London | Guerilla Bass

Tag Archives: London

September 11, 2012 · 9:46 am

Invenzioni by Steve Lawson and Mike Outram

Sipping a cup of tea sat in the clutter and chaos of the staff room I’m listening to the stunning music that that Steve Lawson (@solobasssteve) and Mike Outram (@MikeOutram) recorded in this very building just over two years ago.

During the half term of February 2010 we set our degree students a number of real world projects that would reflect the diverse skills required by audio engineers to build a sustainable career. Invenzioni was one of these projects and potentially the most exciting; two of the countries leading musicians recording two hours of original improvised music. The music that appears on Invenzioni had not been rehearsed or pre written and ranges from deep grooves through to sonic landscapes featuring heavy looped sections.

In the end Steve and Mike ended up with 3 albums worth of original material. These works have been sorted to provide the 5 tracks on the album, with two further albums to follow.

Steve Lawson & Michael Manring London 2010

Proper looking forward to my trip to London tomorrow. I’ve got loads of things to get done. But the main reason for going is to see bass supremos Michael Manring and Steve Lawson perform at a gig in Islington.

The last time they both gigged in London I couldn’t make it (check out the video below). Quite frankly I was gutted as I had recently been studying with Steve at the Beyond Bass Camp classes and have been a long term fan of both his and Manrings work.

Neither musician is limited by a traditional view of the instrument (bare in mind the bass guitar as we know it is only 50 or so years old), couple this to virtuosic ability and a high level of musicality and this event should be great. I

’ll try and review the gig and may be get some video done too, but for now check out the clip from last years performance:

BTW in the last video the students Steve mentions at 0:34 is the class I was at, fact 😉