A Taste Of Red Square
Southend | MySpace Video
The Squarions return to their original home base deep inside the territory of the Estuary people on Planet Essex.
We've made a zip file of a recent four track CD (including artwork) available for free download here
Join the Squarion mailing list and we'll send you a complementary Red Square mp3:
just put 'mailing list' in the subject box!
Meanwhile, recently........
A new review of 'Thirty Three'
LOOPS
'The ten tracks on Thirty Three would sound new even if they hadn't just been remastered and re-released. For a start, they sound uncompromisingly loud, with a momentum and urgency that confronts the listener like an imminent stampede.
…..angular electric guitar lines, precipitous and surly, lay chaotic foundations for rasping woodwind and frenetic drums to chase one another round. Pauses are few and solos almost non-existent: guitar and saxophone, or bass clarinet, occasionally come together in shifting harmonies like a punk take on Terry Riley.
Low-end, atonal riffs kick in, closer to King Crimson or Black Sabbath than the era's touchstone for improvised electric guitar, Derek Bailey, although his presence can be felt in the wide intervals, the scribbles of noise and feedback. Cymbal crashes pile up like debris; clatters of unlikely percussion amid rolling, fluid full-kit playing. There's a scrawl of violin. It's loose, unself-conscious, psychedelic music with the kind of gonzo charge that followed in the 1990s.
Phil Todd's Ashtray Navigations springs to mind, as does Mick Flower and Neil Campbell's Vibracathedral Orchestra……a raw, ecstatic DIY transcendental music.
…..I also hear contemporary sax-led noise bands such as……Zu and……the Thing, who rejoice in the instrument's noisiest possibilities.
('Thirty Three') could be on Load or Smalltown Superjazzz'.
Frances Morgan, from 'Red Square and Southend', Loops, issue 02, April 2010.
STREAMS OF EXPRESSION blog
'Red Square have been going since the 1970s, and though their reputation suggested a much noisier, more 'in-yer-face' approach than Atmospheres, there were more similarities than might have been imagined. In particular, both bands featured soprano players with strong jazz capabilities, neither of whom went for the 'exotic', Oriental sound popularized by Coltrane; nor for the kind of hyper-active squawking that resulted when the instrument became popular with fusion players; nor for the syrup of Jan Garbarek and smooth jazz. Both Dunmall and Jon Seagroatt played with a well-defined tone, a real clarity of ideas, and consistently strong melodic invention.
Similarly, the rock elements in Red Square don't involve the tendency to straight-forward time-keeping that characterized even Last Exit, at least in part. Roger Telford's approach to his kit is resolutely free, while Ian Staples takes his cue from the volume and timbral qualities of the electric guitar, rather than from any set of punk chords or grandstanding 'guitar hero' clichés; his playing is grungily distorted, sometimes sliding into metal-style riffs (which he was playing even before metal had become part of the musical landscape), and very rarely simply settling into mere slabs of noise.
Seagroatt's sax spins through riff-like and looping figures, but he doesn't repeat himself to the extent that one could identify recurring licks, and his style never feels like artificial excitement building, as its affinities with prog-rock and jazz fusion might have suggested. On occasion, the instrument is treated with electronic effects, so that it becomes oddly mechanical in sound, adding a whole new, eerie texture to the music; as does the Kaoss pad, which combines with Telford's bowing of each cymbal in his kit, in turn, and with pedal-treated guitar, for relatively brief sections that are less about the articulation of individual notes, more about the general texture and quality of sound.
Seagroatt's bass clarinet really cuts deep, smoothly swooping from low-end droning vibrations to upper register figures with none of the shrill squawks emitted by free jazzers – the instrument sounds particularly ominous, turning the tone of the music to a kind of volatile melancholy.
What's nice about Red Square is their resolute freshness: they don't sacrifice rock grunginess for tricksy fusion- or jazz-isms, and they don't sacrifice jazz clarity and skill for simple, obvious beats or noise aggression (though they are certainly loud!). The music feels very open, setting out a particular kind of sound, but with plenty of scope within that sound – of course, jazz and rock make an appearance, but there are also hints of folk (Seagroatt is a member of the re-formed Comus, and is married to Bobbie Watson, one of the band's vocalists).
I'm reminded, if anything, of those vital '60s and '70s English cross-overs between ancient traditions and modern innovations, folk materials and new musical technologies, involving Soft Machine, Comus, John Stevens, and The Third Ear Band, to name a few. It's certainly encouraging to know that that spirit lives on: not overly indebted to jazz or rock, but free to use both genres' freshest and most interesting elements within a freely improvised context, in a manner that is both organic and engaging'.
Posted by David Grundy, 'Streams of Expression' blog, 13th May 2010
and from an email about the same gig.......
'By the way, I thought Red Square were excellent. Jon Seagroatt has a very distinctive approach - amazing how completely he avoids every cliche of noisy free jazz. His playing is actually astonishingly delicate, very surprising in that context.Â
Did they record the show? It looked like there might have been some recording equipment in action. I don't know if they're thinking of putting together a new CD, but I thought that the fourth piece (I think) was particularly burning to be an album track - the one that started with lots of wild electronics that then settled into a loop with lashings of disconcerting bass clarinet on top... an absolute killer from start to finish!'
......and now for some footage...........
Caught like rabbits in the headlights.......that's the audience of course, not us......the Great Squarions live at Klub Kakofanney, Oxford, 6th November 2009;
Yet more of the Great Squarions nailing an appreciative audience's collective scalp to the back wall @ Klub Kakofanney, Oxford, November 2009.
Square fotografia by Bobbie Watson
Attack of the Great Squarions vol 253,000. The Great Squarions land in Chatham, survey the area with gimet eyes and brows shielded against the glare of Kent's twin suns. They identify a venue in need of a bracing roar of Squarion alternative relaxation music on a Wednesday night in mid-November, and advance accordingly.
This is a moment of repose amidst a maelstrom of noise.
You can either summons up your imaginative powers to bathe the scene in atmospheric lighting effects, or you can make do with the Jackson Pollock print someone has artfully blu-taked to the chimney breast behind us.
Nice titles there though, doing a going up kind of a thing and telling it how it is (or should that be was?)
Moody monochrome for this second Squarion outing a la belle Chatham. Featuring a short outburst of pedal-generated feedback-looping from Jon; one of the many proven Red Square techniques for re-wiring synapses on the fly, and bringing the proletariat of the world to a state of revolutionary consciousness. They were certainly fired-up in Chatham that evening. At the end of the Square set the audience leapt up and, clutching their newly purchased Red Square CDs to their bosoms, they stormed to the doors pointing upwards and very slightly forwards like lots of Lenins hailing a taxi. But it was raining something rotten outside, so everyone milled about irresolutely for a bit, and then went home to their mums.
Backroom @ the Bully, Oxford, 14th January 2010.
Starts all nice and nice and ends up in a howling blizzard of Squarion scariness. The first gig that Jon has let the Kaoss Pad off it's leash. It was, after all, very keen to get out and about and meet the audience. It makes a brief guest appearance in this track; a more extended outing will follow soon.
Filmed and recorded by Bobbie Watson on a little camera, which introduces its own range of interesting compression artefacts to the mix!
MyGen Profile Generator
Live on stage @ Klub Kakoffaney in Oxford, 2009, and below, a review of the gig to go with the slideshow.........
NIGHTSHIFT
'Like me, Red Square are post-everything and at war with the obvious. Actually they were post-everything when they were (free) formed in the 1970s, before “everything†had happened, so now I guess they are post-post-everything.'
'Tonight’s phenomenal set is the first time that Jon Seagroatt, on bass clarinet and soprano sax, guitarist Ian Staples, and percussionist Roger Telford have played together as Red Square since (the late ‘70s).'
'Red Square are the sonic manifestation of a Jackson Pollock painting: the longer you listen.....the more you’re sucked into the individual virtuoso layers coming together as a whole.'
'.......as a live, breathtaking, experience, it’s gig of the year. Genius.'
Paul Carrera, Nightshift magazine, issue 165, April 2009
The recently released album, 'Thirty Three' on FMR Records, featuring material originally recorded between 1972 and 1978, is available from the FMR site , us , Downtown Records in NY and Amazon .
Reviews of 'Thirty Three':
WIRE MAGAZINE
'Red Square's name implies radical zeal and angularity, both of which this...group possessed in spades.'
'The trio developed a savage, muscular improvised style, drawing on the freedoms espoused by amplified Improv units like MEV, Ray Russell's Rock Workshop and John Surman's The Trio.'
'Squiggles of Seagroatt's.........electrified woodwind plummet into a morass of white-heat fuzz guitar, strafed by Telford's drum arsenal.'
'It's a focused free-for-all - heavy rock with the safety catch off - that anticipates the music of MASS, Gary Smith, Scorch Trio and Konk Pack, three decades later.'
'Seagroatt... has joined the version of (avant folk outfit Comus) which reformed at the start of 2008. A Red Square reunion wouldn't go amiss either.'
Rob Young, Wire magazine, issue 300, February 2009
NIGHTSHIFT
'Music made so long ago could easily fall flat – what once was revolutionary soon becomes humdrum – but this never sounds out of date. It is bloody hard work, though.'
'Roger’s polyrhythmic drumming provides an ever-shifting platform for Jon’s atonal (bass) clarinet and sax squalls and Ian’s sometimes thunderous guitar intrusions.'
'Over the course of an hour or so free jazz collides head-on with experimental metal and the more outré moments of psychedelia.'
'Such sounds are….far more commonplace now than they were when the band first existed, but…..there are still a majority of people out there for whom this will be the sound of hell on earth.'
Dale Kattack, Nightshift magazine, issue 163, February 2009
THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY.....A BRIEF BIOG
The groundwork for what became the Red Square sound was laid when Jon Seagroatt & Ian Staples began a musical collaboration in 1972, following encounters at a number of experimental music workshops.
Staples, fresh from the London underground scene, was working with tape multitracking, noise, psychedelia and action painting. His electric guitar playing was a revolutionary blend of Hendrix and Beefheart, with the sonic palettes of Derek Bailey and Stockhausen. Seagroatt drew freely on free-jazz, minimalism and on groups such as Can, Faust, Weather Report and Soft Machine.
Both were heavily influenced by developments in contemporary 'straight' music.
From the beginning of their collaboration they determined to improvise all of their music. Within a year they found a kindred spirit in drummer Roger Telford, a committed exponent of the free-jazz style of kit playing being pioneered at the time by Milford Graves and Sunny Murray.
The line up of Seagroatt, Staples and Telford remained the same throughout the band's six year history, as did the original commitment to total improvisation, but, given the group's wide range of influences, their improvisations drew as heavily on avant-rock as they did on jazz or contemporary improvised music.
Staples became adept at unleashing cunningly atonal guitar riffs which referenced metal without ever becoming metal. These onslaughts were critiqued and counterposed by Telford's coruscating polyrhythms. Seagroatt moved between the two, weaving a sinuous cats-cradle of fractured melody in the liminal space where metal met jazz.
The stability of the band's personnel lead to the development of a remarkably responsive, intuitive interplay between the musicians, which mislead many into thinking that at least some of the material had been composed beforehand. The combination of electric guitar, amplified bass clarinet and drum kit gave Red Square a unique sound palette to explore, as well an instantly recognisable group sound.
As well as their now legendary semi-squatted 'residency' in a vast, condemned Victorian hotel in Westcliff-on-Sea, Red Square played numerous gigs (four in one day on one occasion!), benefits and student occupations, supported Henry Cow, Red Brass and Lol Coxhill, and were active in Music For Socialism.
Live, the group were often punishingly loud (one story recounts that a Red Square set drowned out Cliff Richard who was playing at a venue half a mile away!). Despite the support of luminaries such as Miles, then writing for NME, they frequently enjoyed a combative relationship with audiences. Their enthusiasm for playing inappropriate venues (including folk clubs and pub-rock dives) and their willingness to engage forcefully with hecklers led to a number of hurried back-door exits from gigs and presaged the arrival of punk a few years later.
They released two cassette-only albums, 'Paramusic' and 'Circuitry', the latter being a live recording of a gig with Henry Cow in Southend, Essex. Tracks from both of these albums are included on 'Thirty Three'.
Red Square were in many respects ahead of their time, and methods and sounds that they pioneered have since become common practice amongst experimental and avant-rock musicians.
Jon and Ian continued to work together after the eventual break-up of the group on a number of projects including the Duffs, B So glObal , Omlo Vent and Miramar. Jon formed a writing partnership with singer Bobbie Watson which led to the formation of trip-hop band Drift , and, later, to the punk-jazz inflected Colins of Paradise .
Having been approached by FMR to release their old material, the band so enjoyed trawling through the reels of tape to choose album tracks that they decided to re-form. The group are now back in spontaneous rehearsal, some thirty years after last playing together as Red Square, recording new choice cuts of elemental, genre-defying, abstract noise terror, avant-rock and outer-limit free-jazz rampaging.
As well as their commitment to Red Square, the group members are also involved in other projects. Jon is a member of legendary psych-folk weirdlings Comus . Ian is now a successful artist, and also performs as The Visitor . Roger is active in the Oxford Improvisors Collective and plays with Pat Thomas, Tony Bevan and Pete MacPhail's Nostromo.
......and here are a few snaps. Something old, something new, something borrowed and an elephant.