TellusTools remixed, 2001

Design above by Taketo Shimada, 2001

3 Corner Tellus was a live collaborative remix between Harvestworks, New York, send+receive, Winnipeg and Kunstradio, Vienna. The double vinyl and online project “Tellus Tools” released by the Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, NYC, was functioning as basic material for this live webcast.’

[From KunstRadio, Vienna, presentation of the project]

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David Grubbs edited this mix from Harvestworks, NY, the Tellus headquarters. It was then aired on austrian KunstRadio along parallel inputs from Winnipeg and Vienna. Here’s the New York mix on its own. I’m not sure Grubbs is actually mixing from the TellusTools 2LPs. I’d say he’s providing a mix on behalf of the Tellus team, not necessarily samples from the 2LP set. Grubbs starts with some actual birdcalls – an homage to those of Louise Lawler, I guess. Beautiful unidentified solo guitar part start at 14:30. All in all, a rather minimalistic approach to mixing is on evidence here, which I find quite pleasant to listen to.

01 David Grubbs ‘3 Corner Tellus’ (30:43)
Here.

Tellus #11 ‘The Sound of Radio’, 1985

The word may once have been a healthy neural cell. It is now a parasitic organism that invades and damages the central nervous system. Modern man has lost the option of silence. Try halting your sub-vocal speech. Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence. You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk.
That organism is the word.

William S. Burroughs, The Ticket That Exploded (1967)

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Side A

1. Jay Allison ‘The Neighborhood Freaks’ (4:52)
2. Adam Cornford and Daniel Crafts ‘Fundamentals: Musical Preachers’ (Excerpt) (2:07)
3. Greg Whitehead ‘If a Voice Like Then What?’ (2:45)
4. Susan Stone ‘Langue Etude’ (1:58)
5. The New York IPS (Jay Allison, Janice Bail, Katie Davis, Karen Frillmann, Portia Franklin, Lou Giansante, Charlie Gilbert, Alan Gingold, Karen Pearlman, Marjorie Van Halteren) ‘New York City: 24 Hours in Public Places’ (Excerpt) (2:40)
6. M’Iou Zahner Ollswang ‘Mosquitos’ (1:30)
7. Ginna Allison ‘La Llorona’ (5:35)
8. Marjorie Van Halteren ‘Dead of Summer’ Produced by Marjorie Van Halteren and Lou Giansante. Read by Russell Horion (2:03)
9. Lou Giansante ‘Balloon Man’ Written by e.e. cummings (1:30)
10. Karen Michel McPherson ‘Postcard from Marna Springs’ (1.28)
11. Barrett Golding ‘Cityphony’ (2:00)

Side B

1. Rick Harris ‘Is This Real’ (Excerpt) (3:42)
2. Janice Bail and Portla Franklin ‘Crime of Silence: The Sexual Abuse of Children’ (3:39)
3. Melanie Berzon ‘And they never corne back… life after our parents have died’ (Excerpt) (2:08)
4. Edward Haber ‘Citizen Kafka – Abbott and Costello Meet the Anti-Christ’ (2:53)
5. Steve Jones ‘House of Dogs’ (Excerpt) (2:14)
6. Helen Thorington ‘Stella Nova’ (Excerp) (4:30)
7. Ginger Miles ‘The Day That Buddy Holly Died: A Portrait of the Fifties’ (Excerpt) (5:20)
8. Karen Frillmann ‘The Long Journey of Poppie Non Gena’ (Excerpt) (5:22)

1985
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A gathering of independant producers for public radios, this cassette release attest US radio art’s creativity ca. 1985, presenting extracts from radioplays by professionnal actors (Steve Jones, Helen Thorington) along contemporary art’s stake on the style by the likes of sound poet Susan Stone or Gregory Whitehead. The former (pictured with daughter Caroline) launched Radio Schizophonia with Whitehead, 1979. ‘The Sound of Radio’ sounds like an ode to the good old disc-jockey turned storyteller. Stand out tracks for me are Susan Stone’s lecture on cutting complete with disgusting surgery noises; the well known medical sound poetry of Greg Withehead; the excellent interviews on mosquitos collated by MZ Oliswang; the all too short illbient track ‘Cityphony’ by Barrett Golding; Steve Jones’ funny rendition of Antonin Arthaud ‘Le Cenci’ is quite deranged; the cassette ends with a griot story about african wedding customs, putting the radio network in perspective with black oral/ancestral culture: it’s Karen Frillmann’s Long Journey of Poppie Non Gena, a lively and engaging story.

By the way: excellent sound quality, just so you know. One final note: is it me, or do I ”hear” the shadow of Tony Schwartz over this cassette?

Tellus #14 ‘Just Intonation’, 1986

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What exactly is Just Intonation? Just Intonation is any tuning system in which all of the intervals can be represented by whole-number ratios, with a strong preference for simple ratios.

(From the Tellus #14 booklet)

Side A

1. Harry Partch ‘O Frabjous Day! (The Jobberwack)’ (3:08)
2. Ralph David Hill ‘Malachite’ (1:12)
3. Carola B. Anderson ‘Shibboleth’ (2:54)
4. David Hykes ‘Opening Kyrie’ (5:17)
5. Lou Harrison ‘A Phrase for Arion’s Leap’ (0:36)
6. Jon Catler ‘Sleeping Beauty (excerpt) Queen of the Ogres’ (4:48)
7. David Canright ‘Rosier Sands’ (3:14)
8. David B. Doty ‘Fake Greek Music’ (3:35)
9. John Bischoff, Jim Norton, Tim Perkis ‘The League of Automatic Music Composers’ (2:45)

Side B

1. Ben Johnston ‘Tocatta for Violincello’ (5:05)
2. Erling Wold ‘Tune for Lynn Murdock #2’ (0:59)
3. Susan Norris ‘Medley: Untitled Irish Jig/Untitled Swedish Waltz (trad)’ (4:03)
4. James Tenney ‘Septet for Electric Guitars’ (5:25)
5. Larry Polansky ‘Movement for Andrea Smith (My Funny Valentine for Just String Quartet)’ (3:53)
6. Alexis Alrich ‘Didymus Set (Tango)’ (2:15)
7. Jody Diamond ‘In That Bright World’ (5:48)

1986

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An audio cassette of Just Intonation music seems an awkward idea today, the cassette very unlikely the adequate medium for accurate pitch. I believe Tellus felt the need to pay tribute to some of their main influences when starting the series, say Harry Partch (right) and LaMonte Young. Besides, Carol Parkinson – who would be appointed executive director of Harvestworks, editor of Tellus, the following year (1987) – was formerly assistant to composer LaMonte Young. And so was Joseph Nechvatal, another Tellus founding member. Additionaly, composer Dean Drummond should be mentionned here, for he was key in defining Just Intonation music.

Anyway, this tape is still amazing, featuring a wonderful choice of artists in the field. As far as I can tell, the Harry Partch isn’t available on the CRI or Innova Partch reissue series – I believe this is an exclusive track, not to be found anywhere else. It sounds very much like the classic ‘US Highball’, revised 1955. Additionaly, David Canright uses Partch instruments for his ‘Rosier Sands’ and Lou Harisson’s track is in the Partch canon too. So that side A is pretty much a who’s who in the Harry Partch school of composers, circa 1986. Carola Anderson’ Shibboleth is a fine anthem-like instrumental, build from drums, deep bass guitar and glockenspiel – just intonation new-wave. Not to mention the amazing overtones of David Hykes singing a personnal version of a catholic mass (kyrie). Side B has absolutely exquisite tracks but pitch get uneven, mastering is at very high, enthusiastic level and flaws in the cassette might mar the pleasure of listening to it. As a compromise, I would advise to listen to the B side at low level.

Some release notes available here on a Just Intonation Network forum.

High resolution scan of the spread cover sheet (with detailed instrumentation and performers) included in the .rar file.

Tellus #22 ‘False Phonemes’, 1988

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‘The whistles of the birds in our nose, the creaking door which closes a phrase, the measured pause preceeding a two-beat putdown all underly the choice and order of our words.
These are the ghosts in grammar’s basement.’

Paul De Marinis (from the booklet)

Side A

1. Remko Scha ‘Katadeedo daynatadoh’ (0:47)
2. Larry Wendt ‘Galaxy Love’ (8:59)
3. Brian Reinbolt ‘Brain Monkey’ (4:12)
4. Mark Rudolph ‘Beautiful but marred by the blemish of a perpetual dissatisfaction’ (5:42)
5. Alice Shields ‘Mass for the Dead (excerpt)’ (3:51)
6. Paul De Marinis ‘Mind Power’ (4:06)
7. Remko Scha ‘French Recitatif’ (1:30)

Side B

1. Paul Lansky ‘Not Just More Idle Chatter’ (7:54)
2. Jon English/Jim Pomeroy ‘The Hartford Address’ (2:18)
3. Ron Kuivila ‘Linear Predictive Zoo ‘(10:40)
4. John Cage ‘Writings through the Essay: On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (excerpt)’ (8:58)

1987

Download link.

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Extraordinary cassette curated by Ellen Zweig (pictured left. Thanks Ellen!) – who incidentaly was working on an adaptation of Raymond Roussel’s ‘Impressions of Africa’ at the time, hence maybe the two Remko Scha tracks being excerpts from this project. ‘False Phonemes’ is based on computerized human voice – ‘cybernetic fleshy abstractions’, says Zweig. So electronicaly processed voices abound in all tracks, complete with drum machine and synthesizers, or merely sound effects. Mark Rudolph succeeds in melting heavily processed enigmatic voices into a coherent ‘voicescape’. The kyrie in Alice Shields’ Mass is so unexpected it’s almost shocking in the context of avantgarde. The Paul Lansky track is a computerized party chatter morphing into an electronic hymn. Ron Kuivila is electroacoustic music from human voice samples. John Cage is reading through his beloved Thoreau once again – multitracked low, hushed and inscrutable voices.

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From left to right:
Remko Scha, Larry Wendt, Brian Reinbolt,
Alice Shields, Paul DeMarinis, Paul Lansky,
Jim Pommeroy, Ron Kuivila, John Cage.

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Above: Alice Shields ‘Study for voice and tape’, 1968

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This post is dedicated to J. H. Chunko, a distinguished phonemes manipulator.

Tellus cassettography

‘Tellus was created in 1983 at the Rum Runner Bar on Canal Street in New York City. Joseph Nechvatal, a visual artist, Claudia Gould, a curator and Carol Parkinson, a composer and staff member of Harvestworks/Studio PASS met to discuss the idea of a magazine on cassette which would feature interesting and challenging sound works. With the advent of the Walkman and the Boom Box, the editors perceived a need for an alternative to radio programming and the commercially available recordings on the market at that time.’
[from Harvestworks website]

Launched in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting edge music, documenting the New York scene and advanced US composers of the time. Maybe surfing on the ROIR cassettes selling figures, Tellus ‘The Audio Cassette Magazine’ was in activity for 10 years (1983-1993), witnessing the digital revolution taking place in the new media arts. The series included some landmark soundworks now regarded as historical: Alison Knowles ‘Nivea Cream Piece’ (Tellus#24), Christian Marclay’s ‘Groove’, Lee Ranaldo ‘The Bridge’, Louise Lawler’s ‘Birdcalls’, etc. The series included many women composers, which was very needed at this macho time. Curatorial policy has proved very efficient as well – asking specialists to compile a program in their own field insured state of the art results. Today, Tellus is mentionned as an inspiration to the opening of the Sound Art Museum in Rome in 2007. An exhibition was held at Printed Matter, NY, devoted to contemporary American cassette culture (‘Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now’, May 12 to 26, 2007). It seems it’s now time to reappraise Tellus’ major contribution to the perception of independent music as an art form.

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TELLUS CASSETTOGRAPHY
Compiled by Continuo

• Tellus #1 cassette 1983 (incl. Barbara Ess, Live Skull)
• Tellus #4 cassette 1983?-4? (incl. Julius Eastman ‘Touch Him When’ (1970) for piano 4 hands)
• Tellus #5 & 6 cassettes ‘Special Double Audio Visual Issue’ 1984
  (works by Barbara Ess, Kathy High, Bite Like a Kitty, Michael Smith, Rhys Chatham, Louise Lawler, Richard Prince, David Wojnarowicz & others)
• Tellus #8 cassette ‘USA/Germany’ 1985
  (incl. Christian Marclay ‘Groove’, ‘Pulverized by Gratitude’ by Live Skull, Elliott Sharp, a. o.)
• Tellus #9 cassette ‘Music with Memory’ 1985
  (incl. Brenda Hutchinson, N. Collins, J. Driscoll, R. Kuivila, P. DeMarinis)
• Tellus #10 cassette ‘All Guitars!’ 1985
  (curated by Live Skull founding member Tom Paine, incl. Lee Ranaldo, Glenn Branca, The Magnum Band, Blixa Bargeld with Arto Lindsay and Marc Cunningham, Mark C. and Marnie Greenholz from Live Skull)
• Tellus #11 cassette ‘The Sound of Radio’ 1985
  (curated by Karen Frillmann & Karen Pearlman and incl. Jay Allison, Adam Cornford & Daniel Crafts, Susan Stone, The New York IPS, M’lou Zahner Ollswang, Ginna Allison, Marjorie van Halteren, Lou Giansante, Karen McPherson, Barrett Golding, Rick Harris, Janice Bell & Portia Franklin, Melanie Berzon, Edward Haber, Steve Jones, Helen Thorington, Ginger Miles, Karen Frillmann)
• Tellus #12 cassette ‘Dance’ 1985
  (incl. B. Obrecht, A. Leroy, R. McQuire, C. Parkinson)
• Tellus #13 cassette ‘Power Electronics’ 1986
  (incl. Merzbow, If Bwana, Rhys Chatham, Psyclones, Maybe Mental, F/I, Controlled Bleeding, Architects Office, a.o.)
• Tellus #14 cassette ‘Just Intonation’ 1986
  (curated by the Just Intonation Network and incl. Harry Partch, Lou Harrison, David Hykes, Ben Johnston, Erling Wold, James Tenney, Larry Polansky, a.o.)
• Tellus #15 cassette ‘The Improvisors’ 1986
  (live ‘improvisions’ incl. Linsay Cooper, Tom Cora, Christian Marclay, Chris Cochrane, Fred Frith, Bill Frisell, John Zorn)
• Tellus #16 cassette ‘Tango Tellus’ 1987
  (incl. Brenda Hutchinson, Keith Keeler Walsh)
• Tellus #17 cassette ‘Video Art Music’ 1987
  (works by Woody Vasulka, Richard Kostelanetz, Shelley Hirsch, Joe D’Agostino, Julie Harrison, Kjell Bjorgeengen & others)
• Tellus #18 cassette ‘Experimental Theater’ 1988
  (works by Spalding Gray, Ann Magnuson, Mike Kelley, Jerri Allyn & Lydia Lunch, Ann Magnuson with Vulcan Death Grip)
• Tellus #19 cassette ‘New Music China’
• Tellus #20 cassette ‘Media Myth’ (incl. Pierre Perret, Randy Greif, If Bwana, Crawling With Tarts, Violence and the Sacred, Nicolas Collins, Minoy)
• Tellus #21 cassette ‘Audio By Visual Artists’
  (works by Joseph Beuys, Joan Jonas, Ian Murray, Susan Hiller, Christian Boltanski, Antonio Russolo & others)
• Tellus #22 cassette ‘False Phonemes’ 1988
  (incl. Remko Scha, Larry Wendt, Alice Shields, Paul DeMarinis, Paul Lansky, John Cage)
• Tellus #23 cassette ‘The Voice of Paul Bowles’ 1989
• Tellus #24 cassette ‘FluxTellus’ 1990
  (curated by Barbara Moore, incl. a 16 page acordian fold-out booklet with Moore’s essay “The Sound Of Music”. Tape incl. early sound work by George Brecht, Philip Corner, Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, George Maciunas, Jackson Maclow, Larry Miller, Tomas Schmit, Robert Watts and Emmett Williams. The cassette case includes a soundwork by Takako Saito)
• Tellus #25 CD ‘Siteless Sounds’ 1991
  (incl. David Wojnarowicz and Ben Neill, Shelley Hirsch, David Moss, Constance Dulong, Brenda Hutchinson, Gregory Whitehead)
• Tellus Tools 2xLP (TE-LP01), 1992
  (incl. selections from previous issues: Isaac Jackson, Alan Tomlinson, Joe Jones, Christian Marclay, Ken Montgomery, Catherine Jauniaux, Ikue Mori, David Liton, Gregory Whitehead, The League Of Automatic Music Composers, Maurice Lemaire, Jerry Lindahl, Tim Schellenbaum & Jack Goldstein)
• Tellus #26 CD ‘Jewel Box’ 1992
  (incl. Laetitia Sonami, Mary Ellen Childs, Anne Le Baron)
• Tellus #27 CD ‘Mini-mall’ 1993 (incl. Brenda Hutchinson, Jin Hi Kim, Pauline Oliveiros)

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Advance annoucement

Next week will be a special week here at Continuo’s, celebrating the 25 years of Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine, launched in New York, 1983. Next posts will feature exclusive cassettography, artwork galery, uploaded Tellus cassette issues and related material. If any of you readers have Tellus original material (k7, articles or whatever), I’d be glad to hear from you. Thank you.

Klimperei live Paris, 04/2007

Klimperei Live April 28th, 2007
En Marge art gallery, Paris, along an exhibition of Sebastien Morlighem’s paintings & drawings.
Photos above: Valentine Vignault (bottom: Dominique Grimaud).

01 Part I (12:03)
02 Part II (13:06)
03 Part III (23:46)
04 Part IV (4:03)
05 Part V (4:50)
06 Part VI (2:43)
07 ‘Les Sacrifiés’ (8:04)
08 ‘Le Ver’ (4:06)
Total time: 74:41

Line-up :
Christophe Petchanatz: banjo, melodica, clarinet, toy piano, thumb piano, assorted toy instruments, voice
Pascal Ayerbe: kazoo, assorted toy instruments and percussion
David Fenech: guitar, melodica, noises, voice
Dominique Grimaud: turntable & sound effects
Philippe Perraudin: laptop
Sylvain Santelli: bass guitar

The excitment and expectations were high prior to the concert, since – despite Klimperei being now 20 years old – it was Klimperei’s first live performance ever (he had concerts before with other projects). Mister Klimperei (Christophe Petchanatz, white t-shirt above) delivered one of the most exquisite concerts I’ve attented in my life. Pretty much of a french toy instrument mavericks all star, the band delivered a fascinating and ambitious mix of intimate melodies, found sounds and big band improvisation with unexpected instrumentation. Much more experimental and large scale music than any official Klimperei’s releases to date, not unlike some french improvised music by the likes of Jac Berrocal or Un Drame Musical Instantané. (Note: unrelesaed personal recording. Sequencing above is my own guess. Music was more or less continuous)

Hats off, M Klimperei!

Burns like fire… organs!

Bastiaan Maris ‘Large Hot Pipe Organ’ mCD
Staalplaat STmCD 012
01 Part I (6:58)
02 Part II (8:16)

The Large Hot Pipe Organ project was launched in 1993. Recorded live in Berlin, this stunning fire organ performance is based on a propane-air mix detonating inside steel pipes. A software developped by George Homsy, allows Bastiaan Maris to control the detonations via a keyboard. Surprisingly, no blasting performance music here, no demonstration of power, quite restrained sounds instead, much more subtle than one could expect. This was uploaded by a registered user on sfrp forum and I thought it was worth the repost.
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Michel Moglia ‘Fire Organs’
[from the Orgue A Feu/Fire Organ website]

03. Balanciers thermiques (3:34)
04. Orgue à feu (3:01)
05. Percussions thermiques (2:50)

Complementing Bastiaan Maris’ music, here are a few tracks by french fire organ specialist Michel Moglia. He uses a similar technique of heating steel tubes to create fluttering sounds. For some of his shows, he complement the fire sounds with drum machine and keyboards bass lines, which I decided not to include here. There is a specific timbral quality in these fire organs when compared to Bastiaan Maris more enigmatic efforts – I’d say M Moglia displays a clarity and accuracy of pitch which is more of a composer than merely a sound artist. Anyway all 5 tracks are fantastic and make for an unusual listening experience .

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Enjoy.