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Vito Acconci TEN PACKED MINUTES (12:47), 1977. [MP3] Musical excerpts from the recordings of Leon Redbone, Cow Cow Davenport, Eric Dolphy, Karl Berqer and Ornette Colemor. This is written before the piece is recorded. What I want is: ten packed minutes (that can be the title-or, maybe, « Ten Minutes to Zero ».) The beginning is a single voice: crooning familiars as a base for tongue-twisting (after all, this is a record: there’s no space to pin down here-now do you get the picture?-so there are games in the air, yes, it’s you/me/ we/go/come/who goes further/the question is, who made somebody come tonight, who among those crowds of people … ) But the song drifts off: there’s a world out there, besides you and me: so this is a record of war, there’s been an invasion of the city that could have been built into the empire of our love. But things go quickly, on the air: there’s an underground, time passes, the scene changes: this is like overhearing a police broadcast: there’s a report, from person A, under the grating, of person B’s movements, on top of the grating-have we caught a sneak out of those multitudes of armies? (So the picture becomes clearer, no? But, all the while, there’s always the thought: we can go to the movies later.) Say, then, that person C has escaped: there’s a bar in another part of the forest: but person C fades away here, person C is just the excuse for the placement of a duel duet: bring back the music, bring on the night. After a life like this, I come back to you, bearing my very first songs: but, now, by this time- oh-oh-oh … At this point, then the picture should have disappeared right in front of your eyes; but what replaces it is, no, not a thousand words-rather, the sound of the sounding that the words were there merely to prop up. - Vito Acconci
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Jana Haimsohn HAV’A LAVA FLOW (2:36) 1977 [MP3] missing
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Terry Fox The Labyrinth Scored For The Purrs Of 11 Different Cats 9:03
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Julia Heyward MONGOLIAN FACE SLAP BIG COUP (part one) NOSE FLUTE, BIG COUP (part two) (8:48) 1977 [MP3]
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Dennis Oppenheim BROKEN RECORD BLUES (5:00) 1976 [MP3]
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Meredith Monk RALLY (3:23) [MP3] scored for twenty five voices recorded at WBAI, NYC
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Meredith Monk PROCESSION (6:42) [MP3] Voice and piano from the opera QUARRY, 1975-76 engineered by Lucy Laurie at Big Apple Studios
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Diego Cortez ARBITER (1:42) [MP3]
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Diego Cortez YOU PAY (1:45) [MP3] from the sound track of the film POISONING, 1975 engineered at ZBS Media Inc. by B. Bielecki
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Jim Burton HIGH COUNTRY HELIUM (5:58) [MP3] (John Deak viola, percussion Ed Friedman bottle neck guitar Jim Burton peddle steel 1976. engineered by Charlie Morrow)
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Leandro Katz ANIMAL HOURS (7:50) 1977. [MP3] voices: Judith Hendra, Ellen Friedenberg, Ted Castle, Leandro Katz.
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Connie Beckley TRIAD TRIANGLE (5:48) 1977 [MP3] <
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Laurie Anderson TWO SONGS FOR TAPE BOW VIOLIN: (4:06) ETHICS IS THE ESTHETICS OF THE FEW-TURE (Lenin) SONG FOR JUANITA, 1977 [MP3] (1:45, St. Marks Church, NYC, May 18, 1977)
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Laurie Anderson IS ANYBODY HOME, 1976 (4:27) [MP3] for boot horn, camera, stairs, piano, and voice, Peter Gordon: clarinet Joe Kos: drums Scott Johnson: bass Laurie Anderson: voice, violin
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Laurie Anderson IT’S NOT THE BULLET THAT KILLS YOU - IT’S THE HOLE (for Chris Burden), 1976 (3:49) [MP3] Scott Johnson: guitar, boss; Joe Kos: drums; Ken Deifik: harmonica; Laurie Anderson: violin, voice; Scott Johnson, Laurie Anderson & Ken Deifik: arrangement
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Diego Cortex CATARACT MONOLOGUE(2:53) [MP3] excerpt from address delivered o « April Meeting,’ Belgrade, 1976
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Jacki Apple BLACK HOLES/blue sky dreams (8:00) [MP3] music: Zephryn engineer: Rhys Chatham
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Richard Nonas WHAT DO YOU KNOW (:20) 1976-77 [MP3]
SOME GENERALIZATIONS: This record is not an art object All the people on this record ore artists. Many of the artists present themselves in a gallery situation: live in performance, efectronically through installations. Often these situations are theatrical: None of the artists consider themselves actors. There is no proscenium. It is a floorshow.
Most of the work in the anthology is musical. Like most of the music in the world it is predominantly vocal. You can dance to at least two of the selections. The artists combine the bravura and risk of the musician (filter) with the intellect and risk of the composer (source).
What is heard is often augmented by technology. Technolo is a tool, a verb. Sometimes it is avoided because it imposes a system, another language, on what is happening. Many of the artists tee technology to make things legible. Sometimes legibility is sacrificed to produce a distinctive signature
The concern, here are not the concerns of painting. Sometimes there are references to art. Sometimes structure is the subject matter. Often the subject is the past, or more precisely personal observations on the esent of the past, or more precisely, memory. The injection of the self into the post adds to a feeling of literaryness.
As in opera, what we hear is influenced by what we see, how much of the story we know, and if we understand the language. As in any performance situation, the energy generated by the performance is more than, and perhaps more interesting than, the information presented. You hd to be there. Often what is done is not repeated. This is a record.
—B. George