Oh Moscow

Live album by Lindsay Cooper

Released

1991

Recorded

8 October 1989

Genre

Length

59:27

Label

Victo

Lindsay Cooper chronology

Music for Other Occasions
(1986)

Oh Moscow
(1991)

An Angel on the Bridge
(1991)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic

Oh Moscow is a 1991 live album by English experimental musician and composer Lindsay Cooper. It is a recording of a song cycle of the same name performed at the 7th Victoriaville Festival in Quebec, Canada on 8 October 1989. The work was composed in 1987 by Cooper with lyrics written by English film director and screenwriter Sally Potter. The song cycle reflects on the Cold War that divided Europe at the time.

Oh Moscow was composed in 1987 by Lindsay Cooper, an English experimental musician from Henry Cow and the Feminist Improvising Group. The song texts were written by English film director, screenwriter and singer Sally Potter. Cooper had worked previously with Potter in the Feminist Improvising Group, and composed music for some of Potter's films, including The Gold Diggers (1983). After Potter had been to the Soviet Union several times on filming projects, Cooper and Potter began discussing ideas for a composition about the effects of the Cold War. When organizers of the annual Zurich Jazz Festival in Switzerland contacted Cooper in 1987 and enquired whether she had something new to perform, she decided to write Oh Moscow for the festival.

Cooper scored the work for a multi-national group comprising English, German, Czech and Danish musicians, and she cites her collaborations with jazz pianist and composer Mike Westbrook as an influence in her approach to writing Oh Moscow. Andrew Jones wrote in his book Plunderphonics, 'Pataphysics & Pop Mechanics: An Introduction to Musique Actuelle, that Oh Moscow "virtually defects and demands stylistic asylum". He said that the music includes "cool '50s jazz", a "vaudeville showstopper", with touches of Soft Machine, flamenco and gypsy music.

...
Wikipedia