ReR MINI UPDATE/SALE January 2009. Click For Infos.
ReR MINI- UPDATE DECEMBER/JANUARY
2008
Preliminary Note: since the pound has collapsed against both the Dollar and the Euro, imports from Europe and America are now about 30% more expensive for us. We will try to hold all our prices down for as long as we can, but eventually they will rise. I’d like to make it clear that we believe that the criminals and idiots responsible for all our present miseries should be obliged to do social service on minimum wage for the rest of their lives.
Dear friends and subscribers,
Late discovery of some extra materials has delayed the box slightly and it won’t arrive now before the holiday lull. However, everything is moving and delivery is expected for early January – and the box will be better for it which, since we will only ever do this once, is I hope better than making a late quality compromise for the sake of a few days. Apologies to all of you anticipating a bovine xmas..
NEW ReR RELEASES
BAKU: SYMPHONY OF SIRENS
SOUND EXPERI.MENTS IN THE SOVET AVANT GARDE – ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS AND RECONSTRUCTIONS of 74 KEY WORKS of MUSIC, POETRY and AGITPROP from the RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE 1908-1942
Clothbound 72 page 25 x 14 cm book with two CDs. [£25] ReR RAG 1, 2
CD1: The Symphony of Sirens. In 1922 Arseni Avraamov composed and conducted a visionary public sound event, activating the entire port city of Baku: its factory sirens, the ships horns of the entire Caspian flotilla, two batteries of artillery, several full infantry regiments, trucks, seaplanes, 25 steam locomotives, an array of pitched whistles and several massive choirs. Constantly referenced but forever lost, this extraordinary event is here painstakingly reconstructed and spatialised to approximate the original experience. Plus 39 other priceless sound works, including the legendary Victory over the Sun and other lost documents of Malevich, Dziga Vertov, Nikolai Foregger & his Orchestra of Noises, Sergei Prokofiev, El Lissitsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Ivan Ignatyev & The Ego Futurist Group, Mikhail Matiushin, Alexei Kruchenykh, Georgi Yakoulov, Konstantin Melnikov, Igor Severyanin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Vladimir Kasyanov & The Futurist Circle, David Burliuk, Elena Guro, Olga Rozanova, H2SO4 Group, Simon Chikovani, The Nothingists, Vasily Kandinsky, Danil Harms, Igor Terent’ev, Mikhail Larionov, The Psycho-futurists group, Vasily Kamensky, Varvara Stepanova and Roman Jakobson.
CD2: Enthusiasm! The Dombass Symphony (1930) is possibly Dziga Vertov’s most revolutionary achievement: a symphony of abstract industrial noise for which a specially designed giant mobile recording system was constructed (it weighed over a ton) in order to capture the din of mines, furnaces and factories. For Vertov, the introduction of sound film didn’t mean talkies, but the opportunity to collage, montage and splice together constructions of pure environmental noise. In addition, this CD collects together for the first time a definitive library of original sound documents from the Russian Avantgarde: contemporary recordings of Alexander Mossolov, Julius Meytuss, Roman Jakobson, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lili Brik, David Burliuk, Sergei Esenin, Vasily Kamensky, Semen Kirsanov, V.I. Lenin, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Alexandra Kollontay, Leon Trotsky, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelshtam, Ilya Ehrenburg, Marina Tsvetaeva, Naum Gabo, Noton Pevsner and Dmitri Shostakovich.
BOOK: A comprehensive overview of the complexity and breadth of the many early C20 Russian avantgarde movements, followed by detailed notes and contexts for the individual recordings – including summary biographies of the main actors; additional work notes about the process of the extraordinary Baku reconstruction; a bibliography, rare photographs, web research links, artwork, facsimiles of contemporary documents, a comparative timeline of European and Russian Avantgardes and the first English translation of an article by Avraamov about the symphony. This is a definitive library collection, some seven years in the making and possibly our most important release of recent years. L
ART HISTORY . OST. CL . BOOK . SOUND POETRY
HENRY COW
The Road Volume 1 [£45]
HENRY COW
The Road Volume 2 [£47]
HENRY COW
The Studio [£45]
The complete remastered Henry Cow studio recordings in the third matching box: Legend, Unrest, Desperate Straights, In Praise of Learning and Western Culture.
And SEE BELOW for details and offers for last minute subscription.
ELIO MARTUSCIELLO
To extend the visibility [£18] DVD By Name
In a limited Edition of 2000 numbered copies this DVD comes in a threefold art DVD case with a full colour 48 page book offereng substantial exegetical essays (in English and Italian) by Tim Hodgkinson and Sebastiano Giacobello) and additional artwork by Ale Sordi and Ester Curcio. It s is a fully integrated electronic composition/animation exploring and aestheticising the contemporary fact of the digital unification of visual and aural data. It is also a meditation on the earth, its fragility, order, chaos, art and hubris. In six explorations, using all manner of digital processing techniques Elio animates abstract sequences of imagery derived from satellite pictures of our beleaguered planet and a mixture of concrete and synthetic – always highly composed and processed – sound. It is neither a film with soundtrack nor a composition with pictures but rather a contribution to a still unfamiliar medium, a rather demanding medium. Essentially it is a domestic installation, or the C21 multimedia version of a small print edition.
LAST RELEASES.
THE RECOMMENDED SAMPLER
(double CD) [£18] ReR 1982
Faust, Art Bears, ZNR, Robert Wyatt, The Residents, Henry Cow, This Heat, Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Stormy Six, Aqsak Maboul, Picchio Dal Pozzo, Decibel, Goebbels and Harth, The Homosexuals, The Work, Amos and Sarah, The Black Sheep, Feliu Gasul, Hector Zazou, The Muffins, R.Stevie Moore, Robel Vogel, Ron Pate/Raudelunas, Conventum, Joseph Racaille and Patrick Portella
Originally released in 1982, this is a collection of specially commissioned and (at the time) newly recorded pieces by the most interesting groups and individuals then in the Recommended catalogue. Never reissued, it has slowly become a prized collectors’ item – and remains an indispensable snapshot of the range and musical brilliance of this critical moment in the history of a small community of left-field groups struggling towards new musical languages. The breadth of imagination displayed is exemplary and it is amazing how fresh and original this music still sounds, and how much things have changed in only 25 years. What was intended on its release as a practical compendium has now become a definitive document so, on the occasion of Recommended’s 30th anniversary, we have decided to reissue it fully re-mastered and with additional accompanying material. L
COLL. RIO. COW. SONG
SPECIAL DISTRIBUTION
BILL GILONIS and CHANTALE LAPLANTE
Zurich Bamberg [£11] ADHOC
The first from Bill for a long time, this is an abstract aural collage recorded between 2003 and 2006, over long distances by mail, that operates somewhere between soundscape and radio art, assembling environmental recordings, bits of broadcasts and other modified found sound into a very personal sound diary or imaginary journey.
BILL GILONIS
The Hat Shoes – Differently Desperate
[£11] ADHOC 23
First released in 1991 the credits are impressive: the basic band is Bill, Catherine Jaunieux, Tom Cora and Charles Hayward, with guest including Tim Hodgkinson, David Thomas, Rick Brown, Amos and Chris Cochrane. This a remastered edition.
ALVIN CURRAN
Theme Park [£12] TZ 7039
A roaring, fascinating and impressive tour de force of percussion, played with both sensitivity and abandon by the legendary Willie Wynant. Curran, almost alone in the contemporary field, has found a territory for percussion that gets past rhythmic precision or extensive use of pitched percussion and gets down to noise, concentration on single sounds, unholy chaos while evolving a breathing, elastic, structure that gives the impression that the sounds are just there, following their own whim ( I can’t say logic). It’s scored for 4 percussionists and played by one – building it up in layers in the studio – and one whose sensibility is not stereotypically ‘contemporary’. A gem in the field, with a stunning beginning. L
ALVIN CURRAN
Animal Behaviour [£12] TZ 7001
Two more pieces by one of the last mavericks (ex MEV alumni and author of the epic piano work inner cities) whose music can’t be pinned down and may involve any kind of resource from traditional instruments to sampler and any mixture of same. He’s worked with just about everyone across the musical divides. The chief work here is Why is this night different than all others? – a timeless, but gripping, amorphic environment of hanging chords harried by, and clustered with, flurries of all manner of tuned and untuned percussion (Willie Wynant), piano (Curran), flotsam and jetsam of recordings and, of course, a wolf. Like a secular and somewhat profane Coptic Light (and I do not mean this as a criticism). A very fine work indeed. With a nice sleeve-note by AC.
1870
Mitos de una Ressureccion [£12] CDLN-39
Completely uncategoriseable four man ensemble from Mexico with a radically unusual line-up: two tubas, cor anglais, oboe, theremin, real-time processing and collective percussion – who play an intense, rock-informed but far from any rock, thoroughly composed, complex, strange and sometimes scary music that is in a category of one. I saw them by chance earlier this year in Querétaro and waited for this CD. Now here it is. Mexican import, all texts are in Spanish.
DAVEY WILLIAMS
Antenna Road [£12] trans museq 18
This is a record you won’t find in your local shop. Davey, pataphysical revue alumnus, one of Fred Frith’s invitees on the guitar solos project, quiet master of music and with nothing to prove, delivers a small masterpiece of a record that takes no prisoners but also grinds no axes (except the ones under his fingers). His own sleeve notes sum it up best; these are kernels, fragments, short-form miniatures that because of some strange essential quality fill time and memory. On various instruments (steel body guitars, slide guitar, electric sitar, electric guitar [between one and eleven at a time], acoustic guitar, bass, aluminium strip, electric screwdriver, e-bow – but always pared down, lucid, simple, unassuming) he lines up 30 short and very different pieces that occupy between 35 seconds and 2 minutes 59, but mostly averaging a minute, though it never seems so. And, different as they are, they follow one another and make longer seeming pieces. Some are quite abstract – though always catchy – many are fairly or very loaded with the Blues. A very welcome addition to the library.
KILHETS
Kilhets (5CD metal box) [£35] BP 0191-2
This is one of those documents I thought would never see the light of day. I first saw Kilhets in 1979 (it was their 3rd concert) in Prague, back in the days of strict control and secret police, when imagination could be expected to be treated as subversion. A vanishing rarity in the CSSR, Kilhets essentially played free improvised electric music, far from jazz, far from most anything – it was a home-grown laboratory for a new music, something the East-bloc wasn’t supposed to have. With hoods and painted faces (whether part of a general alienation effect or a nominal disguise I’m not sure) three (later four) extremely talented musicians (all active more visibly in other bands) just made it up as they went along. On the continuum noise – silence all points were occupied; this was a music that came seemingly fully formed out of nowhere. What makes it doubly fascinating is that these players were not part of a fashion or a school – there was no other music like this in the CSSR, nor was there any ready public for it. Kilhets just played this way because they had to and, at least in the beginning, they also had to invent their own rules and aesthetic. In those days, concerts in the CSSR were few and far between, and each one was a special event. In 2 years Kilhets managed 8 performances, which was pretty good going, and five of them are contained here (1, 5 & 7 are missing). They are all very different and the ones I find most interesting are the first two and the fifth – which is the most conceptual and intense. The others have their moments (some may prefer them – there are even snatches of The Residents’ songbook and a lot more quotes from the rock lexicon in them); they are clearly keeping on the move. However, this is not for everyone; you have to be interested or curious and ready to be bemused. That said, this is an important document and a significant piece of lost history that will need from now to be taken into account.
JOE MOE
Mainland [£12] By Name
Once in a while a really great song album comes along, with exquisite arrangements, surprising harmonies, intriguing texts and sideways melodies that exhibits both a sharp musical intelligence and a deep immersion in popular forms for their own sake (Van Dyke Parks sets a standard). This is one such. Joe Moe has managed to make a record that constantly shifts and twists yet remains firmly rooted and coherent – not an easy thing to pull off. He is much assisted by the arranging and producing talents of the not inconsiderable Brian Woodbury, as well as Marc Doten, Michael Webster and Cheez Masheen. Van Dyke Parks also appears on two tracks, one of which is a luminous cover of his own Cowboy. There is a great deal of impressive composition at work, always leavened by a performative insouciance; and these are proper, not clever, songs that speak to the emotional complexity of life. If you appreciate the medium, I strongly recommend this rare example of brilliance in the field. Limited Edition. L
OTHER
SUN RA
Horizon [£11] ARTYARD CD008
In 1971 Sun Ra and the full Arkestra of the time went to Egypt. Three Saturn LPs were released memorialising this visit: Horizon was the last (it has also been known as Starwatchers and Sun Ra in Egypt Vol.2). It’s a fine recording of a classic band – in great shape here –and comprises a big chunk of the now legendary Balloon Theatre concert (there’s more on the companion CD Nidhamu). The first three tracks (what was side 1 of the LP) form a continuous uncut block, and feature a lot of Ra’s all-hell-let-loose Moog soloing, some (borrowed)Tiger Organ, and a great version of Discipline 2. Side 2 kicks off with an instrumental version of Enlightment, (restored in its place from the original concert. It was not on the original LP) segueing slowly into Space is the Place – followed by drum orchestra, more solo Moog (bloops, hoovers, whistles, concords taking off, insect hordes.) which leads to a first lurching, then wild, Discipline 8. There are two bonus tracks, heard for the first time here – also restored from the original concert: We’ll Wait for You, with June Tyson and The Satellites are Spinning, culminating in a full-on percussion fest. The version of Shadow World is also longer than the edited version on the LP. L
SUN RA
Nidhamu/Dark Myth Visitation Equation [£11] ARTYARD
These two LPs, on one CD, taken with Horizon, complete the Egypt trilogy. Nidhamu was in fact the second release of the series, half recorded at the Balloon Theatre and half at a concert at Hartmut Geerken’s house in Heliopolis. It’s a remarkable document: austere, and very out there. Eeliopolis sessions aoppear on lectric keyboards and an eerie Discipline No.11 set the scene, and after some solo Moog there’s a spooky miniature Discipline No.15 introducing another long Moog and keyboards solo: 35 pretty abstract minutes that just slip by. Dark Myth Visitation Equation follows (it was the first LP release, and has also been known as Sun Ra in Egypt Vol 1 and Nature’s God). The first tracks are from a Cairo TV broadcast and the whole collection features the more familiar groove-based pieces characteristic of the period, interspersed with yet more Moog and electric keyboard solos. June Tyson reappears for To Nature’s God and the highly eccentric Why go to the Moon? Classic.
Special Offer: HORIZON and NIDHAMU/DARK MYTH [£18]
SUN RA
Secrets of the Sun [£12] ALP 266 CD
First time on CD for this early Saturn release (1962) which comes here with an additional LP-sidelength piece (planned but never released by Saturn) Flight to Mars, from the same period. The sound is good and it’s quite different from the late ‘70s band. In some ways more experimental, very fresh, with smaller ensembles (always Marshall Allen and John Gilmore), a lot of imagination and a good sound. Great drummers.
SUN RA
Live at Slug’s Saloon, Summer 1972 (6xCD set)
[£30] Transparency 0313
Sun Ra and the Arkestra played every Monday night at Slug’s Saloon in NYC for five years. This is the first released documentation of this long residency, comprising two complete shows (six hours) which show the Arkestra emerging from their psychedelic phase and moving back toward its jazz roots. High quality recordings I am assured (unheard at time of writing).
SUN RA
Outer Spaceways Incorporated [£12}
CD 877680-2
A 1968 recording of the classic 15 piece band with Nimrod Hunt on drums and Ra on clavioline as well as piano. Excellent recording quality. This is in fact a very welcome reissue of the Black Lion LP ‘Pictures of Infinity’– confusingly and pointlessly re-titled. It should not be confused with the Saturn release Outer Spaceways Incorporated, which is a wholly different record. That said, it’s still a fine and welcome release.
SUN RA
Untitled Recordings [£12] 0903
A recording of one-time grouping of Sun Ra, John Gilmore, Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille and Don Moye in Brooklyn, 1985, plus two long rehearsal tapes made at the Arkestra’s house in 1978. The second rehearsal tape is pretty wonderful, with Ra explaining and singing along while the band finds its way to the centre of the songs. Ra was something of a visionary and seems to have recorded at every opportunity. Sometimes it’s discarded material, like this, which turns out to be really precious. An important addition to the already massive archive.
SUN RA
Newport Jazz Festival/Electric Circus (dbl)
[£12 ] 0308
recordings from 1968 and 1969. The sound is not so great, and the circus drummer you will either love or be infuriated by.
·OTOMO YOSHIHIDE, TONY BUCK, LUC EX, CHRISTIAN FENNESZ & FRANZ HAUTZINGER
Regen Orchestra XII. Town Down [£12] RN 14
Project of quartertone trumpeter Hautzinger for SWR’s Baden Baden Jazz Festival with all-star ensemble who make a big, thick, impressive sound.
ELECTRONIC, CONTEMPORARY.
MAURICIO KAGEL
Acustica (1968-1970) [£12] ZZT080403
This is a seminal work from the late ‘60s by one of the giants of the second half of the C20, a piece for ‘experimental sound-producers and loudspeakers. The sound-producers constitute a complete zoo of specially constructed instruments: compressed air cylinder & metal pipes, turntables with various attachments (giant horns, tin-cans, funnels, fountain pens), a castanet array, a blow-torch with metal tubes, balloons with mouthpieces, a bucket of water with stones, a nail violin, a stick with bicycle bells, a thunder-sheet, a 5-tongued ratchet, giant combs and paper, electric fans, a bull-roarer, megaphones, a bell board, toy instruments, bellows, a conveyor belt, a walkie-talkie –and so on (all illustrated in the booklet) so that the stage is more like a playpen or a workshop. The sounds are unfamiliar, unidentifiable for the most part and, this being contemporary music, organised. A recent recording (2007), supervised by Kagel himself a year before his death. There are two versions on the CD, each around 36 minutes long. This is an important and historic hybrid work blurring the lines between theatre, music and a demonstration of physical laws. L
HENRY POUSSEUR
Electronic, experimental and microtonal. 1953-1999 [£12] SR 289
A great collection of Pousseur’s work which spans 45 years, from the 1953 Prospection – for 3 pianos tuned a sixth tone apart, through Racine for Cello (Rohan de Saram) in a 19 to the octave tuning, At Moonlight, for Shamizen, Koto and Shakauhachi which negotiates microtonally between Dowland and Japanese traditional music, Ex Dei in Machinam Memoria for Oboe and live electronics to the 1999 Figures Enlacees for Manualiter Organ. These are fascinating, highly accomplished pieces of real substance that locate Pousseur firmly in the first rank of the great generation of composers that emerged in the ‘50s and the 60’s – and who changed the profile of music. These tuning systems are still unfamiliar and intriguing to the ear, and rarely heard in instrumental music today. Notes by the composer and a very interesting recent interview in the accompanying booklet. L
MARK APPLEBAUM
Sock Monkey [£12] INNOVA 706
The worst thing about this CD is its title. The pieces themselves are varied, extremely well executed, beautifully recorded and of a consistently high standard. MA is a youngish (41) American composer who mixes traditional and electronic resources intelligently, so these are consequent works -though not without humour – and imaginative. There are 10 compositions, for all manner of different instrumentations, usually but not always including live electronics, ranging from small mixed ensembles, through percussion trio, 8 prepared pianos and solo trumpet to full orchestra. Particularly fine are Variations on variations on a theme by Mozart (18 prepared pianos), and Magnetic North. Highly entertaining. With an excellent and informative booklet with useful notes by the composer. L
IANNIS XENAKIS
Kraanerg [£12] MODE 196
A massive work (Xenakis’s longest) for 23 instruments and 4-channel tape, written in 1968 and seldom performed since (it’s difficult to stage). This is a new recording, made in 2006, with the original tape material restored, and is in every sense massive: intense, brooding, full of action and wholly self-contained. There is an apparent, but elusive, logic – as with much of Xenakis’s music – that comes from his use of stochastic procedures, creating structures that relate to natural phenomena rather than imagination or intelligence. With useful notes (in English and German) and a graphic of the sketch for the score. Also available as a surround sound DVD. L
FORERUNNERS
Swedish Electronic & Concrete Music 1955-65 [£12] FYCD 1027
A valuable release, featuring some classic early pieces that show enormous diversity and imaginative scope. This CD documents a period when the field was open and new sounds were really new. Sweden was a relative latecomer to institutionalised electronic music – the first dedicated studio wasn’t built until 1965/6. All these works predate that, making them all the more remarkable. The quality is exceptional. In particular Minamusik (1959), by Karl-Birger Blomdahl, comes as a fully formed classic of mixed forms – electronic, concrete, environmental – at this surprisingly early date (like Varese’s Deserts it was made as a set of taped interpolations to a conventional musical score and later edited into this single 13-minute piece). Bengt Hambreus worked at Darnstadt in the early 50s and his compact and focused Doppelrohr 2 was made at the Koln studio. You can hear the aesthetic, loud and clear. Then the enigmatic Rune Lindblat, first Swede to make tape music who, his premiere concert in 1957 having been met with derision, continued to work only in private for the next 13 years before any work was again offered to the public. Arne Mellnas makes a plunderphonic cut-up piece (1964), Sten Hanson works with transformed voices after the OU style (this was made in Paris in 1962 – the same year that Ake Karlung’s also vocal-based Antihappening was completed). .Leo Nillson, Ralph Lundsten and Bengt Emil Johnson also provide interesting but more conventional pieces, and the collection ends with a 16 minute work by Lars-Gunnar Bodin, probably the best known and most versatile of Sweden’s electronic composers. This is 76 minutes of history, with a nicely designed and informative book. Released by Fylkingen.
BERNARD PARMEGIANI
L’Oeuvre Musicale (12 CD box) [£50] Ina G 6000/11
On the occasion of their 50th anniversary INA GRM have collected together in 12 CDs the major works of one of their leading composers – until now scattered across many different labels and much no longer in print. The collection covers the period 1964 – 2007 and all of Parmegiani’s major works. Of all the French masters of the form Parmegiani has always stood out for his compositional clarity and attention to minute detail. This is a great treasure trove of concrete and post concrete works, and very reasonably priced. For anyone interested in the field, this is exemplary – and compact: even with the excellent (90pp) booklet (BP interview, pictures, scores and full notes on each piece in French and English) it takes up less than 2.5 centimetres of shelf space. It is also a textbook opportunity to follow a single artist through the enormous changes in technology over the last 50 years. Contents: Violostries, Jazzex, L’Instant Mobile, Capture Ephemere, Bidile en Re, pop’ eclectic, du pop a l’ane, ponomatopes, musico picassa, et après, L’oeil ecoute, pour en finir avec le pouvoir d’Orphee, la roué ferris, enfer, de natura sonorum, dedans-dehors, la table des matieres, des mots et des sons, la creation du monde, excercismes, litaniques, rouge mort: thanatos, a pericoloso sporgersi, trilogie plain temps, sonare, sons-jeix, la memoire des sons, immer/sounds, especes d’espaces, au gre du soufflé, le son s’envole, reveries. A gem. Limited edition. L
MEXICO ELECTROAUSTICO
1960-2007 (triple CD) [£25] IRD 002
An invaluable record of work mostly unheard outside Mexico, in three volumes labelled Origins, 1960-87, Consolidation (1987-06) and Contemporary (1999-07). There is much of great interest in this collection; in fact, most of it is exceptional in one way or another. CD 1, which features many of Mexico’s foremost composers exploring a wide variety of techniques, technologies and aesthetics, includes Mario Lavista’s highly Plunderphonic 1972 Contrapuno, which lifts chunks of cultural debris (Mahler, Beatles, Buddist chants, , Strauss, Gagaku, pop music, &c.) into varying degrees of distortion and processing, Viols by Manuel Enriquez, a highly evolved and very listenable work for violin and tape and the remarkable Paraiso de los ahogados, from 1960, which employs the most primitive tape techniques with not much more than an overabundance of creativity, to great effect. CD2 includes Roberto Morales’ impressive Nahual 2, for Chamula Harp and electronics, which is more wild and performed than carefully orchestrated, the great Papalotl by Javier Alvarez for piano and tape: a tour-de-force, Con jicamo for tape, a highly rhythmic, complex and beautifully judged composition, and Erotica 2, for balloon and violin. CD 3 is mostly more internationalist in style, which means beautifully made, full of detail and subtlety, but rather bland, uniform in sound (I blame the technology, especially the softwares) and with less character, agon, imagination orchutzpah than the earlier pieces (there are exceptions (tk 7, 10?) This is an important collection and a great tribute to Mexican composers. L
ART HISTORY
ALLEN KAPROW
How to make a Happening [£12] PI
Historic. Originally released as an LP in 1966 by Mass Art, this is Allen Kaprow, father of The Happening explaining how to do it, and what is – and is not – a Happening. The philosophy and all the practicalities are covered. And many concrete examples are described. A lot people think they know what Happenings were (or are) and this is a valuable corrective. This is the voice of the time, and the thinking of the time, in aspic – and it is eloquent of its difference from the present. This is a fact – and it comes straight from the horse’s mouth. How complex these scenarios were, Art history. L
SOUND ART
BRIAN JOSEPH DAVIS
The Definitive Host [£12 ] recording club 043
5 large-scale plunderphonic pieces: 5 box sets recorded on fast forward and edited into songs; 10 banned albums burned, then played; a script composed from over 500 film promo taglines (funny); 22 love songs, all played at once (nice). Plus a punk Adorno 7 inch (minima Moralia), the Sony BMG ‘end user agreement’ set for choir and Yesterduh (for massed mis-singing passers-by). Not everything works, but enough. Nicely packaged in a 12pp colour booklet. Small edition.
BRIAN JOSEPH DAVIS
Original Soundtrack [£12] By Name
5 pieces for 20 televisions and DVD players. The DVD players are set up in a derelict factory and recorded in real time with one (good) stereo microphone from 200 yards away. All the DVDs are playing selected film DVDs set on their ‘menu’ page. Not random.
BOOK
JOHN TILBURY
Cornelius Cardew – A life Unfinished
[£45] By Name.
A massive (1070 pp) book, over 30 years in the writing – and as far as I have got to date – beautifully written. Thorough and without fat, Tilbury never loses sight of what is important or relevant and doesn’t pursue trivia. By page 29 we are at the Royal Academy and then follow Cornelius through his years in Köln with Stockhausen (and the Darmstadters), his return to the UK, Treatise, AMM, The Scratch Orchestra and The Great Learning, then his twists and reconsiderations in the light of an extreme political conversion – with much background and insight drawn from Cardew’s own journals and the recollections and testimonies of friends and acquaintances. That’s as far as I have got so far, coming next is the long Maoist period, his critiques of Stockhausen, AMM and his earlier works, People’s Liberation Music, arrest and imprisonment and what really happened toward the end of his short but very eventful life. No one could wish for a better biographer, Tilbury is understanding but not apologetic, painting a picture that leaves space for what can’t be known, attempting to represent events honestly, irrespective of whether they reflect well or badly on his subject. This is neither hagiography nor trouble-making, trying rather to take an unsentimental, unsanitised position on the manifold complexities of Cardew’s life and work. It is also a history of the rather remarkable and significant times through which Cardew lived – culturally, socially and politically – as an engaged and not uninfluential actor. Tilbury is also an actor in this story and he doesn’t pretend to be neutral, he does however carefully recognise and distinguish his own understandings and self understandings from those of his subject. So far as I have got, this is an exemplary biography and an important historical document, at once a profound insight into the musical innovations of the ‘50s and ‘60s and a joy to read.
SPECTRAL WORLD MUSICS
Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference. Ed Robert Reigle and Paul Whitehead. 458p paperback book and 2 CDs. [£42] By Name. Very limited quantity.
Written from a variety of perspectives by experts in composition, ethnomusicology, historical musicology, performance, and improvisation, this collection of papers sheds new light on the history of timbre and spectral thinking. The Istanbul Spectral Music Conference, at which these papers were presented, redefined “spectral music” to encompass any music foregrounding timbre as an important element of structure or musical language. I have yet to finish it, meantime Tim Hodgkinson writes :“In the thirty odd years of Spectralism as a movement amongst Western composers, this is the first attempt to contextualise it within a wider world of timbral music-making, embracing not only ‘ethnic’ musical cultures but many informal musics around us. It’s a book, therefore, about openness, about listening to others and communicating across divergent disciplines. It’s a book that places the buzzing of African kalimbas in the same space as the computer printouts of spectral transformations. Even where you feel the participants didn’t really want to interact, the papers and discussions, by mere fact of being juxtaposed, interrogate each other. You get a sense of an enormous but extremely scattered collective project: in one corner Helen Bledsoe works away at her flute multiphonics; Eve McPherson is recording the call to prayer right across the Muslim diaspora to find out if the timbre itself signifies or unfolds a deterritorialised sacred space; over here Matthew Goodheart is rotating a Tibetan prayer bowl inside of his piano which he got into out of free jazz; and Curtis Roads is figuring out how to turn sound into dust and then turn it back again… It comes with 2 CDs. One contains a set of recordings connecting to specific points in the text – a piece each here from the great Rumanian spectralists Dumitrescu and Avram, as well as excerpts from Tajik and Turkish songs and a piano improvisation from Matthew Goodheart. The other is from concerts given at the conference. Pieter Snapper attacks shifting spectral clouds with accelerated shards of minimal techno. Other pieces include the only recordings ever made by the late great Kani Karaca of free improvisation and contemporary composition”. VERY limited Supply.
SORRY, PLEASE ADD £3 toward the brutal cost of postage.
DVD
NOISES AND WHISPERS IN THE AVANT GARDES (1909-1945). The Laboratory of Intermedia Creations of the Dept. Sculpture, BBAA Valencia.
2 DVDs HIGHLY LIMITED EDITION [£20] By Name.
These 2 DVDs document the important 2006 exhibition Noises and Whispers in the Avant Garde which catalogued and presented reconstructions of sound events and experiments from across the world in the first third of the twentieth century. They contain a short film of the exhibition itself, a selection of interviews with the main protagonists (in Spanish), the full contents of the double CD sold during the exhibition, .pdf files of the printed catalogue – as well as the CD contents, recordings and catalogues of several other related exhibitions, a film of highlights of a reconstruction of a Bauhaus concert in the ‘20s (part of the exhibition programme), two songs by Theodore Adorno, weblinks and related materials. Some screen text is translated into English. There is no one else so far as I know is engaged in this valuable research and reconstruction work, the sculpture department in Valencia is breaking new ground. This release will be of significant interest to specialists, students, university departments and scholars of early C20 avant gardes’ use of sound. This is a one-off printing in a small edition.
JOHN CAGE
49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs. [£18] Mode 204
1977 Cage wrote 49 Waltzes for Rolling Stone magazine (to mark its relocation to New York from the West coast). Not long after, a score was published by Peters consisting of a map of the Five Boroughs scored by 49 coloured triangles. The exact location of the three points of each triangle are then listed: 149 addresses in all. This is the first full and serious realisation of this score, as a 2 hour sound video that lingers for chance derived durations at each location recording what there is to see and hear. There is, unsurprisingly, remarkable diversity; it’s New York you wouldn’t normally see, or remember: a record of ephemera. Video by Don Gillespie and Roberta Friedman, with various extras, features and an additional audio realisation of the score.
OF INTEREST
·EARLE BROWN
Folio & Four Systems [£12] TZ 8028
With Cage, Feldman and Brown was one of the 4 apostles of the New York School of composers and the main initiator of open form in the 1950s. Often using graphic scores or rules, his pieces offer enormous freedom to the interpreter – they are pretexts for music rather than instructions. Against Cage, he welcomed improvisation into the world of contemporary music. His pieces are nterpreted here by various hands, including one by Brown himself. Others include Christian Wolff (the only one of the four still alive), Stephen Drury, Joan La Barbara, Wadada Leo Smith, Ikue Mori, Sylvie Courvoisier, Larry Polansky, Mark Feldman and Morton Subotnik.
STOP PRESS
BACK IN STOCK
UP MURPHY STREET [£12] By Name
Another vanity release from El Frenzy, offshore home to Bing Selfish Enterprises. This is an unaccountable reissue of the indescribable 1986 concatenation of talents Bing gathered around himself in a doomed attempt to ‘go musical’ – a massive all-star cast of names who later went on to even greater oblivion. Lush orchestrations that almost work, ‘singing’, the human condition – it’s all here. This item is always delivered in an anonymous plain brown wrapper that doesn’t mention Bing, confidentiality is guaranteed.
JOHN LEVACK DREVER
Cattle Grids of Dartmoor [£12]
JAMES JOYCE
The Complete Recordings [£15.50] SR60
BRAXTON/BAILEY
Moment Precieux [£12] VictoCD02
FRITH/LUSSIER
Nous Autres [£12] VictoCD01
VINYL
WILLIAM BURROUGHS
Break Through The Grey Room [£15] SRV08
THE WORK
Slow Crimes [£12] – vinyl
TIM HODGKINSON
Splutter [£12] – vinyl
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LAST FEW DAYS FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION EDITION (with extra CD and third box, available only to subscribers). CLOSES DEC 31.
HENRY COW
40th ANNIVERSARY BOX SET Volumes 1 & 2
9 CDs and 1 DVD with 2 substantial books – in two solid Boxes. LIMITED EDITION.
Assembled over 15 years, this collection gives for the first time some idea of the breadth and depth of Henry Cow’s work. Always very much a live band, performance was their metier, and a concert might range far – always driven by an intense dialogue between tightly knit compositions and radically open improvisation. The officially released LPs tell at best only half this story, and one purpose of this definitive collection is to set the work back into its broader context. These are all previously unreleased recordings and include many compositions and improvisations new to anyone who only knows the official releases, as well as documentation of a number of one-off projects and events and – where different or remarkable enough to justify inclusion – live versions of parts of the LP repertoire. Many of these recordings are high quality radio transcriptions taken directly from the original masters, others are less hi-fi, but justified, we think, by their historic and musical quality. It has all been carefully transferred and re-mastered by Bob Drake to the best audio quality that current technology allows without interference or tampering – a million times better than the terrible bootlegs that are swimming around. Altogether, these 9 CDs embody some extraordinary, and occasionally prescient music and, taken together with the officially released albums, make it possible at last to get some impression of the extensive ground Henry Cow covered in it’s 10 short years. Finally, there is the DVD: 80 minutes of the 1976 Cow (with Georgina Born and Dagmar Krause) performing many unreleased pieces as well as Living in the Heart of The Beast, Beautiful as the Moon &c. This is the only known video recording in existence – professionally made, multi camera – and has not been recovered since its original broadcast (just scour U-Tube, HC is conspicuous by its total absence). And last but not least, there is a great deal of written, photographic and textual documentation. Since this will probably be the last and definitive collection, it has to be thorough. For reasons of fairness and cost we have decided to split the set into two boxes – which can be bought separately or together. VOL 1 covers the period 1971 to the 1976 Hamburg radio show which documents John Greaves’ last concert with the band, as well as the extraordinary Trondheim concert from the quartet tour that immediately followed. VOL 2 takes the story through to 1978 and includes more previously undocumented compositions as well as the Bremen radio recording. The Stockholm CD belongs to this second box, which also contains the DVD.
THE ENTIRE SET, in two boxes plus a free, third, specially designed, solid matching continuous-artwork empty box in which to keep the already released 5 studio CDs. In a numbered edition, with a special additional subscription item. £112
Subscriptions help raise the vast sums these things cost to manufacture and recognise your participation with special editions, extra items and lower prices.
COW BOX ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN.
COW INSTALLMENT UNIT [£12]
We know it’s expensive, and that’s a problem. But it really is expensive to make, and there’s no way around that. However, from feedback we’ve had we can proposes a special payment method. If you desperately want the box but just can’t spend so much at once, you can buy in installments (at £12 per CD) and we’ll send the boxes with CDs 5 & 10, as well as the extra box for the studio CDs. At any time you can pay the balance and get the rest of the set all at once (when you win the lottery, for instance). Hopefully this will make it a more manageable proposition for some of you.
Instalment unit Vol 1 [£12[
Instalment unit Vol 2 [£12[
Instalment unit Vol 3 [£12[
Instalment unit Vol 4 & 5 [£24[
Instalment unit Vol 6 (optional) [£12[
Instalment unit Vol 7 [£12[
Instalment unit Vol 8 [£12[
Instalment unit Vol 9 [£12[
Instalment unit DVD [£15[
THE POINTS EAST BOX
Historic numbered art edition: 12 CDs, book and box [£58] pe/box
We are slowly moving toward a number that may make this release possible but we are not there yet..
The Rock experiments of Eastern Europe were no less interesting (though they were somewhat rarer) than those in the West, but they went undocumented for years – they made no commercial or official CDs and could not tour. Concerts were rare even in their own countries. Outside, to all intents and purposes, they didn’t exist. To begin to redress this lack, in the late ‘80s, Recommended launched Points East, a label dedicated only to this music. Because of its historical importance – and musical excellence – we plan to manufacture a very limited edition of the 8 PE LPs (re-mastered on CD), plus 3 or 4 extra CDs filling in further details of the music of the various territories in that time, mostly taken from other Recommended releases as yet not reissued – including the extraordinary ‘Raab’ and Zygmunt Krauze’s luminous ‘Folk Music’- plus a couple of CDs with samples of other groups from the time and new materials by the original artists. All the CDs will be in facsimile edition, fully re-mastered, in a box with a fat book outlining the way it was in the old East and the way it is now, as well as a more general overview of experimental music in each of the territories. In other words this will be an historic documentation of a missing part of the history of progressive and experimental music, a documentation much needed. It will be made to our usual standards and very thoroughly documented, but we want to make it as cheap as possible – since this for art’s sake; it’s certainly not a commercial proposition. So we will try to keep the 12 CDs, box and book down to £58 – close to cost. However, origination, manufacturing and production costs will be huge, and we will only be able to make it if there is sufficient interest and enough pledged advance orders. To that end, if you are interested in this project, please subscribe – just write in and say you want your name put down, we will not take any money until and unless the box is actually realised. If and when we reach a viable number, we will announce the issue, confirm your subscriptions and go ahead.
– The original PE series was:
BORIS KOVACS. Ritual Nova 2 (YU)
ZGA. Zga (Riga)
STRANGE GAMES, Strange Games (Russia)
DER EXPANDER DES FORTSCHRITTS. Der Expander &c. (GDR)
BORUT KRZISNIK Currents of Time (Slovenia)
KAMPEC DOLORES Levitation (Hungary)
REPORTAZ. Reportaz (Poland)
PULNOC. Midnight Mouse (Czechoslovakia)
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OTHER OFFERS
1. ReR LOSS LEADER
With each update we offer one £5 loss leader to encourage wider listening. This Update it’s
Amy Denio – Birthing Chair Blues
2. MORE NEW STUFF – BUILD A LIBRARY.
From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important – those which I think should be in any living library – and offer a discount for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile a list from the whole catalogue.
This update’s must have library items:
1. SUN RA. HORIZON and NIDHAMU/DARK MYTH
2. BAKU Book and Box
3. ALVIN CURRAN Theme Park
£38 (save £4)
ESSENTIAL HISTORY
1. FORERUNNERS; Swedish Electronic & Concrete Music 1955-65 #
2. MEXICO ELECTROAUSTICO 1960-2007 (3 CDs)
3. SUN RA
Untitled Recordings
£45 (save £4)
The LOT £81 (save £10)
3. RER MUSIC CLUB: SERIOUS DISCOUNTS
People keep asking. So, for those who want, we can automatically send you all our new releases (and press only promotional material) as soon as we get them – at a very serious discount. This can also include all our American Sister company Ad Hoc’s titles. Ask us for the leaflet or visit the website for details.
NEW
CLUB MEMBERS MAY ALSO SUBSCRIBE BACKWARDS, THAT IS, RECEIVE EARLER CDS AT THE SAME DISCOUNT. ASK FOR DETAILS WHEN YOU JOIN.
4. FRIEND OF FRED VOLUME 3.
To become a Friend of Fred costs 95 pounds (45 now and 50 when we send CD No.5, You get the ARTIST SIGNED LIMITED EDITION of Vol 3:
8 CDs with a special signed book with Fred’s notes on the works, the process of their composition and recording, related photographs and other documentary materials. You get the CDs as soon as they come out, the signed book, occasional other additional materials and 1.50 pounds off any other Fred CD you buy from us during the subscription period – whatever label it’s on.
Volumes 1 and 2 can still be purchased separately at £100, with the signed book.
NOTE. Members of the ReR record club will get the book free as part of their membership.
5. MORE INCENTIVES: 10% ADHERENT DISCOUNTS
Every 11th CD* you buy from the catalogue, whatever it is, will be a gift from ReR. There is no time limit on this. Effectively it reduces our prices by a average of £1.20 per CD, which makes us competitive even with collapsed US dollar suppliers and enables us to deliver very good prices for regular buyers: a £12 CD becomes £10.80, an ReR title £9.80 – and they are all still post free. You get the discount as a free CD on your 11th order. We’ll keep track. Register with your first purchase as an ADHERENT. Since there is no time limit, even if it takes 4 years to get to the 11th, it’s still free.
·For counting: Double CD = 1.5 CDs, a triple as 2, boxes of 4 as 2.5, boxes over 5 as 3.
·Any order of 15 CDs at once gets you two free CDs (the two cheapest)
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MEMO COLLECTOR SUBSCRIBE:
ART editions often come out in small numbers and sell out very quickly. To be notified immediately, or in advance, of any new releases of this type, please send your email address to us with the message IMMEDIATE ART NOTIFICATION PLEASE.
NOTICES
The ReR Newsgroup
sign up at
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/ReRmegacorp/
– for advance news of concerts, new releases, ReR artists’s activities, commentary, and communication with fellow enthusiasts.
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www.rermegacorp.com
rermegacorp@dial.pipex.com
The ReR Winter SALE
1. Catch up on those missed titles, or check
out some of the ones you didn’t want to risk
£11 on but are still curious about.
All titles £5 each POST FREE with a
MINUIMUM ORDER OF SIX
Or 25 for £100 – with any other ReR single CD thrown in FREE.
(sale starts January 1, 2009)
Biota – Crisis in Clay
Alquimia – Dead Tongues
Aki Peltonen -Radio Banana
Biota – Half a True Day
Brainville 3 – Trial By Headline
Chris Cutler – Solo
Chris Cutler – There and Back Again
Cassiber – A Face We All Know
Cutler/ Dimuzio – Quake
Cutler/ Dimuzio – Dust
Dave Lee Myers – Arcane Device
Erno Kiraly – Phoenix
Elio Martusciello – Unoccupied Areas
Fat – Automat Highlife
Fred Frith – Guitar Solos
Fred Frith – The Happy End Problem
Fred Frith – Impur
Les 4 Guitaristes – World Tour
Hail – Hello Debris
Haco – Ash in the Rainbow
Jocelyn Robert – Folie/ Culture
Jon Rose – The Fence
Jon Rose – The People’s Music
Lindsay Cooper – Rags
Lutz Glandien – Scenes from No Marriage
Lutz Glandien – Lost in Rooms
The Necks – Hanging Gardens
The Necks – Chemist
Paolo Angeli – Bucato
Paolo Angeli – Tessuti
Peter Cusack – Baikal Ice
Robert Iolini – Songs From Hurt
Istvan Marta – Sound Diary
Steve MacClean – Bridges
Steve MacClean – Frog, Bug, Guitar, Computer
Sun Ra – Cosmo Sun Connection
Stevan Tickmayer – Repetitive Selective Removal
Stevan Tickmayer – Cold Peace Counterpoints
Thomas Dimuzio – Slew
Dockstader/ Myers – Pond
Dockstader/Myers – Bijou
Tod Dockstader – Omniphony
Vril – Effigies in Cork
The Science Group – A Mere Coincidence
The Science Group – Spoors
Lussier, Derome, Cutler -Three Pieces Suite
Lagos, Venosta, Mariani – Metamorphoses
Michael Maksymenko – Businesscide
Mnemonist Orchestra – Gyromancy
News From Babel – Sirens and Silences
News From Babel – Letters Home
Nikola Kodjabashia – The Most of Now
Musci, Rose, Cutler – Steel, Water, Light
Reiman, Dalaba, Dempster – Lung Tree
Dumitrescu, Avram, Cutler, Hodgkinson – Dach
Nikola Kodjabashia – Reveries of a Solitary Walker
ReR Megacorp
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