Accidental (album)

Accidental (Music for Dance Volume 3) is a studio album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It is the third of a series of Music for Dance albums Frith made,^[1] and was recorded between December 1995 and January 1996 at Studio Jankowski in Stuttgart, Germany. The album was released on CD in March 2002 on Fred Records and was the first release in Frith's archival release program on the record label.

Background

Accidental was commissioned in 1995 by the British choreographer Paul Selwyn Norton for the dance piece "Rogue Tool", with funding provided by the British Council through the British/Israeli cultural initiative, BI Arts. "Rogue Tool" was premiered by the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel in February 1996.

Frith constructed the music on Accidental using a principle he called "block-melodies" ^[2] and he incorporated random events, or "accidents", into the compositions, including "found sounds" and field recordings, to trigger new patterns. Frith explained the background to the making of the album:^[3]

“

I'm fascinated by accidents. When I do solo improvisations I think of myself as being in continuous dialogue with the unexpected, and its always dynamic. Do I ignore this, do I embrace it, do I integrate it, do I keep my distance? When making this music I was constantly using random elements like radio tuning and trying to frame them in metric or harmonic structures.

”

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
BBC	favorable^[4]

Bill Tilland of the BBC wrote in a review of this album:^[4]

“

It's fairly standard practice for dance companies to commission "new music" composers to write (and sometimes perform) material for dance performances, and nearly all such work has moments of purely musical interest. But none that I can remember leaves such a strong overall impression as this one. Accidental is a real tribute to Frith's imaginative faculties.

”

Track listing

"The Tangled Bank" (Frith) – 3:40
"Hit and Run" (Frith) – 2:57
"Gatto Nero" (Frith) – 1:33
"Old Geometry" (Frith) – 2:24
"Their Blood is Black and Yellow" (Frith) – 4:33
"In a Heartbeat" (Frith) – 1:15
"Fooled Again" (Frith) – 5:04
"Accidental" (Frith) – 3:27
"Absinthe Memories (for Phil Minton)" (Frith) – 3:00
"Incoming" (Frith) – 6:20
"Almighty Home at Last" (Frith) – 5:12

Personnel

Fred Frith – guitars, violin, keyboards, percussion, samplers, voice

Sound

Extraneous material taken from recordings of demonstrations in New York City and Washington, D.C., and random radio tunings
Engineered by Peter Hardt
Edited and mastered by Peter Hardt and Fred Frith, July 2000
Design and artwork by Tomas Kurth

References

↑ The Previous Evening (1997), released before Accidental, was designated "Music for Dance Volume 4" after Accidental was released.
↑ Frith, Fred. "Fred Frith interview, June 2003". Fred Frith's homepage. Archived from the original on 20 February 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
↑ Cutler, Chris. "Fred Frith/Accidental". Chris Cutler's ReR/Recommended. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
1 2 Tilland, Bill. "Accidental review". BBC Music. Retrieved 2007-02-07.

External links

Fred Frith
Henry Cow Art Bears Massacre Skeleton Crew Keep the Dog Duck and Cover French Frith Kaiser Thompson Death Ambient Fred Frith Guitar Quartet Maybe Monday Cosa Brava Aksak Maboul Material Naked City
Solo albums	Guitar Solos Gravity Speechless Live in Japan Cheap at Half the Price The Technology of Tears The Top of His Head Step Across the Border Quartets Middle of the Moment Allies Eye to Ear The Previous Evening Pacifica Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire Clearing Freedom in Fragments Accidental Prints Rivers and Tides Eye to Ear II Eleventh Hour Impur The Happy End Problem Back to Life To Sail, to Sail Impur II Nowhere, Sideshow, Thin Air Eye to Ear III Clearing Customs Field Days (The Amanda Loops) Propaganda
Related	Fred Frith discography Fred Records Step Across the Border

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