A supremely calming and poignant collection of re-workings of songs by Arthur Russell, Brian Eno, Roedelius & Robert Wyatt from Steve Black (Sweet Baboo) & Paul Jones (Keith Tippett, The Jones O’Connor group)

PRAH Recordings is excited to present Group Listening, a new project by Steve Black and Paul Jones. Piano & Clarinet: Selected Works Vol. 1 is a collection of ambient works – from the likes of Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Roedelius and Robert Wyatt – arranged for clarinet and piano.

Having met at music college, Black and Jones went separate ways creatively. Black delved into pop, recording albums and touring extensively under the guise of Sweet Baboo, as well as working with Cate Le Bon, H. Hawkline and others. Paul leaned into the piano and pursued a career as a jazz pianist and experimental musician. He played with Keith Tippett, formed The Jones O’Connor Group, performed with noise improv bands and composed orchestral and chamber music.

Reconnecting years later, the pair discovered that their musical tastes, bizarrely, met in the middle. They have a shared love of The Beach Boys, Ghost Box Records, Messiaen and Angela Morley. They both like ambient and new age music, bubblegum pop, Artie Shaw, Moondog and the Songs in the Key of Z.

Piano & Clarinet: Selected Works Vol. 1 is the spontaneous, beguiling culmination of this friendship. Cutting out the post production and keeping overdubs to a minimum, the clarinet and piano were passed through guitar stomp boxes and other analogue effects to enable processing and manipulation directly in performance. The result hums with the ghostly energy of sound pioneers Joe Meek and Martin Hannett, while mbira and drum machines are sparingly deployed amid enveloping folds of space echo.

Like Virginia Astley or Simon Jeffes, Group Listening tread the overlap between classical and experimental music. Perhaps most startling here is the breadth of material arranged as one atmospheric whole. The pieces range from the everspiralling, fractal phrases of German composer Roedelius to the haunting rasps of game and Hollywood soundtracker Diasasterpiece and the pioneering sonics of early electronic inventor Raymond Scott. Somehow, shot together through Group Listening’s electro-acoustic lens, these works eveolve into something supremely calming, poignant and new.