TRANSMISSION ART ARCHIVE

Mike Cooper

Mike Cooper is an English lap steel guitarist, improviser, and artist whose experimental sensibility has taken him into a myriad of forms including super-8 film, installation, and radio production. Cooper was initially best known for his contributions to the English folk scene of the 1960s and 1970s, staking out a distinctive country-blues style and sharing a stage with contemporaries such as Bert Jansch and Al Stewart. His approach soon broadened into an eclectic spectrum of styles including jazz, free improvisation, reggae, no wave, electroacoustic music, and field recordings. Cooper has long maintained a particular interest in Polynesian music, often incorporating elements of slack-key guitar playing and exotica music into his compositions and performances.