Okay, so we have to unpack this right from the
start because I honestly love this title. It's
great, isn't it? It's so specific, kind of strange,
and it sounds a little bit like the punchline
to a joke you just missed. Right. We are talking
about an album called A Donut in Both Hands.
And it absolutely paints a picture. You can just
see it, right? Someone just double fisting pastries.
It kind of disarms you. It makes you think you're
in for something, I don't know, light. Maybe
a bit of a comedy album. Exactly. But here's
where it gets really interesting. You look at
that title, you smile, and then you press play.
And what you get is, well. It's not a comedy
routine. It's one of the most intense boundary
pushing and frankly shocking works of vocal art
ever recorded. We are diving into the world of
the British vocalist Phil Minton. And vocalist
is absolutely the key word there, not just singer.
Right. Minton is a legend in the world of free
improvisation. And this album, A Donut in Both
Hands, is his first solo record. Yeah. It was
originally released back in 1981 on Rift Records.
Then it got reissued later by Manim in 1998 with
some extra tracks. Okay. But the core of it,
the stuff that really changed the landscape,
that was recorded between about 1975 and 1982.
And just to set the stage for you listening right
now, when we say solo record, we mean solo. Oh,
yeah. There is no piano, no drums, no... bass
line to, you know, keep your foot tapping. There
are no overdubs. Nothing. It is just Phil Minton,
a microphone in a room. That's it. And I think
the mission of this deep dive is to really understand
what happens when a human being decides to stop
using their voice to just sing songs. In a traditional
sense. In the traditional sense and starts using
it as a total instrument of sound. It's such
a bold move. I mean, most of us, if we stood
in front of a microphone with no music, we'd
probably just feel awkward. Completely. But Minton.
He fills that space. So you should probably prepare
yourself. This isn't a deep dive into smooth
jazz or pop vocals. No. We are entering the world
of sound singing. Sound singing is a great term
for it. And we should probably explain what that
actually sounds like, because if you've never
heard Phil Minton, your brain might scramble
a bit trying to categorize it. Oh, absolutely.
I was reading a review by Glen Estorita, and
he tries to list what you hear on this album.
And list is just wild. What did he say? He mentions
traces of operatic librettos, which sounds classy,
but then immediately follows it with yodeling,
garbled speech, screeching and folksy humor.
It's that collision, right? The collision of
high art and this really guttural noise that
makes it so fascinating. Yes. You have the operatic
control. The technique is undeniably there, but
he's applying it to sounds that we usually filter
out of music. Richard Cochran, he put it really
well, too. He said, I can believe that. He talks
about exoter overtone singing, which is that
thing where you can sing two notes at once, basically.
Right, the throat singing. But then Minton just
switches to childish or animalistic noises. And
that animalistic description comes up a lot.
It touches on something. primal. It's not polished
in the sense of being pretty, but it is incredibly
disciplined. There's this great story about the
musician David Moss. He's an experimental musician
himself, you know, so you'd think he'd be used
to weird stuff. But he talked about hearing a
donut in both hands for the first time. He said,
this guy can do things I've just barely been
scratching at. He called it shocking. In fact,
his exact words were almost too shocking. Too
shocking. That's telling. It suggests Minton
went past the edge of what even other avant -garde
musicians thought was possible at the time. Right.
He wasn't just improvising melodies. He was documenting,
as you said, anything and everything that could
be produced by the human voice. I love that phrase.
Anything and everything. It implies that a cough,
a wheeze, a scream, a gag is just as valid musically
as a perfect C sharp. Precisely. And that brings
us back to the terminology you mentioned sound
singing earlier. Yeah. That term is often attributed
to Paul Dutton via the critic Francois Couture.
And it distinguishes this from just free singing.
How so? Sound singing implies that the material
isn't notes and scales. The material is the sound
wave itself. The texture of it. So he's sculpting
with noise. Yes. He's treating the larynx, the
throat, the mouth, not as a vehicle for lyrics,
but as a synthesizer made of flesh. Which sounds
incredibly cool, but also... Maybe a little bit
terrifying. It can be. And this leads us to what
I think is the biggest tension in this album.
The disconnect. The disconnect between what Phil
Mitton is doing and what we, the listeners, are
hearing. Because when I read about how people
react to this album, fun isn't the first word
that comes up. No, not at all. If you look at
a review from Robert Spencer, he says some of
the album is... wrenching to hear wrenching he
describes it as sounding like a man in pain a
man in pain that is such a heavy description
and the penguin guide to jazz which is like the
bible for this stuff they talk about tracks overflowing
with Pain and pride, anger and redemption. These
are hugely emotional words. They are. But we
are hardwired as humans to interpret certain
vocal sounds as distress signals. That's true.
If you hear a scream or a choke or a guttural
groan, your amygdala just lights up. You think,
danger, suffering, emotion. But here is where
it gets really interesting. Mitten doesn't agree
with that interpretation, does he? No, he doesn't.
And this is the paradox. Right. When Minton was
asked about the emotional content of his music,
specifically about all this pain and anger people
hear, he pushed back. He said, I just got to
listen to them in an abstract way. So he's disassociating.
Explicitly. He said, I have to disassociate myself
from any of the emotional associations. Wow.
He views it as just sound and music. So while
the listener is sitting there thinking, oh my
God, this man is burying his tortured soul. Minton
is standing there thinking, I wonder what happens
if I tighten my throat muscles by 10 % and push
air through my nasal cavity. Exactly. It's wild.
It's almost like a magic trick. He's generating
intense emotion in the room, but he's doing it
through cold, hard mechanics. It really raises
a fascinating question about empathy and art,
you know? It does. Are we just projecting that
pain onto him? He's providing the canvas, the
sound, and we are painting it with our own fears
and experiences of what those sounds mean. It's
like looking at an abstract painting and seeing
a sad face, when the painter just wanted to use
the color blue. Exactly. But with the voice,
it's so much more personal because we all have
one. We know what it feels like to make a sound
of pain, so we assume he must be feeling it too.
Let's get into the actual tracks, because the
structure of this album is really interesting.
It's not like there are three -minute pop songs
here. No, not at all. Some of these things are
just tiny fragments. Right. Take Cenotaph and
Wreath. These are under a minute long. 45 seconds
and 48 seconds, respectively. Tiny. And yet,
the Penguin Guide to Jazz singles them out. They
say these tiny tracks are overflowing with pain
and pride. It shows how much information Minton
can pack into just a few seconds. He doesn't
need a long buildup. He can drop you right into
the intensity immediately. And then you have
tracks that people apparently can't get enough
of. The Penguin Guide mentions notes on avarice
and blasphemy. Right. They say these tracks demand
frequent recourse to the repeat button. Which
is high praise for avant -garde vocal improvisation.
Yeah. Usually you listen once and say, okay,
I get it. That was intense. Yeah. I've had my
fill. But to want to repeat it. That suggests
there's a musical logic there that pulls you
in. It's not just noise, it's composition. And
we have to talk about the humor again, because
despite the whole man in pain vibe, Minton is
funny. Oh, definitely. I mean, there is a track
literally called Too Many Donuts Make You Ill.
It's a good piece of advice, generally speaking.
It is, but it also serves a purpose on the album,
right? It has to. It does. It breaks the tension.
Minton uses that folksy humor as part of the
palette. If it were just 40 minutes of screaming,
you'd be exhausted. But by throwing in these
absurd titles and moments of what sound like
childish noises, Akron called them. He keeps
you off balance. You never know if you're supposed
to laugh or cry. And then there's the Wood Song
series. On the track list, we see Wood Song 1
through Wood Song 5. This is where the live aspect
of the album really shines. Remember, these tracks
were recorded at different times and places.
Oh, right. Some in London, some in Bracknell.
One in Brasser Groms in France. Yeah. The liner
notes mentioned it specifically. Yeah. Like tracks
8 through 16 were recorded in Bracknell on August
15th, 1975. Right. So when you hear the Wood
Song series, you're hearing a thematic exploration
that spans his performances. It shows that he's
not just making random noises every night. He's
working on ideas. He's revisiting ideas, refining
them, looking at them from different angles.
It's a very deliberate practice. I want to circle
back to the title of the album, A Donut in Both
Hands, because it turns out this isn't just a
one -off joke. This donut concept, it became
a whole saga. It did. It's a decades -long narrative
arc entirely told through album titles about
pastries. Okay, walk us through the timeline
here. So we start with A Donut in Both Hands
in 1981. That's the introduction. Right. Then
you fast forward to 1998, and he releases a donut
in one hand. He lost one. He's losing his grip
on the donuts. Then 10 years later, in 2008,
we get no donuts in hand. Oh, no. A tragedy in
three parts. And finally, in 2015, we get a donut's
end. That is incredible commitment to a bit.
It is funny, but Chris Tonelli, who is a vocalist
and a writer who studied Minton, points out that
the importance of this series cannot be overstated.
Really? Why is the Donut Saga so important? Tonelli
argues that these records challenge entrenched
notions of what vocal sounds are ugly and what
are beautiful. By using these silly, almost throwaway
titles, Minton is juxtaposing the absurdity of
the title with the profound, often jiggle nature
of the sound. He's challenging the pervasive
order of the valuable and valueless? Exactly
that. We tend to think beautiful singing equals
valuable. Ugly noise equals valueless. Sure.
Minton says, here's a noise that sounds like
a dying animal, and I'm going to call it a donut
in both hands. Yeah. He is messing with your
categories of value. He's demanding you take
the ugly sound seriously, but he's also refusing
to take himself too seriously. That is a delicate
balance. It stops the art from becoming pretentious.
It's like he's saying, yes, this is high art,
but also donuts. Right. And it keeps the work
grounded. It reminds us that these sounds, the
burps, the squeaks, the groans, are part of everyday
life. They are human sounds. We make them when
we eat, when we sleep, when we get sick. Mitten
is just elevating them to the stage. So when
we look at the legacy of this album, it came
out in 81. It's been over 40 years. Why does
it still matter? I think it matters because we
are still kind of catching up to it. Robert Spencer
wrote that Minton was exploring territory that
will be further explored by others, and he was
so right. You can hear it today. You hear echoes
of Minton in all kinds of experimental music,
metal, sound design today. It's the permission
it gives, isn't it? Yes. It gives permission
to the vocalist to stop being just a melodic
delivery system for lyrics. It says the voice
is an instrument with infinite texture. Francois
Couture noted that this album was one of the
most influential contributions to free singing.
It opened the door. And it's fascinating that
despite being shocking or jarring, reviewers
keep coming back to how musical it is. Richard
Cochran said all are very musical. That's the
key takeaway for me. It's not chaos. It's a different
kind of order. Minton has total control over
these sounds. He isn't just screaming, he's composing
with screams. So if you are listening to this
and you're thinking, okay, I want to try this,
what is the mindset you need to go in with? You
need to let go of the expectation of a song.
Don't wait for the chorus. Don't wait for the
chorus. Don't look for the melody. Just listen
to the texture. Listen to the physical capability
of the human body. Treat it like a nature documentary.
But the nature is the inside of a guy's throat.
That is a very visceral way to put it, but yeah.
Pretty much. So to sum this all up. A donut in
both hands is a document of a man pushing the
human voice to its absolute limit. It moves from
funny to frightening, sometimes in the span of
45 seconds. And it challenges us to rethink what
we consider music and what we consider noise.
And it leaves us with this really strange lingering
thought. We talked about how Minton disassociates
from the emotion. He's just making sounds. But
the listeners, the critics, the fans, they hear
heartbreak. anger and redemption it's a powerful
disconnect so here's the question i want to leave
you with today if the singer doesn't feel the
emotion but you feel it intensely in your gut
where does that emotion actually live is it in
the throat of the singer or is it entirely created
in the ear of the listener that is the mystery
of sound thanks for diving deep with us go grab
a donut put on some headphones and prepare to
be shocked we'll catch you on the next deep dive