Various Artists ‎– "The Nova Convention" (Giorno Poetry Systems ‎– GPS 014-015) 1979

Live recording at an historic "summit",'The Nova Convention',a kind of tribute forward slash benefit, for William.S, including alledged counter culture and avant garde performers in New York City in 1979. Sadly,the music section of this convention,which included Suicide, B-52's, Bobby Fripp isn't available,but.....
Frank Zappa IS the talking asshole, and there's a nice picture of him on the inner cover bathing in the light of William Burroughs' credibility ray. Of course we also have  Patti Smith....good isn't she(?),introduced as 'Great'...well as least she and a bunch of hack journalists thought she was.....waxing lyrical about similar asshole, Jim Morrison,with 'jokes' that fall as flat as her terrible adult orientated rock albums.
John Giorno places himself early in the tracklist once more,and everyone skips the needle forward,bouncing off the Patti Smith track like a skimming stone,to the safer ground of Glass,Cage Billy,and Brion,among others,aka the real thing.


Tracklist:

A1 –Terry Southern - Vingette Of Idealistic Life In South Texas 1:25
A2 –William S. Burroughs - Keynote Commentary & Roosevelt After Inauguration 5:52
A3 –John Giorno - Eating The Sky 13:30
A4 –Patti Smith - Poem For Jim Morrison & Bumblebee 11:45
B1 –William S. Burroughs - Benway 3:40
B2 –Philip Glass - Building, Excerpt From Einstein On The Beach By Robert Wilson & Philip Glass 3:04
B3 –Brion Gysin - Kick That Habit, Junk Is No Good Baby, Somebody Special & Blue Baboon 7:06
B4 –Frank Zappa - The Talking Asshole 5:25
B5 –William S. Burroughs - From The Gay Gun: "This Is Kim Carson" & "Just Like The Collapse Of Any Currency" & "The Whole Tamale" 13:27
C1 –William S. Burroughs - What The Nova Convention Is About 2:35
C2 –Ed Sanders - Hymn To Aphrodite From Sappho 8:50
C3 –John Cage - Writing For The Second Time Through Finnegans Wake 14:15
C4 –Anne Waldman - Plutonium Ode & Skin Meat Bones 6:35
D1 –Laurie Anderson & Julia Heyward - Song From America On The Move 12:50
D2 –Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky - Punk Rock, Old Pond; Feeding Them Raspberries To Grow, & Nurses Song 13:00
D3 –William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Les Levine & Robert Anton Wilson Conversations 7:10

DOWNLOAD at nova express speeds HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Big Ego" (Giorno Poetry Systems ‎– GPS 012-013) 1978

Is it Ironic that an album called 'Big Ego' is opened by Patti Smith?....HeHeee,i'm like a dog with a bone here..... Seven minutes and fifty seconds of literary references,beat talk,and unaccompanied caterwauling.Truly horrible;but at least she didn't have that awful adult orientated rock group backing her up. I still haven't recovered from buying and then playing 'Horses',it just sounded so...er...'old'!? In fact most of those new york bohemian bands struck me in the same way...including The Ramones(Ironic bubblegum Rock?). The striking exception were 'Talking Heads',something genuinely new with no obvious roots, and to a certain extent, 'Television';mainly because they both dressed straight. But,Like The Ramones and Smith, punk they were not.
Cleveland seemed to have far more 'punk' cred to these ears.
At least we've got some early Philip Glass (yeah that's him,the funny looking one on the cover!?) to raise the bar,followed by lots of interesting and confrontational poetry of course;all this and a Robert Ashley track to get the weird level up a tad.
A evening of Poetry anyone? Shut up and listen for a couple of hours surrounded by an audience with applause hair-triggers, who laugh at the slightest hint of anything 'Clever';an action inferring that they are 'clever' too.The same problem occurs when a singer pronounces his lyrics clearly so you can hear the words,which naturally suggests that he,forward slash,she, must be saying something sickeningly meaningful.Its pop music, get over it! I'm sure whoever's reading this don't give several shades of shite what I think about anything,as much as I could not care less what a pop vocalists view is on any political situation or dogma.I still have no idea what Joe Strummer was going on about,but from what I understand, it was some pseudo-lefty hypocrisy with rhymes kinda stuff.Trying their level best to put the 'Y' in Nihilism.
No other such event demonstrates the manifestation of the human 'Hive Mind' than a poetry performance. The best way to experience it is buy,or download,the record of the event,hitting the pause button to get another smoothie from the fridge,or most likely go to bed.
No...its good really....its just that the punk priestess as played by hippie Smith just pissed me off a tad.

Tracklist:

A1 –Patti Smith - The Histories Of The Universe 7:46
A2 –Philip Glass - A Secret Solo 2:17
A3 –John Giorno - Grasping At Emptiness 9:45
A4 –Laurie Anderson - Three Expediences 3:00
A5 –Robert Wilson & Christopher Knowles - A Letter To Queen 8:00
B1 –Meredith Monk - Education Of The Girlchild, 1972: Biography 8:00
B2 –Michael Lally - All Of The Above (Excerpt) 6:17
B3 –Robert Lowell - Ulysses & Circe (Excerpt) 9:40
B4 –Larry Wendt - How To Cook A Duck 4:44
B5 –Jackie Curtis - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 2:27
C1 –Ed Sanders - The Fugs: A Monologue 2:12
C2 –William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch(Excerpt) 2:14
C3 –Harris Schiff - 15 Years Passes / Dollar Bill 1:45
C4 –Otis Brown - Boneless Chicken 1:43
C5 –Joel Oppenheimer - Cities, This City 2:45
C6 –The Fugs - Saran Wrap 1:15
C7 –Claes Oldenburg - June Was / Panodramdra 1:15
C8 –Denise Levertov - Homage To Pavese: Woman Alone 3:33
C9 –Ted Greenwald - Friends 2:08
C10 –Anthony J. Gnazzo - Hisnia & Hernia 4:44
C11 –Steve Tropp & Gloria Tropp - Snow White 1:03
C12 –Jim Brodey - Homeward Bound 1:52
C13 –Robert Ashley - Interiors With Flash 3:07
D1 –Eileen Myles - Tuesday Brightness 0:50
D2 –Helen Adam - Apartment On Twin Peaks 5:42
D3 –Anne Waldman - Light & Shadow 6:10
D4 –Joe Johnson - Fly Ho 0:37
D5 –Lorenzo Thomas - Wonders 1:50
D6 –Ishmael Reed - Sky Diving 2:19
D7 –Kenward Elmslie - The Woolworth Song 2:30
D8 –Mona DaVinci - The Last Supper Of Mona DaVinci (Excerpt) 2:50
D9 –Bernard Heidsieck - Canal Street No. 19 2:25
D10 –Steve Hamilton - Promise 3:25
D11 –Frank O'Hara - Poem / Poem 1:45
D12 –Ron Padgett No Title 1:28

DOWNLOAD a infinitely compressed mass of ego's HERE!

Dickie Landry ‎– "Fifteen Saxophones" (Northern Light Records ‎– FSA 87003) 1977

Here's another Philip Glass Ensemble member having a go at this minimalism fad; jazzy Saxophonist Richard "Dickie" Landry. Here he goes for the sustained tone, overdubbing himself fifteen times with the aid of Glass right-hand man Kurt Munkacsi.
Anything with a Saxophone in it automactically gets the 'Jazz' tag as the lazy librarians default position.Here Dickie manages to fully de-jazz these three compositions nicely, except for a few short free jazz solo's on track 3,or track free.
Dickie's normal setting,when he's not employed by Philip Glass is the standard Downtown Jazz stuff that never fails to invoke a yawn or two;but on this record he's falling back on the jazz musicians' need to show that he can do that other stuff,and do it better than you.
He can play more than one instruments too! Another standard Jazz behavioural trait.Some have even been seen wearing several sax's hung around their neck at the same time. No, Dickie doesn't play all fifteen saxes, or sax's, at the same time.With studio trickery he doesn't have to be five Roland Kirks at once...we have overdubs to allow Dickie's need to make a minimalist Drone epic of his very own,and the only one to have done it on a Saxophone,or Saxophonzzzz, so far,so there?

Saxes or Sax's?

Tracklist:

A1 15 Saxophones 10:35
A2 Alto Flute Quad Delay 9:45
B Kitchen Solos 21:46

DOWNLOAD sacks of phones HERE!

Jon Gibson ‎– "Two Solo Pieces" (Chatham Square Productions ‎– LP 24) 1977

There ain't no-one in the world of minimalism that Jon Gibson hasn't played for....
Steve Reich, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, Philip Glass,you name it.He was even in the Theatre of Eternal Music!?
Let out from Glass Ensemble duties for the second time,Gibbo has gone all LaMonte Young on us and composed a drone for Organ(Cycles).
I like a nice relaxing drone to aid my burnout syndrome, but i sure as shit don't need anybody else to do it for me,I can do it for myself thanks.I could also invent some sonic science,Charlemaine Palestine stylee,for it.No doubt there's some thought about the interaction between the droning notes that makes this the work of a proper experimental composer and not some bedroom beethoven such as moi,but basically who cares?......Its a drone
Side B,another version of "Untitled",is rather a more pleasing flute piece that wouldn't have been out of place as the soundtrack for a Ken Loach film or a BBC Play for Today* from 1971.Maybe Ken will be in touch for his next socialist spiked kitchen sink movie that the French call "Réalisme Anglais",don't you just love the French?

(* i recommend that you watch this Dennis Potter play,"Blue Remembered Hills",it sure is powerful,cruel, cruel stuff)

Tracklist:

A Cycles (1973) 22:49
B Untitled (1974) 18:15

DOWNLOAD in one piece HERE!

Jon Gibson ‎– "Visitations" (Chatham Square Productions ‎– STEREO LP 12) 1973

Erstwhile multi-instrumentalist and Philip Glass Ensemble stalwart, Jon Gibson, also had a go at this minimalism lark. Produced by his mate, Philip Glass's official number 2,Kurt Munkacsi, "Visitations" sounds more like a backing tack to an Alice Coltrane, or Pharoah Sanders album than a minimalist drone epic,which begs the question of, When does the minimalism tag end and experimental composition begin?
Gibson gets in because he was in the Philip Glass ensemble, and he uses tapes in his pieces like Steve Reich does.But like most genres,notably different pieces of work all get lumped into one box.
Basically there are two types of minimalism it seems, the repetitive type, and the Droney type.Whereas Charlemagne Palestine sits comfortably in two camps, i don't think this fits in either.....but who cares, its good.Relying on a constant barrage of percussive noise,with recordings of oceans and bird-song, backing up the plaintive howl of a wooden flute; it represents the ever quieting scream of nature as humankind, or human unkind, slowly asphyxiates the stuff that give us life and a reason for being.
I saw a documentary on our impending doom, and it visited a Eucalyptus plantation in a former part of the Amazon Rainforest(they are good for making toilet paper apparently!?),and the host,after complaining about these out of place alien trees from another world (Australia) living where they shouldn't be, like a 'Visitation';he pointed out the most disturbing thing about it all,.... it was totally Silent! No birdsong no nothing could be picked up by the microphone.Dead.
This record is the sound of survival,and for me, it is far too optimistic.The real sound of the future is more like one of the quieter minimalist pieces.One of those Alvin Lucier single electronic tone things,but we are nearing the end of side four.
We are just visiting after all it seems?

Tracklist:

1. Visitations Part one (21:01)
2. Visitations Part Two (20:11)

DOWNLOAD the sound of an unspoilt planet HERE!

Philip Glass / Robert Wilson ‎– "Einstein On The Beach" (Tomato TOM-4-2901) 1978

The first 'Minimalist' Opera, was bizarrely, the birthing music selected selected by my then significant other, for the difficult birth of my daughter back in 1999,long with the "Songs of the Humpback Whale" and Holgar Czukay's "Movies"....so no wonder she didn't want to come out.
In fact she had to dragged out with the Ventouse,which is basically a plunger. 
If i had played something a bit more 'fun' she may have made more of an effort to enter this troubled world, maybe Plastic Bertrand or The Ramones? But no, she got this po-faced neo-classical minimalist opera,with words replaced with chanted numbers,and some mumbled narration.
I knew there was something amiss when I played Joy Division during her gestation period and she started to kick and squirm in the womb like the alien that punched its way out of John Hurts chest.She also had the privilege to attend a Fall gig, which instigated a similar violent reaction.
I don't even know what music she listens to now, if any, 'cus like all of the millenials, she's constantly plugged in,or as Cliff Richard called it, "Wired For Sound". (If I could, I'd have a make over and look like Cliff in that video as a refreshing image change!...honest?)
You all know what this album sounds like surely?.....think of any Philip Glass music you know,if any(?),stretch it out and add the cast of 'A Chorus Line'(Who says they don't make funny music anymore?) to the equation chanting 1,2,3,4, over and over again at varying speeds and you end up alongside Einstein, on a beach.
There are few occassions I have stood open-mouthed with no words, witnessing a spectacle that is beyond my comphrehension,.....nooooo NOT Glass's Einstein On The Beach......I'm talking about Richard Attenboroughs film version of "A Chorus Line".....shockingly baaaad,but equally hilarious.
If we played the soundtrack of "A Chorus Line"(Download HERE!) at my daughters birth I think she'd still be in the womb to this day!....Life IS HELL!

Tracklist:

Knee Play 1
Act I, Scene 1: Train
Act I, Scene 2: Trial
Knee Play 2
Act II, Scene 1: Dance 1 (Field With Spaceship)
Act II, Scene 2: Night Train
Knee Play 3
Act III, Scene 1: Trial/Prison
Act III, Scene 2: Dance 2 (Field With Spaceship)
Knee Play 4
Act IV, Scene 1: Building/Train
Act IV, Scene 2: Bed
Act IV, Scene 3: Spaceship
Knee Play 5

DOWNLOAD E=MP3 HERE!
or something far weirder...
Like the  'A Chorus Line' soundtrack HERE!

Philip Glass - "Early Works (1969-70) (Nonesuch-NONE161) 2008

The sheer volume of Philip Glass music since the late sixties is mind boggling,but, its the first ten years that were the most experimental and had the greatest impact,so, guess what?.....then wait for the inevitable posting of 'Einstein On The Beach'.....y'see even bloggers are as predictable as a minimalist composer,or that a director will use something from Glass's popular 1982 album 'Glassworks' for her* Documentary.

*(I purposefully cast the role of the director as a 'she' to highlight the woeful lack of women nominated at OSCAR type ceremonies....she would also have to be Black too i suggest!?...In fact there aren't too many Black or female neo-classical/contemporary composers on the block either!?...oh f'shame!).

Tracklist:

1 Music In Contrary Motion 15:35 (1969)
2 Music With Changing Parts (Edited) 45:37 (1970)
3 Music In Similar Motion 17:11 (1969)

DOWNLOAD music in digital form HERE!

Philip Glass ‎– "Music In Similar Motion / Music In Fifths" (Chatham Square Productions ‎– 1003) 1971

They certainly have snazzy titles don't they these 'minimalist' composers? Music with this, and Music in that, its like bottom shelf supermarket products.Biscuits are called Biscuits,chocolate biscuits are called Biscuits with chocolate, and so on.
Minimalism is certainly economical,but in a different way to budget econo-brands in the supermarket. Its the economical way they, the 'Minimalists', use instrumentation and melody that differentiates these compositions from such over-composed show offs like Mozart.
I nearly nodded off listening to this as i wrote earlier on,so forgive me if this sounds like the stuff of nonsense.This music does have a hypnotic effect,and makes time scurry by exposing it for the illusion that it is.I could listen to this all day,or is that for just a few minutes,such is the time distorting effect that Glass's music induces in its unwitting victims.


Track Listing:

1. Music In Similar Motion (17:12)
2. Music In Fifths (23:23)

DOWNLOAD in a similar and very familar way HERE!

Philip Glass ‎– "Music In Twelve Parts - Parts 1 & 2" (Caroline Records ‎– CA 2010) 1976

Before 1977,nearly all of Virgins best albums were released on their budget 'Caroline' offshoot, and for many this was their first exposure to Philip Glass's take on structured minimalism......although Glass himself doesn't agree with that definition of his music. It certainly a more academic and considered form of Minimalism than most of his contemporaries, except maybe later Steve Reich, with no room for musicians to be let off the leash at any point.
I certainly play Glass's music more than any of the other 'minimalists',probably because its more accessable, and melodically more interesting.
Only one piece was originally written, which was called "Music in Twelve Parts" because it was originally intended to have twelve lines of counterpoint harmony, but when Glass played it to a friend, she asked him what the other eleven parts would be like. He found the misunderstanding interesting, and wrote another eleven parts over a period of three yearsThe thing about Music in Twelve parts, is that this album contains the greatest hits of the actual 12 parts that were eventually released in the 90's. Part one is a wonderfully medetitive piece, backed up by more uptempo classic Glass....it repeats but each phrase has a subtle change that slowly transforms the melody into something different without the listener really noticing.......part 3 is ok,but its downhill from there;so stick to the original album I say!...I can take 20 minutes at a concert and forty minutes on an album before my mind starts to wander.So be satisfied that the original concept was just 'Part One' and relax. Glass should have just left it at that too,maybe calling it "Music in Twelve Part,Part One",and never composing the other eleven;rather like the non-appearance of the Third part of the Residents' "Mole Trilogy", or Schuberts 'unfinished Symphony?

Tracklist:

A Music In Twelve Parts - Part 1 16:07
B Music In Twelve Parts - Part 2 16:21

DOWNLOAD in one part HERE!