On July 14 the Paradise of Bachelors label recommences its initiative of returning UK guitarist Mike Cooper’s early work to print with the combo package Life and Death in Paradise + Milan: Live Acoustic 2018. The left side of the + offers a first-time reissue of Cooper’s 1974 LP originally released by the Fresh Air label, a beautifully wide-ranging rock affair. It’s accompanied by a new release, the right side of the +, documenting Cooper’s return to song form after decades devoted to free improv and electronics. It’s an exquisite paring available in three editions: Paradise on vinyl and Milan on CD with six-panel insert, a 2CD set with eight-panel insert, and digital.
Mike Cooper’s path is a road seldom traveled, as he began as a country-blues slinger with a folky bent who gradually dabbled in jazz, only to progress into the UK’s long-established free improv scene alongside such worthy figures as saxophonist Lol Coxhill and drummer Roger Turner (as The Recedents), bassist Dave Holland and multi-instrumentalist Steve Beresford.
This was something of a development in fits and starts. On the scene since the early ’60s, Cooper began recording mid-decade (a 45 shared with guitarist Derek Hall that was reissued in 2016 by Paradise of Bachelors) with his full-length debut Oh Really? issued by Pye in ’69. Thereafter, he quickly came into his own with a series of album for the Pye subsidiary Dawn, Do I Know You? (’70), Trout Steel (’70), Places I Know (’71), and The Machine Gun Co. (’72).
The last of those four is titled after the group that plays on it (itself named after the 1968 album by the Peter Brötzmann Octet), with the lineup also credited on Places I Know alongside UK bandleader Michael Gibbs. Originally intended as a 2LP, that’s how Paradise of Bachelors reissued them back in 2014, with Trout Steel also returned to print on the same date.
Cooper’s Dawn albums have aged well and are highly regarded today, but they weren’t big sellers upon release, and after The Machine Gun Co. fell apart, as detailed in Cooper’s accompanying liner essay, he travelled to southern Spain for a spell of retirement. And if it weren’t for a chance meeting with Brit music figure Tony Hall during this period, the recording of Life and Death in Paradise would’ve never happened.
For the LP, Cooper enlisted the then active trio of saxophonist Mike Osborne, double bassist Harry Miller, and drummer Louis Moholo (Osborne and Miller had played on Cooper’s Dawn albums) and then added his old friend Terry Clarke on guitar, Alan Gowen (of the Canterbury prog band Hatfield and the North) on piano, and Colin Boyd on bass guitar. This might suggest an overt jazz direction, but Life and Death in Paradise is very much a rock record, though one that’s resistant to easy categorization.
The essay details how the LP was reviewed harshly by a Melody Maker critic, with Cooper suggesting the writer “still had his head stuck up his folky rear end.” I do suspect the off-kilter looseness of opener “Rocket Summer” flowing into the lengthy acid-glam jamboree of “Black Night Crash” was too much to handle. Cooper hadn’t abandoned folk but rather distorted it, though “O.M.M. Coda” goes down easy and Miller’s bass in “Suicide De Luxe” and especially in the title track brings the playing of Richard Davis on Astral Weeks to mind.
Throughout the record, Osborne’s alto sax playing carries a ’50s R&R edge that can’t help but enhance the glam vibe a little bit, but overall, Life and Death in Paradise remains connected to the sound of the ’60s in a totally unforced manner, and to an extent heard on very few records made in 1974; the mid-section of the multifaceted title track brings both Michael Hurley and John Fahey to mind. But the piano-driven singer-songwriter-ism of “Critical Incidents” hits the mid-’70s right in the bullseye for the finale.
As one might’ve guessed, Life and Death in Paradise wasn’t a commercial breakthrough, and afterward, Cooper stepped away from music again, only to be lured back once more by the possibilities of spontaneity, interaction and timbre. Milan: Live Acoustic 2018 postdates a long stretch of collaborative activity that kicked off in the early ’80s, with the performance documenting Cooper’s reengagement with song form but in a manner reflecting his immersion in experimentation.
His guitar playing is thornier, at times reminiscent of Derek Bailey if he’d went nutty for country blues (fans of acoustic Bill Orcutt should also take note). But at times the guitar drops out completely as singing and electronics take over, and Cooper’s lyrical approach utilizes text collage and cut-up techniques derived from Tom Phillips, William Burroughs, and Brion Gysin.
There’s also field recordings (chirping birds, in particular) and a killer drone with vocals at the end. If a return to song, Milan: Live Acoustic 2018 is brimming with fresh possibilities as it illuminates Cooper’s persevering relevance.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Life and Death in Paradise
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Milan: Live Acoustic 2018
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