Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford (born 1950) is a British musician. He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music. He is probably best known for free improvisation, but has also written music for film and television and has been involved with a number of pop music groups. Beresford has continued to play free improvisation with a number of prominent musicians, including Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, and Han Bennink.
I Shall Become A Bat (LP)
2004 LP on Qbico of improvisations for electronics, objects and saxophones by Steve Beresford with John Butcher and Richard Sanderson, recorded in London in 2000 and 2003.
Felix
The great master, improvisational pianist, and musical polymath Steve Beresford; John Edwards, one of the most important double bassists on the global free improv scene; and Mandhira de Saram, an exquisite violinist and former member of the renowned Ligetti Quartet, come together. “Felix” is the recording debut of this trio, which, since its formation a few years ago, has become a regularly performing ensemble. Recorded at London’s Vortex club in January of last year, the album demonstrates how …
Almost This
"There is a familiar species of experience. I believe it is nearly universal. Here’s the brief: we have not seen a person in a long time, someone with whom we were once close. For no good reason – no falling out, no unpleasantries at all – our paths have not crossed. Then, in an instant, we are together, thrown or brought or drawn. Circumstance has landed us proximate and here we are, face to face. Within seconds, we recognize the person. I mean really recognize them. Not just their external app…
Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapter 3 (LP)
1996 re-issue on Pressure Sounds of the 1980 album joining together the British reggae and free improvised music scenes, featuring Steve Beresford and David Toop. A brilliant experimental dub album.
Be S-Mart
*100 copies limited edition* Confront Recordings, the vanguard of adventurous music since 1996, proudly unveils Be S-Mart, a riveting new album capturing the spontaneous brilliance of improvising masters Steve Beresford, Pierpaolo Martino, and Mark Sanders.
Be S-Mart emerges from the heart of live improvisation, where Beresford's eclectic electronics and prepared piano wizardry collide with Martino's bass textures and Sanders' propulsive, ever-shifting drums. This trio forges a sonic landscape t…
Flying Slippers
Steve Beresford, a central figure on the British and international music scene for over forty years, meets the Tilli/Tramontana duo. The friction between the British aplomb with the multifaceted Italic personality and the underlying love and seriousness towards music give us a trio full of verve, gimmicks, and profound lightness.
Dancing The Line
Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the reissue of Steve Beresford's highly sought-after album "Dancing the Line", released in France in 1985 on the French label Nato. The album, taking its inspiration from French designer Anne Marie Beretta's fashion, features his Alterations acolyte David Toop plus Alan Hacker and Kazuko Hohki (Frank Chickens) with lyrics by Andrew Brenner. The music mixes sophisticated ambient pop powered by a RX11 drum machine with elements synth funk and experimental musi…
Bee Reiki
Bee Reiki gestated within the regular lockdown zoom meetings Steve and Paul were holding in 2020 and 2021. Steve being based in London and Paul just outside Brighton, in these online meetings, like many musicians at that time, they mostly chatted and caught up with news and analysed the lack of live performance opportunities created by the pandemic.
In the odd fifteen minutes or so they weren’t doing that, they attempted to improvise together using the Zoom platform. Steve would balance his iPad…
Danger In Paradise
Killer! 2023 repress. General Strike's legendary album from 1984, for the first time available on vinyl and as a download. Fully remastered by David Cunningham. These 1979-84 recordings were recorded for the most part in the quiet village of Brixton, South London – three tracks at This Heat’s Cold Storage, the rest in Cunningham’s own studio just along the street - and originally released on cassette by Touch in 1984 with the exception of "Parts Of My Body," released on a single by Canal Records…
Call and Response (Book)
Seeing and imagining music in a pandemic: a dialogue of found scenes and inspired sounds between two protagonists of experimental music
Quartz Mirliton Cassettes
Biggest Tip! Quartz-Mirliton Cassettes has been among the most obscure of 1970s experimental music labels. This forthcoming VOD release, presented in two boxes, throws light on this mysterious cassette venture, its context and associated recordings. Closely associated with the London Musicians Collective, Quarz was launched by Paul Burwell and David Toop in 1977. Produced in tiny editions with handmade covers, the cassettes largely documented live sessions and field recordings made by a close ne…
Alterations
Never-before-released 1981 live recordings by Alterations, the great British free-improv quartet of David Toop, Peter Cusack, Steve Beresford and Terry Day. Hundreds of instruments cover the floor; the music reacts to room, noise and audience alike. Playful and rigorous at once. From Sub Rosa's SubLogos series. LP.
Alterations Live
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock* "Alterations on record is a bit like listening to the soundtrack to a movie without the picture show. Essential to their 'performance' was the aspect that making music can be both visually & musically entertaining; which hints at the notion of entertainment as a valid musical form - and suggests that 'High Art' can be born from "playing for laughs" - (which the Alterations perfected to such a fine art as to become 'flavour of the month' for a year or two).
At…
Live At White Cube
Live performances from Elaine Mitchener and Steve Beresford. Recorded live at White Cube on 28th and 1st March 2015. Sleeve artwork by Christian Marclay. Screen printing by Coriander Studio. Hand pressed on The Vinyl Factory Press at White Cube, Bermondsey.Christian Marclay’s exhibition at White Cube and the London Sinfonietta, some of the world’s most renowned contemporary musicians have been invited to stage performances, including new compositions and live improvisation sessions inside the Wh…
B + B
Instant Composers Pool presents B + B, a series of live sessions performed by Steve Beresford on piano and toy electronics, and Han Bennink on percussion. Tracks 1 and 4 recorded on 24 February 2000 at Mahogany Hall, Edam; tracks 2 and 3 recorded on 17 February 2000 at BIMhuis, Amsterdam. Cover art by Han Bennink.
Frequency Disasters
Low-frequency, high-impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are not preventable, three bodies in a room sonically engaging are even less so. Beresford’s architectural narrative drives Magaletti and Martino’s rhythmic interventions into compelling short stories about dancing, dressing in rags, dreaming, swallowing, flight, famine, transformation, and dystopias/utopias. Frequency Disasters are pianist, improviser and composer Steve Beresford, percussionist Valentina Magaletti and bass playe…
The Bath of Surprise
**Original 1980 copies, we managed to get only a few!** Recorded by Steve Beresford and David Cunningham. Instruments used include: acoustic guitar (with microphone and battery amplifier), percussion, piano, synthesizer (toy), euphonium, trumpet, toy piano, drums, whistling, bass, cymbal, drums, ukulele, cymbal, tape (previous performance), electronics, piano (with toy piano inside), and performer (with whirled bee, whirled tube, clarinet mouthpiece, footclickers, blechtrommel, giggle stick, mus…
Dirty Songs Play Dirty Songs
Directed and produced by David Toop, Dirty Songs Play Dirty Songs reacts against our poisonous present, inspired anti-nostalgically by similarly reactive records and live performances from the 20th century: Soft Machine and Pink Floyd 1967-68, The MC5’s Kick Out the Jams, The Stooges, Sun Ra’s Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy and The Heat Is On by The Isley Brothers. Dirty Songs Play Dirty Songs is the musical offshoot of a project conceived by artist Maxime Rossi, originating in (among other thi…
Whirled Music
Black Truffle present a reissue of a landmark UK release, Max Eastley, Steve Beresford, Paul Burwell, and David Toop's Whirled Music, originally released on Quartz in 1980. Remastered and cut at 45RPM by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin. Includes a 24-page booklet with archival materials and notes from David Toop, alongside contemporary reviews, flyers, notes on the instruments and performance documentation; Gatefold sleeve."[Whirled Music is] one of the key documents of the inventi…
Pleasures of the Horror
Bisou Records asked Eugene Chadbourne to do an album for children and he proposed an album about horror movies and monsters. Some references are obvious, like “The Thing”, “Blacky Lagoony”, etc., and some are about strange characters, like “Vampire Tiger Girl”, and some are covers (Sam And The Shams, Shockabilly). It’s probably the best recorded album of Eugene Chadbourne. Eugene met Steve Beresford and Alex Ward in London at Eastcote Studios (where Adele, Duran Duran, Aswad, Tindersticks…
Live at White Cube
In collaboration between Christian Marclay and the London Sinfonietta, some of the world’s most renowned contemporary musicians have been invited to stage performances, including new compositions and live improvisation sessions inside the White Cube. Each performance over the course of the exhibition will be recorded, pressed and screen-printed live inside the gallery. These two performances are from Steve Beresford and London Sinfonietta.
Side A: Conducted by Steve Beresford, performed by…
Void Transactions
2017 release ** Void Transactions is the most recent album of Alterations, released in 2017. Recorded at Cafe Oto during the live performance at Alterations Festival 2016. Peter Cusack: acoustic guitar, field recordings. Steve Beresford: piano, electronics, objects; Terry Day: drums, percussion, objects, balloons; David Toop: electric guitars, bass, flutes, objects.
Deadly Weapons
Recent digipack CD reissue "This collective of jazz improv weirdoes banded together for a one-off in 1986 to riff on the deep vibe of all things French and cinematic. Backing vocalist Toni Marshall, Zorn, Beresford, and Toop created a virtual and highly experimental film noir soundtrack to a movie that perhaps existed in the mind of Jean-Luc Godard in the 1950s, but was never made. David Toop is clearly the sonic architect here, haunting the proceedings with his deep use of effects, subdued perc…
White String's Attached (1979)
Violinist Coombes explains things perfectly in his hilarious liner notes. Beethoven, he says, realized that the piano and violin sound horrible together, the instruments literally hate each other, and gave up after ten sonatas. "For us to try and surmount Beethoven's problems, for example, in the heat of trying to make the music up as we go along is almost laughable." Nonetheless, a blindfold test of this record to a knowledgeable listener often results in the music being misidentified as…
Ointment
Tania Chen: objects, toys, violin, piano ; Steve Beresford: objects, electronics, toys, trumpet, water. Pieces beginning with 'C' recorded by Tim Fletcher at The Bonnington, Vauxhall, London on December 18 2002. Event organised by Adam and Jonathan Bohman. All other pieces recorded by Steve Beresford in west London - pieces beginning with 'L' on August 7 2003 and the rest on June 12 2003. All pieces composed by Tania Chen and Steve Beresford. Edited by Steve Beresford in March 2004. Not to rub i…
3 pianos
Three grand pianists on three grand pianos. The presence of three good pianos at Gateway Studio allows one to hear three of the best improvising pianists working together. Most of the music is three-way improvisation, but there are also three short duos, and three pieces with restricting rules. 66 minutes.
Conduction #31: Angelica, conduction #35: American connection 4,
1995 release ** Conduction #31: Angelica Festival of International Music: Bologna, Italy; May 16, 1993
Dietmar Diesner, soprano sax; Peter Kowald, bass; Wolter Wierbos, trombone; Steve Beresford, piano; Hans Reichel, guitar; Tom Cora, cello; Han Bennink, drums; Catherine Jauniaux, voice; Ikue Mori, drum machinesConduction #35: American Connection 4: Antwerp, Belgium; May 26, 1993Conduction #36: American Connection 4: Amsterdam, Holland; May 27, 1993The Maarten Altena Ensemble: Maarten Altena, ba…
Conduction #28: Cherry Blossom, conduction #31: Angelica
1995 release ** Conduction #28: Cherry Blossom: P3 Art and Environment, Tokyo, Japan; March 28, 1993Yukihiro Isso, nokan; Shonosuke Okura, ohtsuzumi; Makiko Sakurai, shomyo, music box; Michihiro Sato, tugaru syamisen; Kizan Daiyoshi, shakuhachi; Yuji Katsui, violin; Haruna Miyake, piano; Asuka Kaneko, voice; Shuichi Chino, computer; Koichi Makigami, voice; Yoshihide Otomo, turntables, CD player; Kazutoki Umezu, bass clarinet; Sachiko Nagata, percussion; Motoharu Yoshizawa, electric bass; Kazuo O…
Freedom Of The City 2001 - Small Groups
Highlights from small group recordings from the 2001 Freedom of the City festival featuring artists such as Steve Beresford (electronics), John Butcher (saxes), Lol Coxhill (sax), Paul Rutherford (trombone), Phil Minton, and more in various arrangements.
Short in the U.K.
Steve Beresford, keyboards, small trumpet; Dennis Palmer, synthesizers, voice; Bob Stagner, drums, percussion; Roger Turner, drums, percussion. The pencil - a history (09.04), Trees without dogs (00.33), Our world as we know it (05.24), Name without a street (00.13), Bulldog eating a wasp [Waspers] (14.42), Matzoh spectacles [thank you Lol Coxhill] (01.27), Earthling-a-ding (03.39), Faster than $ sound (11.23), Standing on a whale (05.53), Fearing puffins (05.03).Recorded at The Place, London in…
Trap street
ALAN TOMLINSON alto & tenor trombones. STEVE BERESFORD electronics & objects. ROGER TURNER drum set & percussion. Digital studio recording made in London by Mike Dailey - 2002 July 24.Excerpts from sleeve notes: “Is this a record? As the first full-length documentation of Alan Tomlinson since his 1980 solo LP issued by Bead and the 1986 FERALS (with Hugh Davies, Phil Minton & Roger Turner) on Leo, it must be. Most of you will know about Roger Turner, who has appeared on several recordings, and a…