David Cunningham
Grey Scale
LabelSuperior Viaduct, Piano
FormatCD
GenreElectronic
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David Cunningham was born in Ireland in 1954. His work ranges from pop music to gallery installations including several collaborations with visual artists. His first significant commercial success came with The Flying Lizards' single "Money," an international hit in 1979.
Originally released in 1976, Cunningham's first solo album Grey Scale has become a landmark statement of DIY minimalist composition – continuing in the vein of the wild explosion of arthouse experimentation from the early '70s. Cunningham, then a student at the Maidstone College of Art in Kent, drafted fellow student non-musicians and (using whatever instruments available) crafted an endlessly shifting sonic palette with an improvisor's keen sensitivity to space, texture and tone.
As Cunningham states in the liner notes, his approach was to "pursue something (which may appear trivial or meaningless) so rigorously or relentlessly to the point that it reveals something new." Cunningham was influenced by live performances he was attending at the time by English composers Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman as well as free improvisors Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, David Toop and Paul Burwell.
Release notes
Cover photograph from the videotape 'Snow Scale' (1975) by Steve Partridge. Small Group Structures - Error System. The players play a repeating phrase in time with each other, each phrase lasting the same length of time, forming an overall long pulse based on the sum of the individual parts and a short rhythm pulse which is continuous as long as this preliminary structure is held. As soon as one player makes a mistake that mistake is made basis of repetition unless it is modified by a further…
| 1 | Error System (BAGFGAB) | 2:27 | |
| 2 | Error System (C Pulse Solo Recording) | 4:13 | |
| 3 | Error System (C Pulse Group Recording) | 3:29 | |
| 4 | Error System (E Based Group Recording) | 3:40 | |
| 5 | Error System (EFGA) | 5:06 | |
| 6 | Error System (ABCD) | 5:30 | |
| 7 | Ecuador | 2:59 | |
| 8 | Water Systemised | 4:11 | |
| 9 | Venezuela 1 | 3:03 | |
| 10 | Guitar Systemised | 3:15 | |
| 11 | Venezuela 2 | 2:48 | |
| 12 | Bolivia | 2:58 |
- David Cunningham
- Mixed By, Producer, Liner Notes [2022]
