Multi-instrumentalist, composer, and record producer David Cunningham is most well-known today as the leader of the punk-era pop deconstructionists The Flying Lizards, but his background is appreciably deeper than that. He debuted in 1976 with Grey Scale, a dive into process-based minimalism that’s as appealingly strange as it is rigorously constructed. Originally the inaugural release on Cunningham’s own Piano label, it receives its first time reissue on vinyl and compact disc (with a bonus track) March 3 through Superior Viaduct.
For those whose familiarity with David Cunningham’s work is based solely on The Flying Lizards’ version of Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” which was an out-of-nowhere international hit in 1979, climbing to #5 in the UK along with hitting nine other national charts including the Billboard Hot 100, where it reached #50 (also #23 on the Billboard Dance Club Play chart), the contents of Grey Scale might be a little (or quite a bit) surprising.
But Cunningham also produced Neue Deutsche Welle act Palais Schaumburg’s self-titled debut album in 1981, plus UK post-punk art-rock titans This Heat’s self-titled debut (’79), their EP (’80) and the Deceit album (’81). Furthermore, Cunningham issued This Heat and “Health and Efficiency” on his Piano label (Deceit was released by Rough Trade).
Now, folks who’ve soaked up The Flying Lizard’s two LPs for Virgin, the eponymous first album (’79) and follow-up Fourth Wall (’81) are more likely to get the connection between Grey Scale and Cunningham’s early electro-punk makeovers of oldies chestnuts (Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” was also covered by the Lizards) and the dub excursions that dominate both records.
Listeners who are unaware of The Flying Lizards but recognize names such as David Toop, Steve Beresford, Vivien Goldman, Gareth Sager, Patti Palladin, Peter Gordon, Michael Nyman, and Robert Fripp should hopefully comprehend that David Cunningham was much more than just some fleeting post-punk novelty artist.
As the first release on Piano, Grey Scale is where Cunningham’s recorded output begins, the 11 pieces (and again, one more on the CD) made while he was studying at the Maidstone College of Art in Kent, UK, courtesy of a handful of fellow students who, notably, were all non-musicians, all gathered for the purpose of realizing Cunningham’s Error System.
Specifically, the performers were instructed to repeat a simple musical phrase continuously until they made a mistake, which was basically inevitable given their status as non-musicians. Once a mistake was made, they were instructed to repeat the mistake until another was made, and on and on, and with the understanding that deliberate errors were not allowed.
As Cunningham was influenced by such composers as Nyman and Gavin Bryars, the works on Grey Scale clearly fall into the sphere of minimalism, while being distinct from the established minimalist work of the period, in large part due to the acceptance and downright embrace of error, which in turn creates a wobbly, off-kilter atmosphere (in contrast to the precision of Reich and Glass) that can bring to mind various works from inside the labyrinthine realms of the Los Angeles Free Music Society (opener “Error System (BAGFGAB)”) or sounds residing on the outer fringes of Ralph Records (“Ecuador”).
Cunningham was also greatly impacted by UK free improvisation of the period, which is how he hooked up with Beresford and Toop for The Flying Lizards. To further elaborate, the Error System method was intended to meld the structural fortitude of minimalism with the spontaneous energy and looseness of free improvisation (but without equating mistakes with improv). The influence of Cornelius Cardew is sort of a bridge between the compositional and improvisational sides of Cunningham’s equation.
The first side of Grey Scale features five pieces titled Error System, each with a distinguishing parenthetical (e.g. BAGFGAB, C Pulse Solo Recording, E Based Group Recording, EFGA), as the CD bonus, another Error System track, is sequenced sixth. This is where most of the record’s ensemble activity is located, the group action grabbing the ear and holding it tight through the solo passages (played by Cunningham himself) that dominate side two.
There are some sweet twists across Grey Scale, like how the cyclical creek-croak in “Water Systemised” got me to thinking of a similar tactic in Eno’s “The Great Pretender” from Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), and how “Venezuela 1” and closer “Bolivia” offer glimpses of avant-rock subtly nodding to the Euro Rock in Opposition scene that was just around the corner. But mostly David Cunningham’s achievement resists comparisons, its engaging weirdness having diminished not a bit.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
