Sean Noonan Bruised by Noon (full live performance)
Channel: Sean Noonan
Date: 23/12/2014

Order Bruised by Noon HERE
Vinyl/CD/Book https://www2.2checkout.com/2co/buyer/orderpage?sid=75220
DIGITAL
http://brewedbynoon.bandcamp.com/album/sean-noonan-bruised-by-noon
"Sean Noonan is never boring ... this is starkly original music that is different from Noonan's previous starkly original music." Britt Robson-JazzTimes

SEAN NOONAN'S STORIES FROM BEHIND THE DRUM KIT CONTINUE WITH BRUISED BY NOON

Bruised by Noon, a Limited Edition Solo Drum Project Which Concludes the Tale of Finny Finnigan, the Gambler Who Was Introduced on Noonan's Critically Acclaimed 2012 Project A Gambler's Hand, Available as CD, Download and Vinyl and Accompanying Book

Drummer/composer/storyteller/producer Sean Noonan is among the most prolific and innovative musicians of his generation. Just a few months after the release of his punk-rock influenced Pavees Dance: There's Always the Night, which paired the 38 year old drummer with Malcolm Mooney, the original vocalist for the leading avant-garde rock group of the '70s, Can, Noonan will release Bruised by Noon, a solo drum CD and vinyl recording, with an accompanying print book, on August 26.
 
Bruised by Noon concludes the story that Noonan began to tell on his 2012 Songlines release, A Gambler's Hand, in which a man by the name of Finny Finnegan is trapped in a wall which is also depicted in A Gambler's film by director and film maker Marta Kopec from Katowice, Poland. The new album, which includes twelve "bouts" that Finnigan has with the wall (eleven instrumental and one spoken word), in many ways coalesces the concepts that have driven Noonan's work as he has continued to evolve as a creative artist. He describes himself as an "Irish griot,' one who collects tales, legends, and life stories over the course of his journeys and transforms them into the raw material that informs the entirety of the music he creates; however, on A Gambler's Hand, he created his fantastic yet original tale based on personal experience. Still, elements of folklore are present in that work: Finny is actually a Pavee, an Irish traveler and tinker similar to a gypsy. Pavees have existed in Ireland since before the fifth century, and Noonan revisited them for inspiration on Pavees Dance: There's Always the Night. After each of the 11 bouts on Bruised by Noon, Finny's body ever so slowly becomes a permanent part of the wall.

Accompanying the Bruised by Noon CD or vinyl is an exquisite book, with graphics by Eva Scheer, containing the poem captured on the CD's final track which is read by Noonan portraying Finny. The "voice" of the wall is rendered by the drums. "There are a lot of spoken rhythms that mirror my drumming, and vice versa," explains Noonan. "That interplay is an important part of my musical concept. I try to speak like a drummer, and to drum words or say them from the drum set."
 
The cover of the limited edition book features what at first glance seems to be an abstract image in subtle shades of gray with a hazy vellum overlay. In fact, the image is an x-ray of Noonan's leg taken after a car accident while on tour in Italy in 2003 that left him with two broken legs and where he had a serious near death experience. "The cover actually shows my shattered femur and the x-ray was taken when I was in a coma," says Noonan, "but looking at it up close you can see a man shouting, as I imagine the man in the wall talking to Finny. To me, this image is powerful proof of the spirits watching over me as I was trapped in an induced coma; when I first saw the image that's the book's cover, I thought, 'Wow.  That is some deep stuff I discovered: art can even come from your own body.' I kept the x-rays and decided to use them as artwork for the book, along with other images taken of every part of my body, like my lungs and my brain."