With respect to the staggering amount of music that Antony Milton has released since the mid-90’s, I feel a little ill-equipped to review this recent CD on Ben Spiers Transient label. The only other disc of Antony’s that I’ve heard is the petite, insidious, but quite enjoyable motorised noise outing Small Engine Funk Tantra.

The idea of a sextet, y’know … a musical group with six members, isn’t anything too unusual, That is, until you venture into the world of new improvised, electro-acoustic, noisy, post-electronic (whatever) music. Here, the small unit is the dominant format – soloists, duos, maybe three-piece. Six is something special. Anyone familiar with the extensive discographies of these gents: Tim Coster, Richard Francis, Rosy Parlane, Mark Sadgrove, Clinton Watkins and Paul Winstanley will find anticipation of this mega-ensemble (convened by Richard last year) well-rewarded.

Some years back, having written a few sound stories of my own, I began collecting anecdotes from sound artists and experimental instrument builders I met with whilst travelling in the USA. Each artist would be asked to tell a yarn about a sound experience imprinted on their memory that may have influenced the direction or path they were to take as artists. A collection of these I later published as a video, titled
“Sound Stories #1: Meetings with 14 U.S experimental instrument makers”.

1. That there is a tradition in Western thought, stretching back at least to Pythagoras1, that the cosmos is structured according to the principles of musical harmony.

2. That as a corollary of the above, harmony in music is seen as both 'natural' 2 and (ethically) 'good'.3

3. This concept of celestial harmony has been commonly expressed by the metaphor of the 'music of the spheres'4, wherein the planets are associated with specific musical notes or melodic modes.5