Mike Cooper
Mike Cooper (born 1942) is an English guitarist. He has traced a path completely his own for more than 50 years as an international musical explorer, lap steel guitarist, singer, improviser and composer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres, stretching the possibilities of the guitar with an eclectic mix of the many styles he has practiced over the years, straddling jazz, folk, blues, Polynesian, exotica, ambient, electronica, and various experimental and improvisational approaches.
2024
Discrepant
Presenting the second thematic volume on the "Aquapelagos" series, a collection of split LPs where selected artists offer their own take into water surrounded cultures and communities, Discrepant introduces an unique collaboration in the series in the shape of no other than two improvising giants, Mike Cooper and Pierre Bastien. This volume blows the lid wide open with a sound journey inspired by the equally majestic and mysterious Indian Ocean, a wide space of open ocean bounded by Africa, to the west, Asia to the north and north-west and Australia, to the south west.
2023
Room40
Mike Cooper's new masterful experiment mixing free jazz, Oceanic, and Hawaiian inspirations, in collaboration with Geoff Hawkins, Jon Raskin and Tim Hill (saxophone), Elliott Sharp and Michael Thieke (clarinet), Scot Ray (lap steel guitar) and choreographer and dancer Ariella Vidach.
2022
various
Originally released in 2005 on Mike Cooper's Hipshot Cd-r label, and reissued here for the first time on vinyl, Spirit Songs deserves to be regarded as a true rediscovered gem, remixed and remastered by Cooper himself.
2022
Room40
Oceans Of Milk And Treacle is a soundtrack for an otherwise silent film. The title of the album, and of course the film, is borrowed from Mike Cooper's late friend Fred Hardy's book The Religious Culture of India – Power, Love and Wisdom, considered to be one of the most important books on the subject.
