Mostly Other People Do The Killing: Blue

Blue
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Artist: Mostly Other People Do The Killing
Genre: Jazz
Label: Hot Cup

This is not a jazz recording, in the same sense that Magritte's pipe is not a pipe. Such are the conundrums presented by this literal, note for note transcription of Miles Davis's 1959 classic Kind of Blue. As an improvised artform, jazz is largely immune to irony, so MOPDTK's witty thought experiment is a brave attempt to provoke a debate about authorship and meaning. But like Schrödinger's experiment with the cat, the questions evaporate when you actually run the experiment. The liner notes reproduce Borges' baffling essay about transcribing Don Quixote, but unlike words, music – with all its infinite subtleties – really cannot be repeated exactly, and listening to this attempt is chilling, almost macabre. So save yourself the trouble – let other people do the listening. hotcuprecords.com

Cormac Larkin

Cormac Larkin

Cormac Larkin, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a musician, writer and director