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SHAPESHIFTER / HISTORY
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Shapeshifter |
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One
of the most exciting Leicester live bands through the 1990s and beyond,
Shapeshifter have always been an ever changing, growing and evolving band,
aptly Maureen Anderson's Shapeshifter have continued on to live up to their
name and shape-shift! "Unwrapping The Familiar" marked the start of
a new era in the band, moving steadily towards a more eccentric psychedelic
music. One part Gong & Mother Gong, with a dash of Nico, flashes of
spacey Ozric Tentacles, & lots of ethnic spiced psychedelia. Shapeshifter were judged "too marginal"
for the tastes of the audience at the yearly Leicester Abbey Park Festival,
though for an Ultima Thule production this is positively commercial! Of
course, it depends on how you look at it. As Maureen so often says at
concerts "If you thought that was weird, things can only get weirder!"
and on the "Unwrapping The Familiar" CD they do! This extensively
features Rain Garden members, and is my own (Alan Freeman) debut at playing
in someone else's band. In many ways this was the pinnacle of Shapeshifter's
creativity as a band during the 1990's, as professional product that is that
showcases Maureen's poetic flair at its best. The newer 2CD set "Time Capsule" collects
1) a largely instrumental improvisation CD called "Easier To Feel"
from 1999 and 2) a 1998 live CD capturing Shapeshifter during another of
their most creative phases (featuring Alan Freeman and Jim Tetlow, both
later in Endgame). filling-in the missing period
of Shapeshifter and showing the roots of how ideas for Endgame started. The
live CD also features musicians from other Leicester bands: The Rain Garden,
Earthly and Turtle Om, documenting one of the best ever gigs of the big
Shapeshifter band. Over the years I (Alan) played synthesizer live
with various other incarnations of Shapeshifter. Endgame also played hybrid
gigs with Maureen (and Dave Johnson) as Polymorph and
recorded a studio album. More recently after the sad loss of David Johnson to
cancer, I insisted that we shouldn't let the band die. I came up with the
idea of a band that would transcend Endgame, Polymorph and Shapeshifter, with
performances that could mutate from one to the other. I jokingly suggested
Multimorph, which Maureen thought was a great name. And so Multimorph was
born involving all of Endgame with Maureen and other musicians. Some good
gigs ensued, although only on a couple of occasions did my vision of the
transitional performance idea actually happen. Eventually, due to musical
differences and other reasons, Steve and I left in October 2010. Multimorph
and an occasional Shapeshifter continue, and you'll find lots more about all
that on the web!
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Discography... GODSEYE - MC Oblong Music OBL 023 (1995) plus
related releases by: Maureen Anderson, Dave Johnson, Polymorph, Multimorph,
etc. |
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Shapeshifter
articles and reviews in Audion: #33/41, #37/42, #40/18, #47/28, #48/21 |
web site designed and managed by Alan Freeman ©
2000-2018 Ultima Thule, Leicester, UK
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