― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 14:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― (Jon L), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 19:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― (Jon L), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 19:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 20:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian Riese-Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 22:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 22:34 (nineteen years ago) link
The Wolfman (1965) -- Ashley dresses in a lounge singer outfit, saunters onstage, places the microphone entirely inside his mouth, turns the gain until ear-clipping feedback begins and then begins shaping the pitches by lightly moaning and eventually howling. People who lived through these performances have good reason to find 80's noise music boring, this is louder, better, fiercer, more insane in every way. the CD contains several other cut-up collage pieces made from radio surfing, more contemplative, in the vein of Automatic Writing and is good.
In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1974) - Ashley recorded the poem to tape, then edited out all pauses; 40 minutes without taking a breath. then tracked four more layers of burbling circuit-bent & moog electronics on top. It is fantastic.
Both those are here: http://www.ubu.com/sound/ashley.html
Automatic Writing (1979) - classic
Yellow Man With Heart With Wings (1990) - the sleeper, ranks with the best works, one of his best texts: http://www.lovely.com/titles/cd1003.html
― (Jon L), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 23:34 (nineteen years ago) link
Private Parts: The Record is the only one on CD. Very minimal, all about Ashley's voice though I'm into the tabla/moog accompanyment.
The Bar, 1981 - is more of the same but set to an insanely catchy lounge-piano drum machine riff which memorizes itself
Music Word Fire And I Would Do It Again (Coo Coo): The Lessons, 1981 - is the disco number. Reminds me in some ways of the Black Dice "Cone Toaster" 12" but much much stranger, a constant disco pulse with prepared piano solos and very strange moog sequencer patterns constantly turning left, and lots of elliptical vocal chanting & performance art narration... it is a crime that these aren't out on CD, every time I DJ these out, people do lose it. Couldn't live without this one either.
I also like the versions on the 3 CD set, but they work much better in the context of the 3.5 hour video version. Seeing Ashley recite these lines in the context of his baffling hand gestures and gold glitter strewn through his hair is the way to hear this music.
― (Jon L), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 23:49 (nineteen years ago) link
Atalanta (Acts of God), 1985: long stretches of this are among the most amazing things he's ever done: mainly, the last two 'Anecdote with Chorale' sections. Each singer keeps assuming madly different vocal personas, and they fade in and out of the mix at different times; you could imagine someone with 20 different arias from different centuries in different languages all being vaguely faded up and down in the mix over strange casiotone & organ soundbeds with an out-of-tune doowop chorus occasionally punctuating, but you'd still have no idea why this such an emotionally extreme piece of music.
The 30 minute video accompanyment, Atalanta Strategy, is my favorite video of his. Abstract image montage, always on the edge of making sense.
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:02 (nineteen years ago) link
That's a pretty good description. This was precisely the sound of electric organ/electric piano that I always made fun of, until I hear this, and somehow I just love the way it sounds. Music Word Fire is really good too, although I didn't like it at first.
I've never heard the Wolfman.
(Sorry to interrupt milton's more thorough annotated discography.)"She Was a Visitor" is kind of a nice, what, Jackson MacLowesque composition, where the "chorus" takes different sounds from that sentence, and I forget exactly where it goes. Maybe nowhere. I don't know if that's available on CD. (Probably not.) It used to be a staple of the Relache Ensemble.
― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:08 (nineteen years ago) link
"She Was a Visitor" is very simple; one close miked person repeating the sentence every few seconds, while a large mixed chorus very slowly hold and stretch out the phonemes for five minutes, creating a shifting Ligeti-ish drone. I recommend timestretching the piece back down to 15 seconds, it sounds crazy.
Improvement has one great piece: the dialog between the doctor and the patient, track 4 on disc 2.
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:15 (nineteen years ago) link
Maybe I meant Perfect Lives...are they the same opera? The one where he says "These are stories from the corn belt and the people who live in it (OR ON IT)" at the beginning of each segment!
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:16 (nineteen years ago) link
The thing I like about his vocal delivery; all the accents on the words and sentences are in the wrong places. There are tons of emotional signifiers, but it's an obstacle course trying to unpack them because he's saying them in an almost impossible fashion.
Saying any word thirty times in a row reduces the word to a sound, and distances you from the reflex that associates it instantly with a 'meaning' without having to think too hard about the code: imagine listening to someone who makes every word sound as if you've just heard it thirty times in a row: you recognize every single word, but you can no longer tell what the hell the sentences mean anymore. After a few minutes, listening to Ashley talk sends you into the zone.
I must admit; recent operas are increasingly Earthbound. eL/Aficionado, Dust, Your Money My Life Goodbye... I could see how they'd make a terrible first impression.
If you like Automatic Writing and want to try the operas, the best place to start is probably Yellow Man With Heart With Wings.
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:29 (nineteen years ago) link
I wish he had a talk show or something. I think I know what you mean. I probably mentioned before, but I overheard him talking during a music festival, and his ordinary speech didn't sound so different from his delivery as a performer. I just remember him saying to someone he was talking to: "That is. . . su-blime." (I wish I had been more of a creepy fan and hung around him just to overhear him talking.)
― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:34 (nineteen years ago) link
I've met him once, it doesn't seem to be an assumed persona...
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 00:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 02:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 02:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 02:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 03:00 (nineteen years ago) link
String Quartet Describing the Notions of Large Real Bodies / How Can I Tell The Difference? -- two pieces from 1972-3 released on alga marghen a few years ago. String Quartet = one violin multitracked four times, played with the bow held down on bridge with as much pressure as possible and very long (5-10 minute) strokes. this sound fed through gates and doubled with short delays. Difference is two variations on the first piece, performed live in the tunnels on the coast of the Marin Headlands; subtle scrapes and drones join the violins, along with the echoey sounds of a motorcycle rider, far away in another part of the tunnels. A little patience goes a long way with this disc; it's maddening for five minutes, but fantastic after thirty. especially the last track; only one violin, in the tunnel, slowly overwhelmed by rumbling, scraping and eventually a timid electronic organ drone. Definitely the closest precursor to Automatic Writing.
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 07:59 (nineteen years ago) link
I think I'll go with 'yello man...' and 'atlanta...' for now.
(I might do a similar thread on alvin lucier soon - I own 'I am sitting...' and that's it)
'People who lived through these performances have good reason to find 80's noise music boring, this is louder, better, fiercer, more insane in every way.'
it would be awesome to see this live or to see other performers tackle it bcz its an awesome piece of music.
thanks for everyone's comments.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 08:25 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.lovely.com/events/events-celestial-berlin.html
― wordyrappington (wordyrappington), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 16:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― milton parker (Jon L), Wednesday, 7 September 2005 02:25 (eighteen years ago) link
(guess I should do an update: after reading what drew said all those months ago I did turn up the volume on 'automatic writing', it is the kind of piece that wd make me think it best to hear it quietly to fully absorb its creepy undercurrent but its a lovely surprise to find those basslines underneath) (got hold of 'your money my life' on the cheap but didn't really care for it at the time otherwise i wd've revived, but will pull it out again)
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 4 November 2005 22:01 (eighteen years ago) link
Celestial Excursions is even further in the direction of Dust. Less surrealism, more direct sentimentality, the speakers all take turn telling narratives about the eccentric & elderly. I'm sure this is incredible live, on record I'm even more easily distracted from it than I was with Dust. I'm glad I have it but I'd certainly recommend Atalanta or Yellow Man With Heart With Wings for later Ashley well before this.
And Lovely really needs to issue The Bar & Music Word Fire on a single CD, that's urgent.
― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 4 November 2005 22:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― C.D., Saturday, 5 November 2005 07:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― C.D., Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:06 (eighteen years ago) link
thx to all again -- goes without saying these operas must be performed, hopefully one or two of these are on a small enough scale so that we don't have to rely on the traditional opera houses to take this on.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 5 November 2005 10:29 (eighteen years ago) link
the Lucier and Oliveros interviews are particualrly headsnapping if you're bandwidth-pinched, but these are best taken in sequence, there's a reason he calls the series an opera. I'm ordering the book from Lovely, I need the transcripts. I've watched each of them at least twice by now. If I'd seen them in time, I would have voted for these in the ILE 'favorite films of the 70's' poll.
The OHM: Pioneers of Electronic Music box set was just re-released with a 20 track DVD -- three of the tracks are excerpts from Ashley's series.
― milton parker (Jon L), Sunday, 6 November 2005 23:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― blunt (blunt), Monday, 7 November 2005 01:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― sleeve (sleeve), Monday, 7 November 2005 03:27 (eighteen years ago) link
You're definitely right, though -- now that you've mentioned it, it's clear, though it sounds like it's coming from four rooms over. And it comes in and out of the mix at different volumes & moments independent of Ashley's speech, so it wasn't just printed on the tape of his vocal performance, it was obviously captured and strategically mixed in at various points of the piece.
Cool!
― milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 7 November 2005 04:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 7 November 2005 04:54 (eighteen years ago) link
this is a great interview
http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=1194
ROBERT ASHLEY: Well, the problem in discussing hip-hop with somebody who doesn't like hip-hop is that they don't hear the melodies. There's no difference in the quality of the melody in any good hip-hop record now. There are so many I can't even name them. But there's no difference in the quality of the melody between that song and something like Billie Holiday for instance. It's just that the world has changed, the street language has changed and now you have to tune our ears to be able to hear that the very best hip-hop singers are singing exactly in tune. It might be going a little too fast; the melody might be going a little too fast for you to perceive it as melody, but there's no doubt that there's melody..
― milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 7 November 2005 05:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― harley fordham, Monday, 1 May 2006 08:53 (seventeen years ago) link
i've posted on ilm about five times, but i figured i'd chime in here--
got a promo for 'now eleanor's idea' this week and am enjoying it pretty well so far. as far as comparisons, it's not nearly as frightening as 'foreign experiences'; it's actually a lot like 'dust' in texture but more expansive, more desert-like (makes sense--the libretto is about a woman who finds her true calling in a low-rider community in new mexico). anyway, yeah, i've become near-obsessed with ashley in the past year and a half; this is pretty welcome right now.
― mike powell, Saturday, 15 September 2007 13:08 (sixteen years ago) link
the libretto is about a woman who finds her true calling in a low-rider community in new mexico
Haha, this sounds like it could be my soundtrack for 2008.
― Rockist Scientist, Saturday, 15 September 2007 13:14 (sixteen years ago) link
By coincidence, the first page of youtube hits for "Robert Ashley" turns up this story about a Robert Ashley in New Mexico, but it's not that one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAWl5ywT5ws
― Rockist Scientist, Saturday, 15 September 2007 13:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Now Eleanor's Idea is fantastic. An opera about a community of Mexican Americans who practice their relilgion through the design of elaborately painted low riders. The Mexican monologues floating through the mix talking about their lives in the 2nd section is new territory, and Joan LaBarbara goes off in the final section.
Not entirely new territory actually -- now that Now Eleanor's Idea and Foreign Experiences are out, it makes Yellow Man With Heart With Wings seem more like the crucial departure point for all the 90's work -- bits of the text from it actually turn up verbatim towards the end of Foreign Experiences -- it's good to finally have access to the larger picture. YMWHWW is the key album for anyone who's a fan of his 70's records looking to get into the later operas, it unlocks the other ones
Foreign Experiences is finally catching up with me as well -- it's much more of a Sam Ashley showcase. It seems to be a re-performance / remix of the original 90's version of the piece, with Sam & Jacqueline Humbert are the only two clear voices, much spacier electronic music by Sam, and completely bizarre fragmented samples of the original chorus creeping around in the mix. And the libretto is basically about Ashley's experience at Mills College in the 70's, so there are tons of familiar little hints if you've been to the campus.
Celestial Excursions had a great libretto but the music threw me a bit, the last two are definitely back on track (though I'd still go through the 70's stuff before going to them)
― Milton Parker, Monday, 22 October 2007 22:32 (sixteen years ago) link
relilgion-ay
― Milton Parker, Monday, 22 October 2007 22:33 (sixteen years ago) link
An opera about a community of Mexican Americans who practice their relilgion through the design of elaborately painted low riders.
oh i love that man.
― jed_, Monday, 22 October 2007 22:55 (sixteen years ago) link
fwiw my favourite of the operas is definitely "Improvement (Don Leaves Linda)" but that could be because the 2-10 minute sections allow for me to spread the listening experience out and to access it more easily, somehow. "eL/Aficionado" is another big favourite from the more recent stuff. i haven't yet been able to penetrate "Celestial Experiences" or "Dust".
― jed_, Monday, 22 October 2007 23:00 (sixteen years ago) link
In Sarah Mencken, Christ and Beethoven, there were men and women is so unbelievably beautiful.
― I know, right?, Friday, 16 November 2007 19:21 (sixteen years ago) link
I know, right?
I've yet to be disappointed by anything I've heard of his.
― ian, Friday, 16 November 2007 20:37 (sixteen years ago) link
Very really grand men and women.
Very Titanically.
― I know, right?, Saturday, 17 November 2007 16:31 (sixteen years ago) link
I listened to the 2nd half of Automatic Writing before bed last night, and brought Private Parts to listen to today. Those two are probably my favorites. SMC&B definitely comes close too--i was so happy the day i found that LP.
― ian, Saturday, 17 November 2007 16:46 (sixteen years ago) link
Three men have loved her. One a decade, on the average.
― ian, Saturday, 23 February 2008 21:04 (sixteen years ago) link
I really need to dig up a copy of YMWHWW. I also want to dig up the VHS tapes for Private Parts; I think some distributors still have 'em but I don't exactly have $75 to shell out right now.
― ian, Saturday, 23 February 2008 21:05 (sixteen years ago) link
The Park vs The Backyard POLL
(and thanks v much for the lyrics - have looked for them on internet before but to no avail)
― bidfurd, Saturday, 25 August 2012 09:50 (eleven years ago) link
Bob Ashley, David Behrman, Chris Mann and Alvin Lucier give a FREE concert in honor of John Cage at The New School on September 7 at 7 pm. 66 West 12th Street.
― one dis leads to another (ian), Friday, 7 September 2012 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
if only i knew before now i could have taken time off work :(
So, has anyone read the Kyle Gann book on Ashley? Came out in November apparently... wanting to order it from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Ashley-American-Composers-Kyle/dp/025207887X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367108789&sr=8-1&keywords=kyle+gann+robert+ashley
― i guess i'd just rather listen to canned heat? (ian), Sunday, 28 April 2013 00:26 (ten years ago) link
The design looks Chinese.
― _Rudipherous_, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 19:13 (ten years ago) link
:(
― scott seward, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 03:19 (ten years ago) link
;__;
It would be a thrill to make work at least half as good as he did
― continually topping myself (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
so so so so sad. I feel like some of the deepest connections I have made on this website have been over The Record. This record. THE Record! All of his records! Ian, Joe, Plax, others - all in my thoughts now. Robert Ashley, I Love you.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 04:01 (ten years ago) link
:/
― Michael F Gill, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 04:24 (ten years ago) link
oh man :-/
― original bgm, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 04:26 (ten years ago) link
yah sad faces
― Lamp, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 04:31 (ten years ago) link
Pretty much speechless.
― Oblique Strategies, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 04:36 (ten years ago) link
salute!
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 05:09 (ten years ago) link
in the beginning there were rocks and on those rocks with harder rocks we learned to make a million bruises to spell out things like 'we were here' and 'watch your water' -- they only moved it, the idea of bruises adding up to something, from rocks to skin
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 05:12 (ten years ago) link
pale purplish blue to pale violetlighter than dusk bluecivil twilight
― the tune was space, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 05:32 (ten years ago) link
― bamcquern, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 05:50 (ten years ago) link
Sad news to wake up to. RIP
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 07:25 (ten years ago) link
― the ghosts of dead pom-bears (a passing spacecadet), Tuesday, 4 March 2014 09:14 (ten years ago) link
:-(
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 09:47 (ten years ago) link
RIP Mr Ashley, you made some amazing music.
― emil.y, Tuesday, 4 March 2014 12:55 (ten years ago) link
didn't wanna open this thread
RIP
― sleeve, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 15:33 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBU8vLIJbSE
I'm glad someone's finally put this version of 'The Backyard' on youtube so I can share it with everybody and maybe someone can explain to me why it kills me every time.
― Merdeyeux, Thursday, 6 March 2014 00:48 (ten years ago) link
I know the NYT can take its time for an obit on occasion but this is getting embarrassing for them
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 6 March 2014 19:12 (ten years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/arts/music/robert-ashley-opera-composer-who-painted-outside-the-lines-dies-at-83.html?_r=0
― Milton Parker, Friday, 7 March 2014 08:10 (ten years ago) link
You are slain because of the tabla playing, which is virtuosic and passionate and threatens to explode out of the not-that-simple repetitive pattern but doesn't explode so much as slide around it and through it and into simpler and simultaneously more complicated patterns and because that combined with that text and Ashley's reading of it is just too fucking much.
― Three Word Username, Friday, 7 March 2014 09:41 (ten years ago) link
Very titanically
― plax (ico), Friday, 7 March 2014 20:38 (ten years ago) link
My perfect introduction to Robert Ashley-- though I didn't know it was him til years later-- was in a car in San Francisco when I was 20. My older brother (then a San Franciscan) had driven me up to Muir Woods and we were stuck in traffic on the way back, all the way over the Golden Gate bridge. We channel surfing and we suddenly hit upon a station playing "Private Parts" and were too transfixed to change channels. My brother was dismissive, he said it was typical San Francisco listening. I asked him what genre it was and he said "acid jazz, I think?" (Later, when I heard real acid jazz: "if this is acid jazz, what was that talking guy?") It was so moving on first listen how such emotional highs and lows were created in such a static sonic environment. I wish I had kids so I could play this music for them
― continually topping myself (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, 7 March 2014 21:03 (ten years ago) link
I asked him what genre it was and he said "acid jazz, I think?"
People say the funniest things part x6382462691
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 7 March 2014 21:56 (ten years ago) link
http://blog.frieze.com/robert-ashley-1930-2014/
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 12 March 2014 23:20 (ten years ago) link
Live perf of Automatic writing on the 30th at Cafe Oto (where else?).
Wanna go but it does clash with another recital :-(
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 14 March 2014 16:39 (ten years ago) link
I should go to that. I missed the Ashley weekend they had there in 2012 and I've been annoyed at myself since.
― a peace sign that sent numerous young children into tears of joy (Merdeyeux), Friday, 14 March 2014 16:54 (ten years ago) link
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/05/music/four-episodes-from-robert-ashleys-vidas-perfectashttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/arts/music/vidas-perfectas-spanish-version-of-a-robert-ashley-opera.htmlhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/05/music/on-robert-ashleyhttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/arts/music/robert-ashleys-work-lives-on-at-the-whitney-biennial.html?_r=0http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/05/music/contrapunctual-music-for-spoken-words-only
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 03:22 (nine years ago) link
I want to say something about myself: I am not sitting on a bench next to myself, whatever that means.
― Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_), Friday, 31 August 2018 22:52 (five years ago) link
started listening to the new(ish) version of Improvement and was totally floored by The Airline Ticket Counter - I never really gelled with the 1992 recording but this one seems to find an emotionally affecting quality while still being weird and not like anything else
this opera was staged in Melbourne in 1993 under the musical direction of Robert Ashley - I was visiting and picked it out of a festival programme at random as the most interesting-looking thing on offer - I was 19 and completely bemused by it but the images and atmosphere stayed with me - though I subsequently forgot the name and details - in the Internet age I made some failed attempts to work out what I had seen - then twenty years after the event I was getting into Automatic Writing and reading more about Robert Ashley and made the connection, it was a super-satisfying revelation
amazingly, there is footage of that production on the internet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaO5WMzp3OQ
― the least famous person you were surprised to discover (emsworth), Tuesday, 22 December 2020 20:36 (three years ago) link
Very much enjoyed this footage and your backstory, thank you
― Adoration of the Mogwai (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 22 December 2020 21:25 (three years ago) link
https://vimeo.com/321877684
the performance the new recording is from is on vimeo and its pretty fabulous, i watched it the other night and i am currently obsessed with the the recording. my favourite part, turning over in my head, is the description of the dance studio from 'Left-Handed Golf': "The Arcade, / an enormous gallery, filled with people, / light filtered through the glass above, / two stories high, a block long, / without rain, perfect temperature forever / on stone pavements made beautiful with use. / A cathedral, secular, just big enough. / Royal chambers on the second floor. / Secret stairways, gold lettered windows, / locked doors. The studio itself, / vast hardwood, perfect in tongue and groove, / the likes of which, etcetera. The Arcade / builder, Worth, knew what he was up to.”
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 5 October 2021 15:36 (two years ago) link
also very excited to realise that the account that published that has many full performances of later operas from the kitchen (Dust, Celestial Excursions) so worth checking for anyone who like me didn't know filmed versions existed.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 5 October 2021 15:42 (two years ago) link
Yeah, between that (absolutely wonderful) "Improvements" and the previously unreleased realization of "Foreign Experiences" that came out last year, I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I've gotten out of hearing multiple realizations of these pieces.
Looks like there's a new version of "el/Afficionado" coming later this month as well. Never really connected with that one despite the "Eleanor" cycle on the whole being some of my favorite music of any kind, so I'll be especially curious to hear it.
― New York Review of Wooks (swim), Tuesday, 5 October 2021 18:10 (two years ago) link
looking at the timing my guess is that the new production of Improvements was intended to inaugurate a celebration of ashley that has been railroaded by the thing that's railroaded everything. excited about these new recordings as i haven't heard Foreign Experiences either.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 5 October 2021 18:28 (two years ago) link
Oh! "Foreign Experiences" is maybe an acquired taste but it's one of my favorite weird corners of that cycle, absolutely saturated in the 70's west coast milieu of "divorced guys reading Castaneda", which tbf may or may not be something you're up for. Both of the versions available from Lovely are great, but I have a special fondness for the 2006 CD version that's just Sam Ashley and Jackie Humbert bc Sam's delivery is just so relentlessly freaked out and seething, boiling over with bad vibes in a way that ratchets up the psychic claustrophobia of the piece to a paranoid fever dream.
And as for the more recent productions, no idea whether there was any larger plan there but I'm really happy to see that many of the people (e.g. Tom Hamilton) who were involved with his ensemble have taken an active role in ensuring the survival of the work and mentoring another generation of interpreters.
― New York Review of Wooks (swim), Tuesday, 5 October 2021 22:00 (two years ago) link