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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
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a r t i s t : Alvin Curran
t i t l e : Canti Illuminati
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : Fringes Archive (FRINGAR 002CD)
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : February/2005
t r a c k s : 02
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 86,4 MB
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Originally released in 1982 on Fore (FORE80/7 - Raretone Music
Library, Milan)
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liner notes for CD re-issue on Fringes Recordings:
This re-edition of Canti Illuminati, 25 years after its
appearance as my 3rd LP, is indeed a pleasure, and as one can
imagine occasions a welcome moment of reflection: In the 70s
when downtown musical-america fully embraced delirious
repetition, the key of C, asymmetrical beats, unison
everything, performance art, innocent melodies, phase shifting,
long delays, fedback loops, wierd instruments, ambient sounds,
body art, story telling, emotion and progressive politics; not
to mention audiences seated or lying on the floor listening to
compositions and improvisations lasting up to 2 hours or more,
we all knew we were in for trouble. New York City then was a
centrifuge of incredible activity where composers, dancers,
authors, performers, electronic engineers and arts
administrators engaged in a feverish search for a new art-music
accessible to anyone - a utopian trans-national people's music,
that reflected above all the elementary and irresistable
unifying powers of the great traditional and classical musics
from around the world, europe included.
The music of this period and place, never a formal movement,
was anchored both aesthetically and philosophically in the
vital secrets of minimalism, in the sounds of the environment,
however unassuming or flawed, in the cyclical generation of
tones and voltage controlled substances, solo voice, and the
whole body as solo performer, in men and women as equals, in
stories of ordinary people, in gestures of eloquent simplicity
as well as open spirituality, in irony as well as
transcendental yearning. Improvisation and composition were
reconciled as children of the same parents and immaculate
mathematical structures could easily cohabit under the same
roof with chance . Instrumental virtuosity and implaccable
drones were augmented to their human limits. And Rock music and
musique concrete both contributed new values to amplification
beat and noise. Lofts, garages, storefronts, art-galleries and
living rooms along with malls, rivers, ports and other
improbable spaces became the new concert halls, and the
idolized "musica da camera" of the establishment aristocrats
now became exquisitely egalitarian in its pulsing walls of
sound, delicate melodies, well-tuned drones and contrapuntal
loops. Cage's fatherly shadow was everpresent, but his call for
monastic rigor in this ebullient moment went largely unheeded.
In Europe, the feared attack of the young American hordes on
the bastions of Western music were way over-rated, and while
Darmstadt and IRCAM continued on their ossified missions, the
New-Downtowners began captivating large audiences everywhere
under the aegis of a new generation of concert producers .
Whether it was Laurie Anderson, Lamonte Young or Anthony
Braxton, the musical offering was of an imagination, execution
and listening experience perhaps as revolutionary as
Schoenberg's brilliant but unpopular attempt to liberate the
musical tones from their natural tendencies some 60 years
earlier. The significant difference here is that the Downtown
music was hip, it swung and was in completely tune with the
musical currents û both experimental and popular from
everywhere.
It was its own cultural Zeitgiest or at least the locomotive
the Zeitgeist piloted.
As seen from the centers of power, the contamination of the
high culture by these apparent primitive musical techniques and
disloyal tendencies, simply appeared as a territorial threat;
in reality it was a blessing, ne a tonal-blessing, and happily
for all, nobody got hurt in the mix; we're still trying to
estimate the import of this legacy.
To whatever extent the strikingly personal musics of Maryanne
Amacher, Bob Ashley, Evan Parker, Joan LaBarbara, La Monte
Young, Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Mort Subotnick,
David,Tudor, Alvin Lucier, David Behrman, Charlie Morrow, Terry
Riley, Charlemagne Palestine, Chicago Arts Ensemble, Paul
Dresher, Derek Bailey, Phill Niblock, Malcolm Goldstein, Glenn
Branca, Joe Celli, George Lewis, Meredith Monk, Ivan
Tcherepnin, Philip Corner, Louis Andreissen, Diamanda Galas,
Frederic Rzewski, Rhys Chatham, Jerry Hunt, Leo Smith, Jon
Gibson, Teitelbaum, Muhal Abrams, Larry Austin, Eugene
Chadbourne, Misha Mengelberg, Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn,
Glass and Reich and many others could be the seeds of today's
unplugged-diversity, this moment, this non-movement, has no
doubt left a strong mark on musical life ever since; personally
I am happy to have been a part of it.
Canti Illuminati, was of course my early tribute to the human
voice, as the most natural source of music known. In this
period there were many experiments going on in the world based
on collective vocal improvisation -Pauline Oliveros' Deep
Listening work at UCSD, Roberto Laneri's Roman group Prima
Materia, David Hykes and his Harmonic Choir - in New York, now
based in France, and my own work in group vocal Improvisation
at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica in Rome, where I
taught between 1975 and 1980. I always told my students: don't
forget! when the electricity gets turned off, you always have
your voice/ your entire body as a basic musical instrument.
When this work was being considered for an LP recording I
decided to make it into a two part piece, which, on side one,
explores a variegated soundscape of structured choral
improvisation, and from this (side two) there emerges a solo
platform for my own voice, tape delayed feedback, and my then
trusty Serge Synthesizer and Sequencer. In later solo
performances I concentrated entirely on this latter music,
developing an intense and slowly expanding "microtonal" unison
by matching my voice with a finely detuned keyboard. In
retrospect this could be seen as a direct hommage to Giacinto
Scelsi, who opened avenues of magical perspectives to many of
us young composers in Rome at that time.
Alvin Curran, October -November 2002
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01-Canti Illuminati [26:54]
02-Canti Illuminati [24:11]
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51:05 min
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