current:

New regular column by Clive Bell: "Bell Labs" at The Wire magazine website. Also online: a new interview with long-lost proto-minimalist composer Dennis Johnson, on The Wire website.

22 April 2013: Sylvia Hallett & Clive Bell: live soundtrack for a silent 1930 comedy gangster movie by Yasujiro Ozu: Walk Cheerfully. BFI.

28 April 2013, 15.00: Karl Jenkins's "Requiem", with shakuhachi played by CB, Royal Albert Hall .

29 April 2013, 19.00: free concert by Okeanos at The National Geographic, 102 Brompton Rd, London SW3 1JJ. CB will play "Kaze No Kyoku" by Somei Satoh for shakuhachi solo; and "Haru No Umi" by Michio Miyagi for shakuhachi and koto (Melissa Holding).

28 May 2013: CB & David Ross at Club Integral

4 June 2013: CB with The 49 Americans at Cafe Oto

6 June 2013: The Geographers (CB & Sylvia Hallett) at Club Integral

New show by Kazuko Hohki : The Man From Fukushima. Music by CB & Andy Cox. First showing March 2013 at Camden Peoples Theatre.

"Molino De Otoño" - new trio of John Garcia-Rueda (Colombian tiple guitar), Gabriella Swallow (cello) and Clive Bell. Recording early 2013.

Listen free on SOUNDCLOUD: June In Tottenham, 16 short improvisations on shakuhachi, recorded June 2012.

2012: performances with Taiko Meantime (Japanese drumming): Sept, Ashley Court, Wiltshire. Oct, Bentley, Farnham.

recent:

OKEANOS contemporary music group: concert at Barbican, London; part of Total Immersion: Sounds From Japan. Live appearance on In Tune, BBC R3 (Feb 2013).
Sold-out show at Ronnie Scotts with Matthew Halsall Quintet (Jan 2013).
Short soundtrack by CB for Aftercare, play by Steve Lambert, directed by Barry Edwards at White Bear Theatre, Kennington, London (Jan 2013).
Cover feature by CB, September 2012 issue of The Wire: Josephine Foster interview.
Sept 2012: Jah Wobble's Modern Jazz Ensemble at The Vortex, Dalston, London.
August 2012: CB played for UK premiere of Philip Glass opera in the Arcola Tent, Dalston, London, part of Grimeborn Opera Festival.
July 2012: CB played for soundtrack of Emperor, new movie directed by Peter Webber.
July/Aug 2012: CB played for Royal Shakespeare Company micro-production of The Tempest (Shakespeare In A Suitcase).
August 2012: CB with The Resonance Radio Orchestra, live soundtrack for 1923 movie The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Frank's, Peckham, London.
April 2012: Sylvia Hallett & CB duo, Boat Ting, Embankment, London.
March 2012: Korean & Japanese flutes: Hyelim Kim (taegum flute) and CB (shakuhachi/khene) duet, The HoneyPot, Stoke Newington, London.
March 2012: Jah Wobble's Modern Jazz Ensemble at The Vortex, Dalston, London.
Feb 2012: Faster Than Sound, Aldeburgh, Suffolk: ‘I Burn for You’ is an atmospheric new music theatre work inspired by Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire novel Dracula, created by composer Ian Wilson and stage director Tom Creed. "The musicians add gravitas to Attila Csihar’s hisses, snarls and stretched groans. Bell, who also plays shakuhachi and accordion, is particularly affecting on khene, or Laotian mouth organ. Its mellow tone has none of the shrillness of a harmonica, and his duet with saxophonist Cathal Roche on baritone was particularly lovely; as was their shakuhachi and soprano sax duet…A rich, if scaled-down operatic experience, which left the viewer wanting more." Lisa Blanning, The Wire.
CB's interview with film maker David Lynch (about Lynch's Crazy Clown Time album) was in the November 2011 issue of The Wire magazine. Listen to audio of the interview here.
Album released October 2011: Late Autumn on 33Jazz Records by pianist Taeko Kunishima, produced by Clive Bell. Features CB shakuhachi, Paul Moylan bass, Dave Ross and Maxwell Hallett drums, Sean Corby trumpet.
The Floating World Ensemble played in Warneford Chapel, Oxford, December 2011. Koto (Melissa Holding) & shakuhachi (CB). The concert was filmed by Pier Corona and can be viewed here. Pier's photo album of the concert is here.
Clive Bell Plays AudRey Fireside Shakuhachi Bonfire music video, December 2011.
Opera North's Lullaby Project - CB plays a Japanese lullaby on YouTube.
Clive Bell on tour with Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers - Japanese drumming show toured UK, Oct/Nov 2011.
CB played shakuhachi for composer Alexandre Desplat on the soundtracks of both the recent Harry Potter films.
July 2011, CB solo shakuhachi at Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG. 14.46 Time Stood Still, Fundraiser concert. This show was filmed by USTREAM, and you can watch the set HERE
June 2011 in Glasgow: Japanese Noh play Matsukaze, directed by Paddy Cunneen, with live music by CB, at ORAN MOR
April, 2011: new album by B.I.L.L. Clive Bell plus Jaki Liebezeit (Can), Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) and Jochen Irmler (Faust), on Klangbad Records.
May 2011: new album by Jah Wobble & The Modern Jazz Ensemble, titled "7", on 30 Hertz. Played Ronnie Scotts (May) and Glastonbury (June).
April, 2011 on BBC Radio 3: A Thousand Kisses by Frederic Raphael (radio drama about the Roman poet Catullus), music by CB.
December 2010 CB & koto player Keiko Kitamura played at Durham Musicon East Asian Music Festival.
Oct 2010 in Bridlington, CB on stage with Jah Wobble & Keith Levene, see "Poptones" on YouTube.
Hear The Nuclear Family's Progeny Suite here. Live broadcast on Resonance FM, September 2010, (The Nuclear Family: CB, Sylvia Hallett, Maxwell Hallett). The programme is Johny Brown's Mining For Gold
CB & Jaki Leibezeit, Klangbad 2010, photo by Manuel Wagner.
August 2010, CB live with B.I.L.L.: Jaki Leibezeit (Can), Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) & Jochen Irmler (Faust) at Klangbad Festival, Germany.
New short films by Louise Oliver with songs written by Louise & CB: Who Bathes The Dust; Morning, Time To Sing; En Suite; Five Red Leaves; Mud And Air; Day And Night; Songs Of Absence - all the old hits are here.
Free download of Third Site Live by Paul Schütze, played by CB, Paul Schütze, Raoul Björkenheim and Simon Hopkins. Another free download: Paul Schütze's Partial Site, originally recorded for BBC Radio 3's Mixing It.
MySpace: a page for Clive Bell, designed by Maxwell Hallett aka MaxHasWax & Maximus Drumus. Another page for CB's traditional Japanese group Floating World Ensemble.
Autumn 2009, David Sylvian's album release Manafon. CB contributed introductory essay to Deluxe Edition of CD and DVD Amplified Gesture. Samadhisound label
Clive Bell onstage with Jah Wobble's Nippon Dub Ensemble, photo by Paul Cantrell

Summer 2010: Brainwave, a new touring show by The Whalley Range All Stars: music by Clive Bell, featuring Max Hallett on English Hammered Dulcimer, and Richard Bolton on electric guitar. "Their latest show, "Brainwave", is for audiences of 200-300 with gigantic puppets, animators and a stage within a giant head within a garden shed," The Guardian, October 2009.
June 09: new release by TWINKLE3 (Richard Scott, David Ross & Clive Bell): Let's Make A Solar System. Vinyl only, limited edition on the ini.itu label (Belgium). Cover photography by Judith Goodman. HEAR TWINKLE3 HERE. Reviews here. Buy it here.
"The album features a trio whose combined experience in the field of sonic exploration easily justifies claims of them constituting a friendly supergroup. Over decade-long careers, their reach has been global, their appeal broad, their sound eclectic. While Richard Scott has immersed himself in the world of modular synthesizers and untiring acoustic curiosity, David Ross's continuous journeys to the heart of the moment have made him one of the UK's most revered improvisers. Clive Bell, on the other hand, has worked with artists as different as Jah Wobble, David Sylvian and Karl Jenkins – signs of a mind finely attuned to music's inherent qualities rather than public images. The fine friction between Ross's and Scott's digital dots and dances and his Shakuhachi lines is indeed one of the most distinct characteristics of "Solar System", which makes a point of contrasting organic with synthetic material, mood work with proficiently unfolding themes and tranquilly agitated passages with intricately agitated tranquility." Review of Let's Make A Solar System by Tobias Fischer from Tokafi.com :

Videos of Clive playing (and teaching) shakuhachi at ESS London Summer School

***

recent recordings :

October 2011: Late Autumn by Taeko Kunishima on 33Jazz Records

CB: shakuhachi, flute, producer

Taeko Kunishima_Late Autumn

*****

Japanese Dub by Jah Wobble on 30 Hertz Records

available here

***

Car Ad Music, CD by Jah Wobble on 30 Hertz label , featuring BJ Cole and CB

***

Jah Wobble's Chinese Dub on 30 Hertz Records

David Honigman in the Financial Times on WOMAD 08:

"Away in the arboretum, Jah Wobble gave the performance of the festival. His new project, Chinese Dub, started as a relatively modest commission for Liverpool 08, marking the city's year as European capital of culture, and grew into a tour and an album. Wobble, in grey suit and hat, played forceful basslines that could have performed CPR two fields away. Dodging about the stage, he cued other players to drop in and out. His wife, Zi Lan Liao, sat playing the guzheng, a plucked zither. Clive Bell played Chinese pipes.

Dub and Chinese music proved a perfect mixture. The earnest folk melodies leavened the dub's conceptual self-importance; the dub hardened the Chinese music against kitsch. As if to demonstrate the kinship, the band played Augustus Pablo's “Java”, echoing with melodica and a guzheng solo dovetailed in as the rhythm dropped out. Later, Clea Rose sang Dawn Penn's “No, No, No”, rising from a low growl to impressionistic wails, accompanied by the Tibetan singer Gu Ying.

Midway, Wobble brought on two mask-changing dancers. As they twirled and high kicked, red and yellow silk cloaks whipping around them, their masks constantly changed from one eyeblink to the next, expressions and colours and designs constantly transforming as hands flashed across faces. It was a moment of stage magic so surprising, and so inexplicable, that the audience was dumbstruck."

Watch Chinese Dub on YouTube , plus more from the WOMAD 08 show here.

***

The Rooms by Philip Clemo, released October 2008.

"This all adds up to pretty much a dream ticket. Clemo's 'compositions' meander into your peripheral auditory field and recede again with dreamlike nuance. It's beautiful, transcendent and yes, indefinable." 4/5 . Chris Jones, BBC Online , UK.

"Its best track is actually the longest - a 16-minute opener called "The Place". Clemo's hypnotic grooves form the backdrop for rich and satisfying textures from his repertory company of improvisers, ably recorded and mixed by Talk Talk engineer Phill Brown." John L Walters, Guardian.

More info at Philip Clemo's site

***

numb and number: different fish

numb and number are clive bell (flute, shakuhachi, khene, duduk, bansuri, norwegian seljefløyte, zither) & david harrow (monome 128, theremin, juno 106). album recorded los angeles / london 2008 produced and mixed by david harrow at workhouse studio LA.

"successfully illustrates Bell's ruminative, intelligent style." Nick Cain in The Wire.

available now as digital download from iTunes via www.workhouse.us

***

Wood Wind Tide by Ampanman is an album by Clive Bell (shakuhachi) and Richard Scott (processing). Psychedelic, spectacular landscapes, all generated from the sound of the Japanese flute. On Chinese indie label KWANYIN RECORDS. Cover by Kazuko Hohki.

"Clive Bell is always a treat when it comes to new approaches to traditional instruments, and a true master of the shakuhachi for that matter. This CD, which risks being buried under an undeserved coat of mystery given that it's not exactly easy to find (here goes a tip of my hat to Yan Jun, label honcho, who gracefully sent me a bunch of releases including this one), sees the English improviser lending his abilities to Richard Scott's processing.

Let's make it perfectly clear: this is not a “Clive Bell with delay and reverb” kind of a record. Scott thinks in instrumental fashion with his machines, capturing the essence of the partner's flute and building from it, or deciding instead to rape that very wooden soul by transforming its purity in the asphalt of a highway that leads to mesmerizing positive hollowness, an engrossing alternance between gigantic “chords” made of harmonized pitches and ever-mutating shapes where the shakuhachi starts with its regular timbre but soon morphs into some sort of quavering extraneous propagation.

The overall sound is ominous in traits, luminous quite often, engaging throughout, taking possession of the listening environment with firm levity in a cross of extreme dissonance and disciplined stretching of unknown harmonies. Beautiful, in a word - and worthy of being tracked down." By Massimo Ricci

***

Acoustic Dream is the 2008 release of trio improvisations from CB, Sylvia Hallett and pianist Roberto Filoseta, on UH RECORDINGS

"Through various manipulations Bell, Filoseta and Hallett successfully tap into forgotten worlds and the subconscious to communicate with musical voices that have since passed into memory but still evoke a powerful presence." The Wire Magazine, June 2008

***

An Account Of My Hut is an album of improvisations for shakuhachi and nay (Arabic flute), by CB and Bechir Saade. Cover painting by Sylvia Hallett. Hear extracts on the Another Timbre label website. Released 2008.

“British shakuhachi player Clive Bell seems to have found a soul mate in Lebanese ney player Bechir Saade. The pair use a variety of extended techniques to put their point across. The main feeling one gets from their music is that of overt peacefulness and a state of rest. It's not that the music stands still, but rather that it doesn't particularly move into places of eruption, nor does it wander off into unchartered, murky waters. Though the state of calm prevails, there are still moments of improvised vitality here. The bursting, breath-popping, tongue-rolling can clearly be pictured as the duo rev up their collective engines on "Withered Leaves". Haunting, exhilarating but mostly calm improvisations that see the two musicians become one single unit, An Account of My Hut is naked and honest music of the highest timbre.” Review by Tom Sekowki, Gaz-eta.

Hear the Simon Reynell "Wire Wind Mix" from The Wire's Adventures In Modern Music radio programme on Resonance FM.

***

David Sylvian's When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima,

featuring Clive Bell, Christian Fennesz, Arve Henriksen, Akira Rabelais and David Sylvian.

review by Chris Jones on BBC website:
"...Conceived as a work in progress to be completed by the external sounds of the actual Chichu Art Gallery, When Loud Weather… is a collage of found sound, drones and contributions from a ensemble of big-hitters in the European avant fraternity including shakuhachi maestro Clive Bell, guitarist Christian Fennesz and Norwegian trumpet/electronics genius, Arve Henriksen.
... it shows how far the man has come in recent years and how carefully and wisely he's choosing his fellow travellers. Never less than beautiful, When Loud Weather... deserves to be given space next to his more mainstream work."

Samadhi Sound label

Benesse House art museum

***

CB playing pi saw flute at Klangbad 2010, photo by Manuel Wagner

***

CLIVE BELL: NEWS SPRING 2013
Clive Bell and shakuhachi, Rays Jazz Nov 2012, picture by Sean Kelly

current: New regular column by Clive Bell: "Bell Labs" at The Wire magazine website. Also online: a new interview with long-lost proto-minimalist composer Dennis Johnson, on The Wire website. 22 April 2013: Sylvia Hallett & Clive Bell: live soundtrack for a silent 1930 comedy gangster movie by Yasujiro Ozu: Walk Cheerfully. BFI. 28 April 2013, 15.00: Karl Jenkins's "Requiem", with shakuhachi played by CB, Royal Albert Hall . 29 April 2013, 19.00: free concert by Okeanos at The National Geographic, 102 Brompton Rd, London SW3 1JJ. CB will play "Kaze No Kyoku" by Somei Satoh for shakuhachi solo; and "Haru No Umi" by Michio Miyagi for shakuhachi and koto (Melissa Holding). 28 May 2013: CB & David Ross at Club Integral 4 June 2013: CB with The 49 Americans at Cafe Oto 6 June 2013: The Geographers (CB & Sylvia Hallett) at Club Integral New show by Kazuko Hohki : The Man From Fukushima. Music by CB & Andy Cox. First showing March 2013 at Camden Peoples Theatre. "Molino De Otoño" - new trio of John Garcia-Rueda (Colombian tiple guitar), Gabriella Swallow (cello) and Clive Bell. Recording early 2013. Listen free on SOUNDCLOUD: June In Tottenham, 16 short improvisations on shakuhachi, recorded June 2012. 2012: performances with Taiko Meantime (Japanese drumming): Sept, Ashley Court, Wiltshire. Oct, Bentley, Farnham. recent: OKEANOS contemporary music group: concert at Barbican, London; part of Total Immersion: Sounds From Japan. Live appearance on In Tune, BBC R3 (Feb 2013). Sold-out show at Ronnie Scotts with Matthew Halsall Quintet (Jan 2013). Short soundtrack by CB for Aftercare, play by Steve Lambert, directed by Barry Edwards at White Bear Theatre, Kennington, London (Jan 2013). Cover feature by CB, September 2012 issue of The Wire: Josephine Foster interview. Sept 2012: Jah Wobble's Modern Jazz Ensemble at The Vortex, Dalston, London. August 2012: CB played for UK premiere of Philip Glass opera in the Arcola Tent, Dalston, London, part of Grimeborn Opera Festival. July 2012: CB played for soundtrack of Emperor, new movie directed by Peter Webber. July/Aug 2012: CB played for Royal Shakespeare Company micro-production of The Tempest (Shakespeare In A Suitcase). August 2012: CB with The Resonance Radio Orchestra, live soundtrack for 1923 movie The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Frank's, Peckham, London. April 2012: Sylvia Hallett & CB duo, Boat Ting, Embankment, London. March 2012: Korean & Japanese flutes: Hyelim Kim (taegum flute) and CB (shakuhachi/khene) duet, The HoneyPot, Stoke Newington, London. March 2012: Jah Wobble's Modern Jazz Ensemble at The Vortex, Dalston, London. Feb 2012: Faster Than Sound, Aldeburgh, Suffolk: ‘I Burn for You’ is an atmospheric new music theatre work inspired by Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire novel Dracula, created by composer Ian Wilson and stage director Tom Creed. "The musicians add gravitas to Attila Csihar’s hisses, snarls and stretched groans. Bell, who also plays shakuhachi and accordion, is particularly affecting on khene, or Laotian mouth organ. Its mellow tone has none of the shrillness of a harmonica, and his duet with saxophonist Cathal Roche on baritone was particularly lovely; as was their shakuhachi and soprano sax duet…A rich, if scaled-down operatic experience, which left the viewer wanting more." Lisa Blanning, The Wire. CB's interview with film maker David Lynch (about Lynch's Crazy Clown Time album) was in the November 2011 issue of The Wire magazine. Listen to audio of the interview here. Album released October 2011: Late Autumn on 33Jazz Records by pianist Taeko Kunishima, produced by Clive Bell. Features CB shakuhachi, Paul Moylan bass, Dave Ross and Maxwell Hallett drums, Sean Corby trumpet. The Floating World Ensemble played in Warneford Chapel, Oxford, December 2011. Koto (Melissa Holding) & shakuhachi (CB). The concert was filmed by Pier Corona and can be viewed here. Pier's photo album of the concert is here. Clive Bell Plays AudRey Fireside Shakuhachi Bonfire music video, December 2011. Opera North's Lullaby Project - CB plays a Japanese lullaby on YouTube. Clive Bell on tour with Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers - Japanese drumming show toured UK, Oct/Nov 2011. CB played shakuhachi for composer Alexandre Desplat on the soundtracks of both the recent Harry Potter films. July 2011, CB solo shakuhachi at Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG. 14.46 Time Stood Still, Fundraiser concert. This show was filmed by USTREAM, and you can watch the set HERE June 2011 in Glasgow: Japanese Noh play Matsukaze, directed by Paddy Cunneen, with live music by CB, at ORAN MOR April, 2011: new album by B.I.L.L. Clive Bell plus Jaki Liebezeit (Can), Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) and Jochen Irmler (Faust), on Klangbad Records. May 2011: new album by Jah Wobble & The Modern Jazz Ensemble, titled "7", on 30 Hertz. Played Ronnie Scotts (May) and Glastonbury (June). April, 2011 on BBC Radio 3: A Thousand Kisses by Frederic Raphael (radio drama about the Roman poet Catullus), music by CB. December 2010 CB & koto player Keiko Kitamura played at Durham Musicon East Asian Music Festival. Oct 2010 in Bridlington, CB on stage with Jah Wobble & Keith Levene, see "Poptones" on YouTube. Hear The Nuclear Family's Progeny Suite here. Live broadcast on Resonance FM, September 2010, (The Nuclear Family: CB, Sylvia Hallett, Maxwell Hallett). The programme is Johny Brown's Mining For Gold CB & Jaki Leibezeit, Klangbad 2010, photo by Manuel Wagner. August 2010, CB live with B.I.L.L.: Jaki Leibezeit (Can), Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) & Jochen Irmler (Faust) at Klangbad Festival, Germany. New short films by Louise Oliver with songs written by Louise & CB: Who Bathes The Dust; Morning, Time To Sing; En Suite; Five Red Leaves; Mud And Air; Day And Night; Songs Of Absence - all the old hits are here. Free download of Third Site Live by Paul Schütze, played by CB, Paul Schütze, Raoul Björkenheim and Simon Hopkins. Another free download: Paul Schütze's Partial Site, originally recorded for BBC Radio 3's Mixing It. MySpace: a page for Clive Bell, designed by Maxwell Hallett aka MaxHasWax & Maximus Drumus. Another page for CB's traditional Japanese group Floating World Ensemble. Autumn 2009, David Sylvian's album release Manafon. CB contributed introductory essay to Deluxe Edition of CD and DVD Amplified Gesture. Samadhisound label Clive Bell onstage with Jah Wobble's Nippon Dub Ensemble, photo by Paul Cantrell Summer 2010: Brainwave, a new touring show by The Whalley Range All Stars: music by Clive Bell, featuring Max Hallett on English Hammered Dulcimer, and Richard Bolton on electric guitar. "Their latest show, "Brainwave", is for audiences of 200-300 with gigantic puppets, animators and a stage within a giant head within a garden shed," The Guardian, October 2009. June 09: new release by TWINKLE3 (Richard Scott, David Ross & Clive Bell): Let's Make A Solar System. Vinyl only, limited edition on the ini.itu label (Belgium). Cover photography by Judith Goodman. HEAR TWINKLE3 HERE. Reviews here. Buy it here. "The album features a trio whose combined experience in the field of sonic exploration easily justifies claims of them constituting a friendly supergroup. Over decade-long careers, their reach has been global, their appeal broad, their sound eclectic. While Richard Scott has immersed himself in the world of modular synthesizers and untiring acoustic curiosity, David Ross's continuous journeys to the heart of the moment have made him one of the UK's most revered improvisers. Clive Bell, on the other hand, has worked with artists as different as Jah Wobble, David Sylvian and Karl Jenkins – signs of a mind finely attuned to music's inherent qualities rather than public images. The fine friction between Ross's and Scott's digital dots and dances and his Shakuhachi lines is indeed one of the most distinct characteristics of "Solar System", which makes a point of contrasting organic with synthetic material, mood work with proficiently unfolding themes and tranquilly agitated passages with intricately agitated tranquility." Review of Let's Make A Solar System by Tobias Fischer from Tokafi.com : Videos of Clive playing (and teaching) shakuhachi at ESS London Summer School * recent recordings : October 2011: Late Autumn by Taeko Kunishima on 33Jazz Records CB: shakuhachi, flute, producer *** Japanese Dub by Jah Wobble on 30 Hertz Records available here *** Car Ad Music, CD by Jah Wobble on 30 Hertz label , featuring BJ Cole and CB *** Jah Wobble's Chinese Dub on 30 Hertz Records David Honigman in the Financial Times on WOMAD 08: "Away in the arboretum, Jah Wobble gave the performance of the festival. His new project, Chinese Dub, started as a relatively modest commission for Liverpool 08, marking the city's year as European capital of culture, and grew into a tour and an album. Wobble, in grey suit and hat, played forceful basslines that could have performed CPR two fields away. Dodging about the stage, he cued other players to drop in and out. His wife, Zi Lan Liao, sat playing the guzheng, a plucked zither. Clive Bell played Chinese pipes. Dub and Chinese music proved a perfect mixture. The earnest folk melodies leavened the dub's conceptual self-importance; the dub hardened the Chinese music against kitsch. As if to demonstrate the kinship, the band played Augustus Pablo's “Java”, echoing with melodica and a guzheng solo dovetailed in as the rhythm dropped out. Later, Clea Rose sang Dawn Penn's “No, No, No”, rising from a low growl to impressionistic wails, accompanied by the Tibetan singer Gu Ying. Midway, Wobble brought on two mask-changing dancers. As they twirled and high kicked, red and yellow silk cloaks whipping around them, their masks constantly changed from one eyeblink to the next, expressions and colours and designs constantly transforming as hands flashed across faces. It was a moment of stage magic so surprising, and so inexplicable, that the audience was dumbstruck." Watch Chinese Dub on YouTube , plus more from the WOMAD 08 show here. *** The Rooms by Philip Clemo, released October 2008. "This all adds up to pretty much a dream ticket. Clemo's 'compositions' meander into your peripheral auditory field and recede again with dreamlike nuance. It's beautiful, transcendent and yes, indefinable." 4/5 . Chris Jones, BBC Online , UK. "Its best track is actually the longest - a 16-minute opener called "The Place". Clemo's hypnotic grooves form the backdrop for rich and satisfying textures from his repertory company of improvisers, ably recorded and mixed by Talk Talk engineer Phill Brown." John L Walters, Guardian. More info at Philip Clemo's site *** numb and number: different fish numb and number are clive bell (flute, shakuhachi, khene, duduk, bansuri, norwegian seljefløyte, zither) & david harrow (monome 128, theremin, juno 106). album recorded los angeles / london 2008 produced and mixed by david harrow at workhouse studio LA. "successfully illustrates Bell's ruminative, intelligent style." Nick Cain in The Wire. available now as digital download from iTunes via www.workhouse.us * Wood Wind Tide by Ampanman is an album by Clive Bell (shakuhachi) and Richard Scott (processing). Psychedelic, spectacular landscapes, all generated from the sound of the Japanese flute. On Chinese indie label KWANYIN RECORDS. Cover by Kazuko Hohki. "Clive Bell is always a treat when it comes to new approaches to traditional instruments, and a true master of the shakuhachi for that matter. This CD, which risks being buried under an undeserved coat of mystery given that it's not exactly easy to find (here goes a tip of my hat to Yan Jun, label honcho, who gracefully sent me a bunch of releases including this one), sees the English improviser lending his abilities to Richard Scott's processing. Let's make it perfectly clear: this is not a “Clive Bell with delay and reverb” kind of a record. Scott thinks in instrumental fashion with his machines, capturing the essence of the partner's flute and building from it, or deciding instead to rape that very wooden soul by transforming its purity in the asphalt of a highway that leads to mesmerizing positive hollowness, an engrossing alternance between gigantic “chords” made of harmonized pitches and ever-mutating shapes where the shakuhachi starts with its regular timbre but soon morphs into some sort of quavering extraneous propagation. The overall sound is ominous in traits, luminous quite often, engaging throughout, taking possession of the listening environment with firm levity in a cross of extreme dissonance and disciplined stretching of unknown harmonies. Beautiful, in a word - and worthy of being tracked down." By Massimo Ricci * Acoustic Dream is the 2008 release of trio improvisations from CB, Sylvia Hallett and pianist Roberto Filoseta, on UH RECORDINGS "Through various manipulations Bell, Filoseta and Hallett successfully tap into forgotten worlds and the subconscious to communicate with musical voices that have since passed into memory but still evoke a powerful presence." The Wire Magazine, June 2008 * An Account Of My Hut is an album of improvisations for shakuhachi and nay (Arabic flute), by CB and Bechir Saade. Cover painting by Sylvia Hallett. Hear extracts on the Another Timbre label website. Released 2008. “British shakuhachi player Clive Bell seems to have found a soul mate in Lebanese ney player Bechir Saade. The pair use a variety of extended techniques to put their point across. The main feeling one gets from their music is that of overt peacefulness and a state of rest. It's not that the music stands still, but rather that it doesn't particularly move into places of eruption, nor does it wander off into unchartered, murky waters. Though the state of calm prevails, there are still moments of improvised vitality here. The bursting, breath-popping, tongue-rolling can clearly be pictured as the duo rev up their collective engines on "Withered Leaves". Haunting, exhilarating but mostly calm improvisations that see the two musicians become one single unit, An Account of My Hut is naked and honest music of the highest timbre.” Review by Tom Sekowki, Gaz-eta. Hear the Simon Reynell "Wire Wind Mix" from The Wire's Adventures In Modern Music radio programme on Resonance FM. * *David Sylvian's When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima,* featuring Clive Bell, Christian Fennesz, Arve Henriksen, Akira Rabelais and David Sylvian. review by Chris Jones on BBC website: "...Conceived as a work in progress to be completed by the external sounds of the actual Chichu Art Gallery, When Loud Weather… is a collage of found sound, drones and contributions from a ensemble of big-hitters in the European avant fraternity including shakuhachi maestro Clive Bell, guitarist Christian Fennesz and Norwegian trumpet/electronics genius, Arve Henriksen. ... it shows how far the man has come in recent years and how carefully and wisely he's choosing his fellow travellers. Never less than beautiful, When Loud Weather... deserves to be given space next to his more mainstream work." Samadhi Sound label Benesse House art museum * CB playing pi saw flute at Klangbad 2010, photo by Manuel Wagner *