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The 17 – Bill Drummond (Beautiful Books)

When Bill Drummond started a choir called The 17, the audience became its members, performing Drummond’s text-based scores, then having the result played back to them once before being deleted forever. Fuck documentation, Nick Hornby and 80s revivals, Drummond seems to suggest in this restless meditation on a life-long love affair. Music has reached a dead end, and should be kept as pure as that Beatles record that so switched him on as a little boy.

This latest volume of Drummond’s musings moves from The 17 to No Music Day and beyond. Impassioned, persuasive, egocentric, vulnerable and contrary, Drummond seems scared to stand still lest nostalgia or age get the better of him. Forget that he founded Zoo records, managed Echo and the Bunnymen, took The KLF to number 1 and burnt a million quid. Drummond is on a mission, desperately seeking a brand new sound to save him. Amen to that.

The List, July 2008

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