Ivor Cutler - A Flat Man

Culter’s last recorded will and testament

With Ivor’s sad passing in March 2006 the extraordinary recording and performing career of Britian’s foremost Dada-ist folk poet finally came to an end. Since then, Ivor’s sons Jeremy and Daniel have set up Hoorgi House as a vehicle to promote their father’s work and legacy by making available previously unreleased material and reissuing deleted items from Ivor’s back catalogue.

The first reissue is the long unavailable A Flat Man, originally released on Creation in 1998 when Ivor retired from his career as a recording artist, choosing to concentrate his energies on occasional live performances before taking his final on stage bow in February 2004. Shoehorning 48 tracks into its 51-minutes, A Flat Man is stamped with Ivor’s trademark obsessions. As ever mixing the banal and the fantastical with the supreme free-association skills of a master surrealist, vintage moments of absurd charm lurk here in some abundance: Questionnaire, I Built A House, Knocking At My Door and My Next Album. In the end it’s all about that unmistakable voice, the gentle madness behind it and, of course, the ubiquitous harmonium. A wizard, a true star.

Hoorgi House | HHCD 01

Reviewed by Grahame Bent
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