LISTEN: 'The Tortured Skies' - Brand New Records Available Now On Bandcamp!

Commercially available for the first time, 'The Tortured Skies' records feature the affected stylings of my spaghetti-western-tex-mex-surf-americana alter-ego, from the obscurely-produced to the sublime ...

While having personally made all the noises heard on debut album 'Storm In The South', I'm delighted to have been joined by the face-melting axeman that is Mr. Chris Montague for both the 'Border Ballads' record, and the instrumental surf single - 'Free Man's Burden'.

Click HERE to view the full discography, check out the tracks and, if feeling generous, to part with some supportive pennies!

More tracks/special guests to hit soon...

Noisily yours, with gratitude,

Michael L. Roberts

WATCH: Line In The Sand at The Forge, Camden - Harding/Roberts/Rose

Here's another rarity from the archive...

Charlotte Harding, Mark Rose, and myself have fun with the debut performance of Charlotte's Nashville-inspired song - 'Line In The Sand' - as part of the 'Pangea New Music Series' at The Forge in Camden, 2013...

Charlotte and I set up the series to celebrate all those incredible musicians and new bands around us in need of performance/live recording opportunities at the time, including 'Toy Rokit' and Kate Simko's 'London Electronic Orchestra'.

Noisily yours,

MLR

WATCH: Record Launch at St. Martin-in-the-Fields - The Last Corridor

Beautiful People,

Here's the opening piece from my original art-song cycle for soprano and piano, The Avocatus Suite: Part 1, in concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields...

Featuring soprano Elisabeth Toye, this event in 2010 was both our record launch, and the Suite's premiere performance.

'The Last Corridor' is an improvised overture, based on the themes that feature throughout the rest of the work.

You can hear and buy the full record HERE and the book of the Suite is also now available from the same store!

Noisily yours,

MLR

WATCH: Reunion Boogie (Four Hands) with Brian Jobson

I first saw Brian Jobson play when I was five years old, on a family holiday to Tenby.

I'd been playing piano for a year at that point, and couldn't believe what I was seeing...

We went back as a family over the next 12 years and, each time, he'd give me a year's worth of music books and sheets to practise - classical, jazz, blues, boogie and more...

In 2014, we returned to Tenby to surprise him.

We hadn't seen each other for 11 years, and this is an excerpt from our first, long overdue, 'Reunion Boogie' that day!

WATCH: Improvisation on Horowitz's Sonatina

Beautiful People,

I was recently in the presence of a brand new Steinway Grand, upon which lay an abandoned copy of Joseph Horowitz's 'Sonatina for Clarinet & Piano'

Having met Mr. Horowitz on several occasions, and had some of my operatic compositions featured alongside his in concert, I couldn't resist having a look, getting the iPhone out, and recording an improvisation over the melody/changes of the work

Here's the result - hope you enjoy! ...

WATCH: BBC Radio 2 film of The Unpublished Cole Porter - I Know It's Not Meant For Me

Hello Folks,

A recent reinvigoration of an old email account led to my rediscovering this footage from my first BBC Radio 2 broadcast, in August 2009...

With the help of my then-manager Graham Pass, we enticed Russell Davies to the palace of performing arts that was London's 'Pizza On The Park', to hear my first quintet gig.

At the end of the first set that night, I sat at the piano to perform this rare gem of a song, originally a song-and-dance number, which had been dropped from the 1939 MGM production 'Rosalie'.

I'd found it in a bookshop in Brecon, South Wales some months before, and that night Russell asked if I'd do it on his radio show, for a Cole Porter-focused special.

A couple of years later, I performed it at a Cole Porter themed evening at The Royal Albert Hall, and now both studio and live recordings are available for the first time, with the kind permission of Warner / Chappell UK / US, from THE MLR STORE

Noisily yours,

Michael L. Roberts