Phil Manzanera: Performing In Atmos

AM/PM performing live at the All Is Joy screening theatre in Soho, London.

When Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay recorded an instrumental improv album in 2023, they had no intention of performing it live — let alone in a cinema, through an immersive Dolby Atmos sound system...

In late 1971, nascent art‑rock group Roxy Music placed an ad in Melody Maker seeking “the perfect guitarist for avant‑rock group: original, creative, adaptable, melodic, fast, slow, elegant, witty, scary, stable, tricky. Quality musicians only.” When a young Phil Manzanera applied, he fitted the description so well that, half a century later, the same qualities still drive his creative endeavours.

“What we’re doing as AM/PM really does describe the kind of music that Roxy was trying to do,” affirms Manzanera today. “It goes back to that original mission statement for Roxy, which was to do interesting music and perform it in a visually entertaining way.”

AM/PM is the instrumental and improvisational outfit Manzanera formed with Roxy Music saxophonist Andy Mackay, the first fruit of which was a self‑titled album, issued in 2023. March 2024 saw AM/PM, along with another Roxy stalwart, drummer Paul Thompson, perform three sold‑out shows at All Is Joy, a venue located in the old Warner Brothers’ De Lane Lea building in Soho, London.

“How we ended up doing those shows all happened by chance,” explains Manzanera. “The AM/PM album was mainly done by a series of improvisations, which I did in my studio, and then sent to Andy asking him if he could put something on top of it. I had no thought of ever playing it live. I thought there’s no way I could learn what I did because it was so random, it would take me forever to learn, so there was no chance of doing any live performances. Then Andy suggested doing these gigs, and I thought that it would be a terrible idea, because how the hell could we do it because a lot of it was meant to be sort of improvised and just on the spur of the moment. I was concerned it was going to be a disaster, but Andy insisted.”

Phil Manzanera: “The AM/PM album was mainly done by a series of improvisations, which I did in my studio, and then sent to Andy asking him if he could put something on top of it. I had no thought of ever playing it live."

Just Like In The Movies

The venue’s intimacy and sound system allowed the pair to perform concerts that were totally immersive in every sense of the word. “So, we decided to do it in a very small space, a 75‑seater screening theatre in Soho, which had a 7.1 Dolby Atmos speaker system, and a huge screen,” says Manzanera. “I took advantage of that, making special videos that were going to be projected onto us. And then the whole sort of thing started developing into what Andy used to do at the end of the ’60s in the arts labs with Brian Eno and stuff before he joined Roxy, and before they became Roxy. So, it was a bit like going back to that time period, but with modern tech.”

The performances were also to be recorded, and later mixed in Dolby Atmos. But with the original AM/PM album very much an improvised affair, showcasing the interaction between Manzanera and Mackay, one of the early challenges the project faced was finding a strategy that would keep true to the album’s improvisational spirit and inherent electronic elements without becoming a static backing track.

“To solve this, we made small loops of elements from the multitracks that were then loaded into Ableton, using an Akai APC Mini,” explains Mike Boddy, AM/PM engineer, mixer and co‑producer. “I was then able to trigger loops live and create evolving electronic arrangements for the show. Rehearsals started at Phil’s Gallery Studio with Phil, Andy, Lucas, [vocalist] Sonia Bernardo and myself ironing out technical issues and getting a feel for the set. Paul Thompson didn’t join any of the rehearsals until the day before the first live show, due to him living over three hours away in Newcastle, so realistically he probably had only two hours of rehearsals before having to perform. This really highlighted what an incredibly talented drummer he is. Despite the lack of rehearsing and having to play to a click sent to him from the Ableton rig, along with having improvised electronic elements going on around him and no structure to follow, he never missed a beat.”

Any initial concerns Manzanera may have had quickly dissipated upon completion of the first song on the inaugural night’s performance. “After we played the first number, we looked to each other and went, ‘This is pretty good!’, exclaims Manzanera. “I then told the audience I had no idea what we were doing, but hope that it was going to work. And it seemed to work, and they seemed to enjoy it. Luckily, we recorded it because the thing with live performances, especially if you’re improvising material, is that it could all go horribly wrong as it depends on the moment, the atmosphere, and the audience.

“The shows were a very collaborative effort with Mike Boddy as part of the band up at the mixing desk with his Ableton, and moving stuff around the immersive speaker systems, and [guitar tech/guitarist] Lucas Polo...