Hear Mike Cooper’s “Critical Incidents” ahead of Life and Death in Paradise + Milan Live Acoustic 2018
In anticipation of our forthcoming Mike Cooper releases, we’ve put out another single that we’re thrilled to share with you. “Critical Incidents” is the final track of 1974’s Life and Death in Paradise, which we are reissuing along with Mike’s previously unreleased live solo set, Milan Live Acoustic 2018.
I love the piano solo on this piece, improvised by the great keyboard player Alan Gowen, who at the time I did not know. He unfortunately died of leukemia at the age of 33. I knew that I wanted a piano solo at the end of the song and asked Mike Finesilver, the studio owner and engineer, if he knew anyone, and he called Alan for me. The drummer Ian was the drummer of the last incarnation of The Machine Gun Company, when it nearly became a rock band. It has a completely different feel to the rest of the album because of the drumming, which was deliberate on my part. – Mike Cooper
Listen to “Critical Incidents” as well as previous singles, “O.M.M. Coda” and “Peach Trees,” and read more on the records below.
Stream “Critical Incidents”
Mike Cooper: Life and Death in Paradise + Milan Live Acoustic 2018
Mike Cooper wrote his final songwriter record, a suite of gloaming glam-rock anthems performed with a spiritual jazz trio, while living on the Costa Tropical of Granada, Spain, an era when he was considering retiring from music altogether. A chance encounter and a last-ditch record deal convinced him to make one last album, which he recorded in 1974 at Pathway Studios in London, with “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,” featuring the inventive South African jazz rhythm section of Louis Moholo and Harry Miller with UK saxophonist Mike Osborne.
This first-ever reissue includes a bonus CD of Milan Live Acoustic 2018, a previously unreleased solo set that represents Cooper’s return, after forty-four years pursuing free improvisation and electronics, to a new, deconstructed approach to singing, steel guitar, and songcraft.
Pre-Order the LP+CD, 2xCD
$11.00 – $27.00
Other Options (physical/digital/international)
Beautiful, fucked-up mid-70s rock that’s really not like anything else. A mélange of mersh/avant/blues/folk/rock/jazz shiteroo, Life and Death in Paradise is a most splendid anomaly with hints of everyone from Gram Parsons to Michael Hurley to the Welfare State … Allow it into your head, and it will blossom like the strange mushroom it is. – Byron Coley
His commitment to starting afresh is underlined by the title track…Here Cooper basks in his newfound idyll, somewhere beneath the trees. As the song morphs into a lovely country-blues slide (“Beads On A String”), his contentment seems complete, the song’s passage eased by sunshine and sweet orange wine.” – Uncut
- The first-ever reissue of Life and Death in Paradise, Mike Cooper’s final songwriter record, and the first release of Milan Live Acoustic 2018
- Deluxe LP+CD edition features 140g black virgin vinyl; matte jacket with spot gloss details; and a six-panel foldout insert with additional artwork and an essay by the artist about both records
- Deluxe 2xCD edition features a matte gatefold jacket with spot gloss details, and an eight-panel version of the same insert
- RIYL: Derek Bailey, David Bowie, Tim Buckley, Sandy Bull, John Cale, Michael Chapman, Lol Coxhill, Johnny Dyani, Davey Graham, Steve Gunn, Van Morrison, Louis Moholo, Mike Osborne, Lou Reed, Sonny Sharrock, Television, Welfare State
- Album page/details/acknowledgments
- Artist page/tour dates/links/back catalog
- Smart links
Physical format music purchases from the PoB webstore and Bandcamp include digital downloads when feasible. Some, but not all, pre-2023 vinyl pressings also include a download coupon. For digital preorders and high-resolution digital downloads, please visit our Bandcamp page.
