The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

October 31, 2005


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 01:07:06 +0000
From: "[iso-8859-1] steven tobin" <steven@museumfire.com>
To: fire museum <firemuseum@care2.com>
Subject: New Release: Alan Sondheim/Ritual All 770-The Songs

hi all,

this was supposed to be officially released on the 14th of next month, but I just found out that the forced exposure update has this available as of 10/31, so no use in holding this back any longer i suppose. best laid plans etc.. do yourself a favor and order on of these, i course i like it lots if i didn't i would have spent so much $$ releasing it. below is the press release to convince you to part with some hard earned cash.

lots of things planned for the new year, including a cd of incredible music from the burmese mon people, a solo cd from james of the skaters, the long in the making south india sonic omnibus and more, but that will all have to wait until we get back from india. for now, enjoy this one.

all the best,

st

p.s. feel free to forward, of course..

Available 10/31/05, avaialble for order now at: http://www.museumfire.com/sondheim.htm

   ***************************

ALAN SONDHEIM/RITUAL ALL 770 - THE SONGS (FM 04)

First ever reissue of "The Songs", the debut recording by Alan Sondheim
& Ritual All 770, originally released on Riverboat Records (later
recordings appeared on ESP Disk). Recorded in March 1967 and included
on the legendary Nurse With Wound list of experimental recordings, on
this album Alan Sondheim played Electric Guitar, Violin, Flute, Suling,
Xylophone, Alto Saxophone, Classical Guitar, Clarinet, Shenai, Bass
Recorder, Mandolin, So-na, Hawaiian Guitar, Koto, Sopranino Recorder,
Chimta, Cor Anglais, Sitar and Bansari.

Joined by Barry Sugarman (Tabla, Dholak & Naquerra), Chris Mattheson
(Bass), Robert Poholek (Trumpet & Cornet), Ruth Ann Hutchinson (Vocals),
June Fellows (Vocals) and J.Z. (Jazz Drums); Ritual All 770 were a group
of improvisors living in Providence, Rhode Island. (Perhaps they could
be considered the sonic forebearers of the Fort Thunder scene...)
Rejecting the notion that avant garde music was solely the realm of
isolated academia, they delved fearlessly and joyously into their
music, creating a work that sounds fresh nearly 40 years later.


FROM THE LINER NOTES:

This work is a single improvised performance in which one of the
performers sings "Oratorio on the end of illusions", although, in
my libretto the words were originally "Oratorio on the end of
visions". A libretto of eight pages was prepared. The vocalists
were not told how to sing it. They could go backward or repeat
any section if they wanted to. There was no score. The only
instruction given to the instrumentalists was this: no playing
behind the koto or classical guitar. I had several rehearsals with
each of them, mostly individually. The session lasted through two
takes, this is the second. After the master was made, I added
reverberation and volume controlling; other than that, all of the
music heard here is from the live performance.


Note: This CD was mastered using the best available vinyl source.

Discography:

Cray/Turn, cdrom, 2001
Global Report, Damaged Life, Spasm cassette, 1986
Flesh, Damaged Life. Spasm cassette, 1987
Live at Starck Club 1987, Damaged Life cassette
Lips, Damaged Life cassette, 1987
The Songs, Riverboat, LP, 1967
Ritual, ESP LP, 1968
T'Other Little Tune, ESP LP, 1969
Participant on ESP samplers 1969-70


Select Bibliography:

Hole, 1994
Immobilization, Fort-Da, Atlanta, 1993
Juarez, Bruised, Digital Domain, 1993
Geography/Postmodernism/Body, 1992
Chatter Death, 1992
Textbook on Thinking, ocalocka, 1991
Poems and Stories, 1991
ETR, ocalocka, 1988
In the Third World, Tasmanian School of Art, 1982
Texts, U.C. Irvine Dept. of Art, 1978
The Structure of Reality, NSCAD, 1977
Analysis of Situation, 1972
Strata, NSCAD, 1972
Resonances, for Bykert Gallery Show, NYC, 1971
Lists, Halifax, 1971



out now! ritual all 770/
alan sondheim- the songs fm-04

fire museum records
p.o. box 591754
san francisco, ca. 94159 u.s.a.
http://www.museumfire.co

failure

another in the final series of sped-up surfers off a California beach from
found webcam images.
i want the summer of my life.
in an attempt to regain this, over and over again, i imagined myself surf-
ing in these oceans: utterly useless.
it's like repetitive dreaming, over and over again, but nothing _takes._
in fact there's no reason to look at the video, which can only be a
failure.
on the other hand, the impulse itself, that loss among water, Theweleit.
philosophical immersion, fluid mechanics of Irigaray, Lingis (Excesses).
but a tawdry image, far from the madding crowd, isolated, numerical
infinitesimals juggled in a depleted style. (once this might have been
fun. once this might have been unusual. 1898, for example, Lumiere, for
example.)
the point, punctum, is the dream of immersion and its digital decay.
http://www.asondheim.org/summer.mov
and my own weakness although Gidget was a jew

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