Music News: JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland to Release ‘Oscillospira’ LP Via Ipecac Recordings

February 7, 2020

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JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland are preparing their LP Oscillospira for release on April 24th via Ipecac Recordings. Thirlwell’s extensive musical history as a performer and composer includes legendary projects like Foetus, as well as Steroid Maximus and Manorexia. The Australian-born, Brooklyn-based artist has also collaborated with a host of experimental leaning musicians like Nurse With Wound, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Lydia Lunch, and Marc Almond–often using aliases like Frank Want and Clint Ruin in the process.

For his part, Simon Steensland is a Swedish composer mostly known for his work with theater, though he had also caught Thirwell’s ear on albums like Led Circus (Ultimate Audio Entertainment) and Fat Again (AltrOck). Steensland reports: “I have no musical education at all what so ever, and that is something i’m VERY happy about.” Extending this aesthetic to his compositional work, he has also assembled groups of players with no experience on the instrument they’ve been given.

With this in mind, Thirlwell and Steensland began collaborating after meeting at a workshop in Stockholm for The Great Learning Orchestra–a collective modeled on Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra. In 1969, Cardew had defined a scratch orchestra as: “a large number of enthusiasts pooling their resources (not primarily material resources) and assembling for action (music-making, performance, edification).” This meant that anyone interested could join!

With Thirlwell’s commission for The Great Learning Orchestra serving as a launching point, he and Steensland would go on to develop the music on their upcoming LP Oscillospira. Drummer Morgan Ågren (Mats/Morgan band, Zappa, Devin Townsend) appears on all the tracks as well as a host of other guest appearances on instruments like violin, oboe, bass clarinet, and voice. “Heron” is our first listen in on the upcoming effort and it is a spellbinding and dramatic work of extraordinary range and dynamics.