record was released in 1980 on David Toop's Quartz label, based on the improvisations of the time. In 2018, the Black Truffle label offered a richly documented contemporary reissue.