ALVIN CURRAN the works LP 1980 avant electronic mev
$
72
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Description
Alvin Curran "The Works" LP issued by Fore Records (FORE80/TWO) in Italy, 1980. Includes original inner sleeve. ****** Rec:m- / Cov:ex ****** Offered here is the third Alvin Curran LP, his best to my point of view. "The Works" is surreal landscape as seen on a journey. "The Works" sounds to my ear like a 70’s electronic Winterreise, complete with Schubert’s yapping dog threatening the author. We wander through animalesque sounds. Are they wolves or dolphins? What landscape is this? "The Works" ends the journey through an unidentifiable, but vaguely familiar landscape, with a piano vamp of perfect “Marvin Hamlishness”, (it was the 70’s after all) that accompanies yodeling and ambient sounds (Is it a French train station?). Where have we gone? Where have we arrived? Alvin Curran makes music, with all means, anywhere and for any occasion. From rarefied string quartets to blaring ship horn concerts to Holocaust memorial installations; from Midi-Grands to computerized ram's horns - these are his natural laboratories. The sounds of places and things, real and imagined are Curran's alphabet. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1938, he studied the piano, trombone and all forms of popular music. He began composing at Brown University under Ron Nelson and completed his studies (M.Music) at Yale with Elliott Carter in 1963. Following a year with Carter in Berlin he moved to Rome - his adopted home. With Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum in 1966 Curran co-founded the radical collective Musica Elettronica Viva - a group renowned for inciting free music as well as musical uprisings. In the 70s he created a series of solo performances; "Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden", "Light Flowers/Dark Flowers", and "Canti Illuminati" for natural sounds, voice, keyboards and found objects in a lyrical post minimalist style. The 80s involved large-scale environmental works on lakes, rivers, in ports, quarries, caverns and public buildings: "Maritime Rites", "Waterworks", "Monumenti", "Tufo Muto", "Notes From Underground" (in collaboration with the artist Melissa Gould). Using the radio as a geographical music instrument Curran created concerts with musicians spread all over Europe in "1985 - A Piece for Peace" and in the Holocaust commemoration "Crystal Psalms" in 1988. "Erat Verbum", a WDR commission took this concept even further. Instrumental works have been commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Hessischer Rundfunk, Kronos Quartet, Relache, Group 180 (Budapest), Aki Takahashi ("Hyper Beatles"), Ursula Oppens, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio. Since 1991 Curran has created three new scores for the Trisha Brown Dance Company that were presented in the City Center season in 1993. A new work for the performance artist Joan Jonas debuted in July of 1993 in Berlin. ****** Original inner sleeve with liner notes in English also included. ****** Please check my other auctions for all the rare Alvin Curran original LPs on Ananda and Fore. ****** Some darkening on the sleeve that can be cleaned (see photo). ****** Please wait to receive my invoice before sending the payment after the auction ends. Attention! Real postage costs are not USD 4 as all the items are located in Doha, Qatar (which has a very safe and professional post system). Postage costs registered up to 1 Kilo (generally 3 LPs): to Europe and Japan is USD 16,50 / to America and Oceania is USD 22,50. Postage costs registered up to 2 Kilos: to Europe and Japan is USD 28,00 / to America and Oceania is USD 34,00. Thank you for your kind attention and good luck with your bids.
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