COOPER, MIKE - Live At The Hint House (Second Hand)
second hand NM/NM 2009 release. LIKE NEW "Recorded in NYC, 2000. Live At The Hint House might be considered a field recording in as much as it is a recording of an ambience or soundscape. Made on my first ever trip to mainland America to play music this is the 2nd set of that evening, the 1st set had been an acoustic one of songs and slide guitar. At the start of the 2nd set I quickly realized that my guitar was not working and rather than stop and attempt to find out what was wrong I decided to just continue and improvise with what was at hand on the table in front of me. A Casio SK1 sampler keyboard, a Yamaha SU10 sampling unit with some pre-recorded samples loaded, a mini disc with some tropical ambience rec. from Malaysia and a pitch shifter delay pedal. I was not very happy with what happened that night and when Matt Zwed gave me two CD-Rs the next day I dont remember giving much attention to the 2nd set. Five years on, coincidently to the day as I write this, I realized he had captured more than me trying to get through the piece. It was me, the people in the room, the dog that ran around barking, the traffic sounds coming through the door that was open right behind me and a whole host of magically transported tropical birds and insects that suddenly found themselves reciting whatever it was in the loft space on the edge of Harlem, competing or colluding with all of the above to produce a piece of urban exotica. -Mike Cooper