JOHN GREAVES DAVID CUNNINGHAM Greaves. Cunningham (Piano)

Try and out-obscure this, then! "Greaves. Cunningham" is the end result of over three years of occasional collaborations between one John Greaves (who has worked with Henry Cow, Slapp Happy, Robert Wyatt and Peter Blegvad) and the slightly more famous David Cunningham (ex-Flying Lizard and Michael Nyman producer), originally released in 1991 in Japan, and now up for more widespread appraisal. In the words of the twosome themselves:

"We wanted to explore the technology of sequencers and samplers to find uniqueness; in the same way that analogue devices, electric guitars and so on have their unique sound, such as delay or distortion, we were looking for characteristics special to computer technology, to allow the technology itself to dictate structure and process.

One of the reasons for working in this way was to find a way to integrate song structures with the use of studio processes. We adopted this approach as we saw this work developing independently of ourselves and to allow development beyond the bounds of what either of us would instinctively allow".

Well, thanks for clearing that up. The dead giveaway use of words like ‘structure’ and ‘process’, and the fact that both Greaves and Cunningham credit themselves with ‘treatments’ may well have you already thinking of the works of a certain diarist named Brian Peter George St. John Le Baptiste De La Salle, and, now you come to mention it, vast tracts of "Greaves. Cunningham" don’t half sound like the less interesting bits on Professor Eno’s mid-70s ‘song’ albums, aided and abetted by John Greaves’ very Eno/John Cale vocals and catchy, singalong lyrics like "Decent man, inner greyness/Unfamiliar engines, black scent/Symbolic engine, definite biology". Which is, of course, not a terrible crime, but a bit platform boot this close to the millennium now that anyone in the slightest bit interested in "characteristics special to computer technology" is making evil madbastard dance music. All very nice, frequently charming, but can I play my Daft Punk album again now, please?