The Geordie Approach - Shields

The Geordie Approach are two Norwegians and a Geordie. They met in Leeds and play improvised music. They have been doing it since the early 00s. The name? A stupid comment about the correct volume to operate amplifiers (loud enough to disrupt all surrounding activity and stimulate acts of desperate violence) that became a kind of mantra to how the band would approach its performances and recordings.

Both of the band's previous records (on Simon H. Fell's Bruce's Fingers label) featured edited improvisations, cut to 'song length' to emphasise the group's highly compositional approach to improvisation; opting for focused episodes of layered improvisation over the more stream-of-consciousness approach of some free improvisation.

In the lead up to The Geordie Approach's latest album 'Shields', the band toured extensively around Europe and Japan honing their episodic, 'everything-is-permitted' approach to improvisation. Following festival performances in the UK, the band set up in a re-purposed Methodist church in Leeds with a handful of microphones and played two 30-minute pieces. These two pieces, 'North' and 'South' comprise the album. What you hear is what they played. No edits. No fixes.

Personnel: St�le Birkeland (drums), Petter Frost Fadnes (saxophone, electronics), Chris Sharkey (guitar, electronics).