Group Listening

Doors 7.30pm | Tickets £13.50 | Malt Room Cabaret

Musical collaborators for the past decade, Paul Jones and Stephen Black are together known as the woodwind-and-key-wielding, sculptural-papier-mâché-hat-wearing Group Listening to mark the release of Walks, their new LP inspired by the sights and sounds of the UK’s wild spaces.

Following renegade reinterpretation records Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol. 1 (2018) and Vol. 2 (2022), which pulled apart, pondered, and re-shaped cult ambient classics by the likes of Robert Wyatt, Arthur Russell and Beverly Glenn-Copeland, their brand new album Walks is released on 10th May 2024, and is set to be, in their own words, “a shining modernist monolith buried deep in the woods”, and the duo’s first volume of completely original compositions.

Who are Group Listening?

Having met at music college, Stephen and Paul went separate ways creatively. Stephen delved into pop music – indie-pop fans amongst you will know his work under the guise of Sweet Baboo, while he also worked with Cate Le Bon, H. Hawkline and others. Paul leaned into the piano, pursuing a career as a jazz pianist and experimental musician. He played with Keith Tippett, formed the Jones O’Connor Group, performed with noise improv bands and composed orchestral and chamber music. 

Reconnecting years later, the pair discovered that their music tastes, bizarrely, met in the middle; they have a shared love of The Beach Boys, Ghost Box Records, Messiaen and Angela Morley. They both like ambient and new age music, bubblegum pop, Artie Shaw, Moondog and the outsider music handbook Songs in the Key of Z.

New Music for 2024: Walks

Group Listening head to Kendal to mark the release of their new album, Walks. This new LP of all original work draws from the field recordings of Ernest Hood; the abstraction of Harold Budd; the saxophone of Sam Gendel; the “heightened naturalism” of a Martin Parr photograph; the clarity and site-specificity of Japanese ambient, environmental & new age music of the 80s and 90s, and, prominently, Robert Walser’s pseudo-biographical novella The Walk — an appreciation of the philosophical space gifted by walks to walkers.

Here at Brewery Arts, we’re proud of our place in the foothills of the Lake District, and it will come as no surprise that we’re strong advocates of the restorative effects and unique inspirational qualities a good walk can have on the mind, body and soul. 

Walks is an ode to the gently psychedelic potential of wandering around in some place, any place, every place: the places in one’s own mind, The album, and this performance, invites you to listen and think; to slip through the fabric of time a little or a lot, depending on how long you’ve got. Over all, to paraphrase Walser, it invites you to glow and flower yourself in the glowing, flowering present.

So, join us at Brewery Arts for an evening of forward-thinking instrumental music, inspired in equal measure by avant-garde pop, field recordings, and of course, a good ramble across our precious wild spaces.

Check out a taster of Walks below with new track ‘Shopping Building’.

For fans of: Arthur Russell, Cate le Bon, Finders Keepers, Weird Walk.

Walks is out on 10th May, available via Bandcamp.

See all music events here.