Mickel Mass are a loose collective of musicians from Aberdeen, Scotland, centred round Mike Napier and Andy Da Kipp.
All shows are improvised, and experiment with found sounds, electronica, smatterings of folk, jazz, industrial, drone and occasionally humour.
They have often headlined locally, and have played as part of Damo Suzuki's Network, and with Faust.
You can hear a different mix of Halffool optimist at Mung Being online 'zine, just click here
(ps...Kathryn Sawers joins in the zither attack on 'Ghost of the CW girl'.)
Here's what the Ptolemaic Terrascope said (Reviews, September 2006)...
"Finally we turn to Lost Conversations, a far more experimental, free-form collection that features the talents of Mike Napier, Andy Da Kipp, Duncan Hart, Bill Thompson, and Alan Davidson, who together have created some wonderfully abstract soundscapes, full of raindrop melodies and creaking electronics. Half-fool Optimist demonstrates this blend of acoustic and electronics perfectly, the piece slowly turning to chaos and disorder before Lost Conversation repeats the trick, the softly picked guitar and soothing cello being slowly engulfed by a swarm of electronic insects. On For Lol (A Doffing Of The Cap), I presume that would be Lol Coxhill, the formula is reversed as some free-jazz noise is slowly lightened by a drifting cloud of echoed piano.
The best, however, is saved until last with a 40 minute live improvisation recorded at The Tunnels (Aberdeen), which shows the band in fine form, with chattering electronics and acoustic melodies being infused into a cello led drone, that breaks down into free noise, before the band get seriously psychedelic with some deep-space explorations that have a west-coast feel to them. Finally the stutter of the electronics take over again as the piece disintegrates with a flurry of white noise and feedback sounding like a long-lost kraut rock classic." (Simon Lewis)
