In early 2004, after Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe and John Tilbury had been together as a version of AMM for over two decades, Prévost and Rowe disagreed about something Prévost had written in one of his books. After the AMM concert at Conway Hall, London, on May 1st, 2004, Rowe left AMM which continued as a duo of Prévost on percussion and Tilbury on piano. It was not until Sunday November 29th, 2015, the last night of that year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, that Prévost, Rowe and Tilbury once again appeared together as AMM. Following that concert the trio also appeared together in London on December 5th, 2015, Paris on April 7th, 2016 and Trondheim on June 9th 2016.
The AMM concert heard on Aura was recorded at the 159-seat Sibelius Museum concert hall in Turku, Finland, on October 8th, 2016. Probably because the Turku concert had been arranged prior to Rowe rejoining, it featured Prévost and Tilbury as AMM — making it a landmark as the very last AMM concert featuring the Prévost and Tilbury duo. On July 30th, 2022, as part of the celebrations of Prévost's eightieth birthday, the AMM trio was due to play at Café Oto, London. John Tilbury did not attend due to health issues and so the duo of Prévost and Rowe played together as AMM. Not long afterwards it was announced that July 30th had been AMM's last concert and that the group had disbanded... the end of an era.
The Turku concert itself was an impressive hour which demonstrates AMM at its spontaneous best as Prévost and Tilbury reacted to each other's playing and to the environment in which they played. Tentative at first, the telltale sound of Prévost's bowed cymbals gels with occasional piano notes sounded by Tilbury, who has frequently advised improvisers not to play for more than a third of the available time, advice that he follows here. The duo's sounds were ideally suited to the venue. Although Tilbury could not prepare the museum's grand piano to produce the sort of sounds he frequently employs, he found something to compensate — a harpsichord that the museum was exhibiting and inviting visitors to try out. The well-deserved prolonged applause from the audience speaks volumes.
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