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PRESS

"The finest products of the minimalist mentality - Reich's ‘Music for 18 Musicians’, Riley’s exquisitely impure undertakings, Glenn Branca's tumultuous The Ascension - rise above the cold consideration of mechanics and draws the listener into the realms of ecstasy. Cadenza is the track in question, a mesmerising feature for two pianos that rise and dip like a tea clipper in a high wind. The effect is breath-taking; it’s superb enough to make me look forward with optimism to future releases. LYNDEN BARBER 1981 : MELODY MAKER

“The Amusement is The obvious successor to The Art of Noise in this modern composers forceful dynamic production. A captivating and impressive piece." DAVE HENDERSON : MUSIC WEEK

"The best things I heard (at the Huddersfield Festival) were a miniature by James MacMillian and Andrew Poppy's inventively spare and varied Poems and Toccatas” NICHOLAS KENYON : OBSERVER

"Noise of industrial labour is submerged in Andrew Poppy's music as tremendous gathering melange of piano then brass and synthesiser, finally electric guitar in great slabs of impersonal, repetitive throbbing sound. A scenario of mixed gestures, solo melancholy and frantic deshabillement.... The Songs of the Clay People remembered by a child, are lost, fleeting renascent in a grey metropolis of granite rooms.... where excitement is provided by music which really did strike me as being of exceptional merit" MICHAEL COVENEY FINANCIAL TIMES

"A ritual for three performers, offstage voices and musique concrete. The effect is one of animated hallucination on which Balthus and Francis Bacon might have collaborated: arrogant ascetic, utterly sincere. JOHN PETER : SUNDAY TIMES

‘Uranium Miner s’ "impressively full of emotional shrapnel." PAUL DRIVER : SUNDAY TIMES

"His music is consistently trenchant and telling". MEIRION BOWEN : GUARDIAN 2

"The ideal composer to turn Tennessee Williams screen play Baby Doll into an time/space and stasis/movement. Bewitching, beautifully crafted and highly opera would be an American Janacek and Andrew Poppy comes near to it in the best addictive.” moments: strong on atmosphere (a lot of sultry Southern blue notes) and punchily CHRIS BLACKFORD THE WIRE abbreviated in its story-telling." MICHAEL JOHN WHITE : THE INDEPENDENT Poppy first hit the scene as a composer of fierce electronic soundtracks for Impact, the seminal 80's theatre company. Later, a stint as the first classical act "A gift for creating atmosphere the scores virtue lies in the deceptively languid way it signed to Trevor Horn's ZTT label won him an underground pop audience. He can build up an insidious tension." never gained the exposure of a Nyman or a Reich, though, which is a pity, MARTIN HOYLE : THE TIMES because this is a first rank composer, bursting with ideas. TARDIS is a large scale piece, in which an endlessly growing melody is toyed with, split into multiples, " A gripping and unusual evening....not a moment of it is dull and several sequences played against itself in a random canon, and hung in the air to spin gently like a are startling. child's mobile. Time and space are suspended, as chiming, plunking and silk- GERALD KAUFMAN : THE SUNDAY EXPRESS smooth harmonies seem to progress forever upwards. The Doctor himself could be proud of this post post-modern, ambient, slightly kitsch, minimal machine " Poppy was never solely concerned with pure minimalism and he has now music. developed a style of enviable flexibility, fusing a range of so called 'serious' and RICHARD WOLFSON THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 'popular' sources and allowing each to emerge as appropriate. Avalanche Thoughts suggest Andrew Poppy and Julia Bardsley, are those KEITH POTTER: THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT dangerous cognitive moments that beckon disaster. Before the audience enters the performance space, we are met with an exhibition of exquisite objects combining “Fulfilling all the Liverpool Philharmonics requirements of new music, Andrew the motifs of books and shoes enveloped in an understated sound installation. The Poppy’s Horn Horn was consistently entertaining as a study in the comparability video full of blues and whites, is deeply elemental, suggestive of gently blinding of two alto saxophonist. Harnessed together much of the time , John Harle and snow or a threat of drowning. The accompanying soundtrack is similarly Simon Haram were each allowed the occasional opportunity to emerge on a beautiful. Shifting like the tide, the piece finally opens up to piano music by turns comparatively thoughtful solo line from their joint virtuoso endeavours. They melodic and discordant, becoming entwined with secular incantations, intonations usefully offset the heavy industrial activity in the orchestra which, between the of passion and of danger. In spite of the "thoughts" of its title, this is essentially a deceptive opening and closing bars characterises the score as a whole. An sensory experience. But none the less a beautiful one. admirably high-energy all-or-nothing performance FIONA SHEPARD MARK BROWN THE SCOTSMAN GERALD LARNER: THE TIMES . “arriving at a distinctive and melodic approach he demonstrates an uncanny Time At Rest Devouring Its Secret “is a 35 minute single movement work of talent for spreading short melodic motifs over long distances without causing the "basically one texture" inspired by Riley's ‘In C’, Reich's ‘Drummin’g and mind to wander, using subtle development and barely detectable changes in Feldman's ‘For Samuel Beckett’ The light and lean grandeur of the orchestration orchestration. Several composers have adopted his approach since, among them recalls Takemitsu: an unpredictable drip-drop pizzicato of deep double bass and Michael Torke and Michael Gordon, but it's doubtful any of them have made a high pitched violin or harp, mingling with tintinnabulous percussives. Overheard, recording quite like the seminal Cadenza an almost transcendental piece of clouds of strings and electronics drift and repeat in a kind of bittersweet, music. What will surprise is the year of genesis of these pieces. Poppy joined the melancholy ecstasy that plays some fascinating psychoacoustic games with ZTT label some twenty years ago, hence this commemorative collection On Zang Tuub Tumb. The other parallel to draw with Poppy is Cabaret Voltaire, for some 3 of the music takes on an experimental form, fractured rhythms thrown around for Fischer-Dieskau and Brendel. But Poppy is wasted on electro. Give this man a big dissection. Nowhere is this more evident than Kink King Adagio…. an intriguing orchestral commission, now! listen. JOHN L WALTERS DEC 08 THE GUARDIAN BEN HOOGWOOD MUSIC OMH Echo & Decay, Spit & Crackle Recent Listening April 2009 "...and the shuffle of Despite his reputation as a minimalist, Andrew Poppy gives you plenty of bang things" Andrew Poppy's new CD starts with a spit and crackle of velocity that for your buck on his ZTT works. If you're into contemporary composition, the slowly moves toward a triumphant, almost pomp-like, classical-sounding burst of bargain of the week has to be Andrew Poppy on Zang Tuum Tumb (ZTT 3CD, sound. This is immediately hijacked by a voice which self-consciously £15.99), which collects Poppy's 1980s albums The Beating of Wings and undermines all our expectations by talking about the music it is interrupting. Alphabed together with a third, unreleased album and various odds and ends. Except of course, it isn't, because the spoken part is intrinsic to the score. Just You get plenty of notes for your money, too: despite Poppy's reputation as a when we come to terms with that idea a bell-like note rings and the music fades minimalist, his best pieces are gloriously abundant in cascading cycles of notes away as the voice continues its existential pondering. It's a fantastic introduction and noises, with satisfying, circular chord sequences, using very big ensembles to this 'cabinet of sonic curioisities' (as the sleeve notes puts it) and these kinds of and big-sounding virtual ensembles with keyboards and samplers. Poppy studied musical and verbal conundrums and subversions continue throughout another 9 music at Goldsmith's, where he co-founded Regular Music. Later, he was a key tracks. Much as I like a lot of Poppy's music, for me, it's a return to the kind of member of the Lost Jockey. By signing to Trevor Horn's ZTT label, Poppy made work I most like of his, which has previously appeared on his ZTT LP Alphabed some interesting lateral moves. For one thing, it meant that his music was and to a lesser extent the more difficult Ophelia Ophelia. Poppy is a master of beautifully recorded, using the state- of-the-art studios. It also promoted Poppy's hybridization: classical and contemporary classical music, orchestrated rock, oeuvre to a style-conscious, Face-reading audience, complete with detailed art chamber music, synthesizer rock, art rock, show music, avant-garde music and direction, enigmatic notes and Anton Corbijn portraits. This re-alignment cut both post-rock along with performance poetry and declamatory oration are all present ways, and may have distanced Poppy from the serious recognition now handed in the mix here. But why attach labels to what is in essence new and inspirational out to his less clued-up contemporaries. Yet what you hear in Poppy's music, music? Whether or not this CD is merely things shuffled, a kind of musical sleight particularly in key works such as 32 Frames for Orchestra and Cadenza for of hand, or not, is irrelevant. Poppy has made all these things anew, and I Piano and Electric Piano, is a keen ear for the large-scale, compositional use of recommend the CD to anyone interested in where music might be found in the timbre - the qualities that drew him to the cutting edge technology of ZTT's 21st Century and remain approachable, varied, dynamic and entertaining. studio-based culture. It's even there in his theme tune for The Tube, which always RUPERT LOYDELL 09 STRIDE MAGAZINE sounded huge compared to electro-TV music. What Poppy brought to ZTT - a label that didn't need much prompting to take itself seriously - was some genuinely good and serious work. His music's purpose is often revealed more effectively through the multi-tracked recording process. Younger composers may take this for granted, working out their masterpieces on PCs, but Poppy got there first JOHN L WALTERS JULY 05 GUARDIAN

Composer Andrew Poppy is good with large forces, and with small, intense ensembles such as piano solos and duos… Wave Machine renew the "tough minimalism" of Poppy's ZTT heyday. The radio-friendly track is Balcony Scene/Doppelgänger, which makes ingenious use of a Schubert sample from 4

Over the last two decades Andrew Poppy has steadily assembled a fascinating and unusual body of work which encompasses concert music, opera and scores for contemporary dance, theatre, film and television. Despite a certain amount of commercial success in the 1980’s Poppy’s work remains largely neglected by musical organisations in this country. At a time when many younger composers seem to achieve recognition by producing music which is safe and superficial this neglect of a genuine original is, to say the least, slightly scandalous.

Andrew Poppy is undoubtedly an original composer but paradoxically it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint that originality in terms of a definition of his musical style. This is principally because defining musical characteristics differ from work to work; each piece deliberately inhabits its own self-contained world, setting out with determination to explore strictly defined musical parameters and also non-musical and conceptual preoccupations. Poppy expertly fuses tonal and non-tonal harmonic worlds in such a way that the listener actually forgets about the polarity between them. Despite this diversity it’s clear that one composer is at work; one with a keen sense of structure and proportion.

This diversity is well illustrated by pieces on two of the five CD’s that Poppy has recorded. ‘The Beating of Wings’ was one of two CD’s released on the pop label ZTT during the mid 1980’s when pop musicians had become interested in what classical composers of a minimalist persuasion were doing; Poppy had excellent credentials in this respect as a founder member of the systems music big band The Lost Jockey. The four pieces on The Beating of Wings show an assured handling of facets of a post-minimal world, from 32 Frames for Orchestra, a majestic chaconne based on a simple progression of four chords, to Listening In , an hypnotic and muscular piece created in the recording studio. By further contrast Poems and Toccatas on his CD Recordings (released on the composers’ own Bitter and Twisted label in 1992) is a sequence of short pieces for violin and piano. The harmonic language is more angular and taut and the pieces are beautifully crafted.

Mention Andrew Poppy, and people will most likely recall a couple of More recent work, so far unrecorded , includes Horn Horn , a double saxophone concerto in six movements, written in 1996 for John Harle and Simon Haram and ’ relatively high profile albums released on ZTT in the mid 1980 s, charting the extraordinary Revolution no. 8: Airport for Joseph Beuys for orchestra, a the British face of what was once called ‘Systems music’. In fact, Poppy’s desolate soundscape utilising tape delay which, for this writer at least, is possibly work has continued to develop in many and varied directions since then. Andrew Poppy’s finest achievement to date. Laurence Crane fills in the blanks. LAURENCE CRANE 1999 SOUNDINGS |ANDREWPOPPY

ONE OF THE UK’S LEADING CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS, ANDREW POPPY ARRIVED AT ZTT IN 1984 HAVING STUDIED UNDER JOHN CAGE AND FOUNDED THE AVANT-GARDE COLLECTIVE THE LOST JOCKEY. HE WENT ON TO SUCCESSFULLY STRADDLE TWO WORLDS: ORCHESTRAL COMPOSITIONS ON THE ONE HAND AND LEFTFIELD POP COLLABORATIONS ON THE OTHER. AN INTERESTING MIX WE THOUGHT HERE AT QSHEET, SO WE DECIDED TO CATCH UP WITH THE BUSY COMPOSER TO FIND OUT ABOUT HIS LATEST CD, ‘ANDREW POPPY ON ZANG TUUM TUMB’, AND LIFE IN A CLASSICAL WORLD…

QS: How would you, categorise your music? university. Then, when you’re at university you get good, it did get me some of the basic things. I You’ve been labelled an ‘experimental artist’, educated – or indoctrinated, depending on how look back and I think that’s quite a good thing your music is classical but not quite classical. you look at it – into a whole other area of music, for me because I have two ways of doing things AP: Yeah, well, it is hard isn’t it, because awhole other area of music that’s actually not –one is quite a taught way, which is like the obviously I get asked this question, “What is it very well known. Contemporary classical music piano and is proper, I know what the notes are you do?” because it doesn’t seem like straight has a very, very small audience and while that and everything, and the way that I learned the classical music and although there are vocals music’s very interesting it’s very, very frustrating guitar was very intuitive. In some ways I still there’s never really a proper song there, and that it hasn’t got an audience, and I’m not work like that in that if I play the guitar I tend to some of the pieces are very long, and yet interested in that thing of playing to two people. be more physical with it, whereas if I play the sometimes there’s an orchestra and sometimes I’m always interested in the energy and the piano I tend to work with notation and I read the there’s a drum kit. It is a representation of all the excitement of pop music, so I’ve somehow tried dots. I think learning notation is a really useful things that I’ve been influenced by and the to find a way to bring the two worlds together, on tool. It’s not the only thing by any means history of my life in some ways. I wasn’t brought my own terms – I’m not trying to change the because some people can just play and they up with a lot of classical music, but the things I’d world or anything. can’t really feel anything or they can’t do heard I was really interested in as well, so I anything intuitively, they can’t do anything suppose all my life it’s been going between the QS: Do you think it was advantageous in the spontaneously, but what’s fantastic is if you can two things – listening to classical music, listening long term to get an appreciation of music from pick up a piece of music that was written in the to pop music – and the two have kind of come out a young age, learning while you’re young seventeenth century, and you can look at it and in what I do. I left school quite early and I was when it’s a bit more natural maybe? you can find out about it, you can play it to playing in a band. We were playing in clubs and AP: Ido think being able to have an appreciation yourself. I still find great pleasure in that. I’m things, and very early I got bored with that and of lots of different types of music is useful. I’m not a very good sight-reader. I can’t just sit then I decided there’s something other than pop quite glad that my parents said, “Well we want down and it’s instantly perfect, but I can play music; being in a band can be really frustrating to give you something” in fact, because I’m one through something looking at the dots, and I and stressful because there are these four egos. of four kids and it was a principle of my parents’ can get something out of the library and I can Ididn’t like the conflict there was in the band and that “You will have piano lessons. If you don’t play it, and it’s like people read a novel – you Idecided I wanted to learn the piano properly. I like it after six months you can give it up, but can read a 19th-century novel or 18th-century went back to having private piano lessons, but we’re going to let you have piano lessons novel, you get a window on to a particular world then I thought, well, I need to study, so I went because that’s something we think we should –and so through notation and having a skill at and did an A-level and then eventually I went to give you”, and actually even though I wasn’t very the keyboard it allows you to have that. > ComposeYOURSELF

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QS: We ask a lot of people who have been QS: The album now is looking back at work you can remember?” It’s an interesting question, QS: No, not necessarily – it’s what makes around in the music industry for, say, 30, 40 from 20 years ago. Why now and why the third and thinking back it is probably ‘Wooden Heart’ people first aware of something they’re not years whether they have noticed a difference CD with the unreleased material? on the radio because it’s a classic track that I familiar with. To do something with TV or film during that time period because of the changes AP: Why now? Well it hasn’t been available for associate with that, probably early 1960s or is just perfect because it can either be nice in in pop culture, but if you look at something from about ten years. ZTT is a small label that has maybe late 1950s, I can’t remember. the background, supporting whatever’s the 17th or 19th century, or whenever, is there always been licensed to a major. I think when shown, or as a stand-alone piece. Again you’ve a vast variation in styles of classical music, ZTT and Universal hooked up, which was QS: What future plans have you got lined up? done a number of things for TV haven’t you? going through the different time periods? probably about ten years ago, they only decided AP: Well there’re lots of things. I’m making a AP: Yeah, well, there was a period of time when AP: There’s more difference between very to re-release Frankie Goes To Hollywood, which piece for the Estonian National Male Voice I did quite a lot of title themes for different experimental music in the last 50 to 60 years was obviously the most successful act on the Choir, which is going to be premiered in Tallinn programmes. So yeah, I know what that’s and popular music. Popular music and jazz are label, and everything else was unreleased or in February next year. I’m just working on that about, the 30 seconds or a minute, or a minute more connected to 19th- and 18th-century they didn’t re-release. So my recordings from the at the moment. That’s 52 male voices plus and a half, whatever. The first one I did was for music than they are to contemporary classical 1980s on ZTT haven’t been available for ten some electronics and some percussion. ‘The Tube’, the last edition of ‘The Tube’, which music, which is very, very abstract. I think years. A year or so ago the Universal deal I did when I was at ZTT and that was great fun. there’re lots of connections between music of finished, so that freed ZTT to look at its back QS: Do you think that this market segment – all areas. I think that’s the fascinating thing and catalogue again, and then I said to them, “Well it’s a very broad term, I know – needs to have that’s to do with the time we’re living in, which is obviously I hope that you would like to re-release somebody like a young figurehead to try and where recording technology has become so it, and if you do re-release it I’ll be totally behind bring the audiences in, because you’ve got “I’VE BEEN MAKING STUFF sophisticated, it’s dominated everybody’s lives it because obviously I stand by those records. It Joss Stone, Katie Melua, Jamie Cullum and FOR 25 YEARS NOW, AND since the 1960s. So everything that happens was a great time for me.” Initially it was going to now Michael Bublé who are bringing all the culturally is recorded and there’s an obsession be a two-CD package, and then they said, “Well new jazz audiences in and yet there’s been no THE THING IS, THERE ARE with recording, so if you go down to HMV or there’s enough for three, why don’t we keep it one for a while who’s doing anything UPS AND DOWNS. YOU GO whatever you can go and buy Gregorian chant neat?”, because the original album was called classical-associated. You had Vanessa Mae through to the latest contemporary composition, ‘The Beating Of Wings’, the second one was and Nigel Kennedy a while ago … THROUGH LOW PERIODS OF but you can also go and buy Indonesian music or called ‘Alphabet’ and I’d actually already titled AP: Well, you see the thing is, it’s an THINKING “SHOULD I BE music from Pakistan or wherever. We’re living in my third album ‘Under The Sun’, so on this box it interesting question. I think you’re right but a time when that seems really natural but, basically keeps those titles and that actually there are those young people like DOING THIS AT ALL?” I actually, it’s very, very recent. When I was a arrangement, even though what you have is Vanessa Mae, but they’re performers. This is student in the 1970s you’d go to the library and extra tracks as well for each of the first two one of the contradictions in a way, although I THINK EVERYBODY HAS there are one or two anthropological recordings albums. You have the 12” and the 7”. do play I’m primarily presenting myself as a THAT, HOWEVER BIG OR of non-western music, done for anthropological composer, which is a different idea. It’s about reasons, maybe African drumming or something QS: And what about more recent work that being primarily a writer although I do get out UNSUCCESSFUL YOU ARE” like that, but apart from that you didn’t really you’ve been doing? Again there’s such a there and I play on all my records and I control have much awareness of what was happening variety: writing scores for various people, my records, I produce my records, so if you outside your own little circle. whether for TV, film, individuals, orchestras … look at Nigel Kennedy he’s a player really and QS: What advice would you give to anybody AP: Well I try to keep busy. A project that came he made his reputation on the back of doing who wants to start as a composer or musician? QS: Who are your influences, and have they out at the beginning of the year was a recording Vivaldi, and Vanessa Mae, she’s a very good AP: I think the one thing you need over and above split you in two to a point, because you have of songs I’d made with Claudia Brucken. She player but she plays, she probably does write everything else as an artist is tenacity. It has to rock and pop influences as well as classical? was the lead singer with Propaganda, who were things, I don’t know. I’ve heard some of the be on a level. You meet some people really young AP: From the turn of the last century, there’re on the ZTT label. We knew each other back then things she’s done but they’re all arrangements that have a kind of arrogance and in some two composers: Stravinsky and Debussy. They and I was going to work on a track of hers, but of pieces. It’s a tricky one really. senses that’s great, because you have to be are big figures really; I listened to a lot of that never happened, but we met up again about confident, but you can go through life and be Stravinsky when I was a student and I played five years ago and we started chatting, became QS: If everything is cyclical musically does it really horrible to a lot of people being like that; Debussy on the piano, because he wrote a lot of friends. We started talking about maybe doing just need something to make people aware, to the thing is, you do need to manage your doubts piano music, because he was a fantastic pianist, something together but something really simple get these things in the public ear? somehow. The doubt process is quite important and then, more recently, people like Philip Glass without any real pressure of, well, it’s got to be a AP: It’s probably a big discussion. For instance because if you don’t doubt I think you’ve got no and Steve Reich and Terry Riley, the Americans. hit. So it’s an album of different songs that we we’ve got, Claudia and I, this record we reflection on your work, so you do meet these They were classically trained people but again like. I’ve made some arrangements either for released beginning of the year – OK it’s a very people who think they’re absolutely great and we they wanted to do something that wasn’t to do piano and voice or guitar and voice, so it’s really small release and it’s been ticking over because all know they’re not. So you have your own doubt, with that world. They wanted to have something simple. That’s all there is – either piano, on we’ve both got our fan base, which is very loyal. which modifies what you do and I think that’s a that had a different energy, and a lot of that is to some there’s two electric piano tracks and voice Then my partner, who’s a film maker, video good thing. I’ve been making stuff for 25 years do with the way the pulse works, the way the or guitar, and there’s an electric guitar – but maker, made a video for us for one of the now, and the thing is, there are ups and downs. rhythm works. If you hear non-western musics that’s all it is, just one instrument and a voice, tracks because we were going to do a little You go through low periods of thinking “Am I they’re usually very rhythmic and that’s and we released that at the beginning of the special, one-off version of one of the tracks. doing the right thing?” or “Should I be doing this important. That’s why jazz and pop are so year and it seems to be going very well. Then Mute Records saw it and immediately they at all?” I think everybody has that, however big or successful because rhythm really connects with saw it they said, “We want to release this as a unsuccessful you are. You just have to keep going people because it’s so physical. Composers like QS: It’s got ‘Wooden Heart’ on it and, reading single” and, to me, it’s a classic case of if you because I think that’s the important thing, and Glass and Reich and Riley, they want to bring your biography, it says that you used to listen have that kind of visual representation you’ve then somebody will turn round and say, “Yeah, that back into the music. That’s what we’ve done to Elvis on your transistor, so in effect you’ve instantly got access to all those TV programmes that piece that was really great. It was so good in terms of pioneering the work that you use. It’s come full circle – from young child listening to and you have access to a market. Trying to pick that piece. I was so glad”, and that makes the what maybe myself and a few other composers Elvis coming back to doing a revised version up what you’re getting at – is it to do with the day. It was something that you did at a particular are trying to do: trying to make a sort of art of ‘Wooden Heart’ … fact that music is not enough on its own? It has time and somebody’s got something, and that’s music that’s got the energy and the rhythmic AP: Well, yes, it’s interesting because somebody to have some visual representation, or are you what being an artist is about – it’s about creating excitement of pop music and some jazz. asked me a long time ago, “What’s the first song saying it’s all about sex? a musical experience for somebody.

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