News: Mysterious Bristol breaks scientist Claude Cooper announces a full album for January and drops ‘Stan’s Plan’; it’s so deliciously dirty

IMAGINE for a second we’re sat in a great pub, in Bristol – say The Christmas Steps, maybe, or the Bag O’Nails – and let’s further push the fanciful that I’m Brad Pitt-as-Tyler Durden (yep, I wholly over-flatter myself here, but a scribe can dream); and I lean over, conspiratorially, to whisper to you.

And what I say is this: the first rule of Claude Cooper is: no one knows who Claude Cooper is. Not anyone you’d ever be permitted to know, leastways.

The enigma who’s released but one brilliant 7″ slice of itchy, skeletal, double bass-driven jazz breaks so far – this January’s “Tangerine Dreams”/​ “Two Mile Hill”, which had our mouths watering in a way they haven’t since the heady heights of Red Snapper, mebbe Fingathing – is teasing for a whole, honest-to-god full album a year on from that 7″ drop, to be released by Bristol’s lovely and loving southside vinyl emporium, Friendly Records – so that’ll be in January 2022, then.

The second rule of Claude Cooper? No one, but no one, knows who he is. And certainly not you.

The third rule: if you’ve perused that little kicker out to our coverage of the “Tangerine Dreams” release above there, you’ll now be in full agreement that he brings essential warped, wired groove for your head and limbs.

Rule the fourth, as was communicated to us yesterday: Claude Cooper is not available for interviews.

But who needs words and favourite colours and what you sing in the shower when you have a teaser like the forthcoming album’s opening gambit “Stan’s Plan” to feed upon? Check the yaw and the pitch and woodiness of that bass; and the snap and precision of those drums. Crikey. Durrrty. So gloriously bloody dirty.

Besides the guiding hand of the mysterious, elusive, illusive Claude himself, the forthcoming Myriad Sounds features a cast list drawn from the great and the good of the capital of the South West and beyond.

There’s Reprazent’s Si John, with service medals in the field of drum ‘n’ bass including “Brown Paper Bag”; BEAK>’s bass anchor Billy Fuller sharing four-string detail; Pete Judge, of BBC Jazz Award winners Get The Blessing and others, brings the trumpet love; the Beth Gibbons- and Geoff Barrow-collaborating guitarist Sean Snook; that’s not to forget US sax man Jeff Hollie, who’s laid tracks down on Zappa albums. 

Add post-punk-funk à la the city’s The Pop Group, crisp breaks, trip-hop and Morricone spicing and it’s set to be delicious. Proper St Nick’s Market curry stall delicious. And almost ready to serve.

Claude Cooper’s Myriad Sounds will be released by Friendly Recordings digitally and on vinyl on January 28th, 2022; the first pressing is on orange vinyl. To secure your copy of what really is a hell of a record, jump through this portal, here.