AMM

Generative Themes is the first AMM studio album with pianist John Tilbury. It was recorded in December 1982 by the trio he formed with Keith Rowe and Eddie Prévost, which stayed together until Rowe left the group in 2004. The original LP, released in 1983, was part of the Arts Council supported programme Radical Themes in Contemporary Music. The title fits the method: a sound is made and followed to see where it leads, generating others along the way.

Themes i to iv were recorded at Crescent Studios in Bath on 11 and 12 December 1982 by engineer David Lord. Rowe plays electric guitar and electronics, Tilbury piano and Prévost percussion. Tilbury's presence is felt from the start, as the buzzing clangs and muted, gong-like sounds of his prepared piano set the meditative tone of much of the record. In the first two sections Rowe lays down soft, mechanically repetitive lines on his tabletop guitar, and Prévost moves over them with dry percussive rustles. Elsewhere Rowe pulls radio broadcasts out of the air that fall exactly into place. The German magazine ME Sounds heard improvised music "completely free of clichés", taking the listener into an extraordinary sound world.

This Matchless Recordings CD, MRCD06, first issued in 1994, adds Generative Theme v, a 31-minute section of an improvisation at the Zagreb Biennale on 24 April 1983. Its cover by Rowe incorporates a drawing by Cornelius Cardew of Prévost's drum beater.