Sun Ra LP & Let the Darkness Fall on vinyl

Recital presents two new LPs — OUT NOW!

R106 – Sun Ra – “Interview with Charlie Morrow” LP

Recital presents a newly unearthed recording of an interview between Sun Ra and composer Charlie Morrow, recorded at Morrow’s New York studio in 1989. This voice-only recording develops more like a kaleidoscopic sermon than any standard interview. A fascinating window into the vibrant mind of Ra.

• One-time pressing of 425pc
• with 12-page booklet with photos & full transcription of interview
• 24”x18” poster of Sun Ra 1989 Solstice performance photograph

Price: $24.95

R104 – Suzanne Langille, Andrew Burnes, David Daniell, and Loren Connors – “Let the Darkness Fall” LP

The first vinyl edition of Let the Darkness Fall, a forgotten corner from the vast discography of Suzanne Langille & Loren Connors. Joined here by David Daniell and Andrew Burnes. The tender gloom of Let the Darkness Fall sounds like a broadcast of some private séance. The trio of guitarists here show a beautiful restraint, hovering just underneath vocalist Suzanne Langille’s ephemeral poetry. Come revisit the mist that filled that living room 25 years ago.  SOLD OUT

• One-time pressing of 350pc — first time on vinyl
• remastered by 12k / Taylor Deupree
• Includes insert with photos and an essay by Kurt Gottschalk

 


 

HOMAGE TO ANNEA LOCKWOOD and SYDNEY SPANN releases announced

Recital is pleased to announce two new editions for 2023, both limited to 200 copies each. Pre-order is available now, and both ship ahead of their September 8th release date.


R102 – Noel Meek & Mattin – “Homage to Annea Lockwood” Book+CD

Recital presents a book and CD homage to the New Zealand-born American composer Annea Lockwood (b. 1939). The unique concept for this album was conceived by artists Noel Meek (New Zealand) and Mattin (Spain), who each share a deep admiration for Lockwood. A longform Skype conversation between the three artists was arranged at the end of 2020. They discussed politics, aesthetics, and Annea’s compositional practice among other things. Noel Meek & Mattin had from the beginning decided that the conversation itself would be used as a score for this album, Homage to Annea Lockwood.

“My work is my way of exploring the world” says Lockwood. Each piece on the album reflects her prismatic compositional practice: sound maps, scores that unfold temporally or environmentally, synchronous with nature, and pianos transplanted to exotic locations (often engulfed in flames). Meek & Mattin maintain a playfulness and curiosity of Annea’s sound world; from electronic verbal fizz, a recording of lighting a laptop on fire, hydrophonic diaries from underneath an old oak tree in New Zealand, to a polyphonic choral piece which concludes the album.

Homage to Annea Lockwood is housed in a hand-numbered paperback book, which carries a full transcription of the conversation, in this case… the score, along with lush photographic documentation, and ending with a lovely afterword written by Annea Lockwood. Recital is especially happy to be working with Annea again years later, after publishing her 2014 album Ground of Being (R7, CD). What a joy it is to celebrate Annea, and how appropriate it be done through the ritual of music.

• Limited edition of 200pc, hand-numbered
• Perfect bound Royal book, 60-pages
• Glass-mastered CD

Price: $18.95

R103 – Sydney Spann – “Sending Up A Spiral Of” LP

The first vinyl release from American artist Sydney Spann, Sending Up A Spiral Of well encapsulates Spann’s body of work thus far. On their music, which reacts to themes of family systems and care work, Sydney writes, “people who have done care work —nannies, sex workers, therapists, nurses— may possess their own musical knowledge, developed over time through particular modes of voicing practiced to achieve a desired outcome in their labor. Attending intimately to these ways of voicing and listening and bringing them into a sound practice could be a way to legitimize a less recognized kind of musical knowledge.”

Sending Up A Spiral Of explores this unarticulated expression through sound and song. The titular piece traces Spann within some quixotic woodland, as if beginning inside of some urban fairy-story.  Self-soothing singing quivers under dragging branches, peeling cement and other tactile grit. The work drops into a new proximity half-way through as electronic contours overtake the environment. Sine-tones smolder in a pulsating choreography, perhaps reminiscent of Richard Maxfield’s “Night Music” played at half-speed.

The second section of the record depicts a series of five smaller portraits, expressed (or disguised) as lullabies. An oceanic humming permeates them. “Possession” and “Purposeful Evening” are the most song-like lullabies, with their verse-chorus repetition and melodic simplicity. Innocuous words “baby” and “honey” are encoded with deeper, often painful connotations. Sydney’s voice and vision for this album is ambitious, cloaked in the strains and contradictions of what love means in the nuclear family.

A 16-page artist pamphlet of rubbings, photographs and sheet music accompanies the LP, along with a digital PDF of Spann’s thesis “Sending Up A Spiral Of: A Musical Epistemology Made Through Care Work.”

  • Limited edition of 200pc
  • 180-gram vinyl
  • 16-page color artists booklet
Price: $24.95

 

Thomas Buckner sings Robert Ashley — Release + Concert

OUT TODAY:

Thomas Buckner sings Robert Ashley  –  “Spontaneous Musical Invention”  [R98]

“(Robert Ashley) turned speech into music” – Alvin Lucier

Recital is honored to present a new double album of rarely heard Robert Ashley compositions performed by baritone singer Thomas Buckner.

In the 1960s, Robert Ashley pioneered the American avant garde with the ONCE Group and festivals, before irrefutably changing the face of American opera later in the 20th century. Buckner, in addition to running the fabulous 1750 Arch record label in the 1970s and 80s, is a noted baritone who has collaborated for decades with the likes of Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and the late Noah Creshevsky, amongst countless others.

The title of the album, Spontaneous Musical Invention, refers to Ashley’s method of instructing the singer to do what he called “spontaneous musical invention based on the declamation of the text.” A vocal practice that Thomas Buckner perfected over the 33 years that he collaborated with Ashley. First performing in Ashley’s 1984 opera Atalanta (Acts of God), Buckner continued on as an integral performer in the ensemble until Ashley’s death in 2014.

The album is composed of two halves, the first is a new rendering of Ashley’s second opera Atalanta (Acts of God). Robert Ashley wrote about ten hours of music for the opera Atalanta, divided into three acts: ‘Max’, for the surrealist artist Max Ernst; ‘Willard’, for the composer’s uncle, Willard Reynolds, a great story teller; and ‘Bud’, for Bud Powell, the great jazz pianist and composer. One is invited to construct a version using any material from these ten hours. Over the years they worked together, Thomas Buckner commissioned three reworkings of arias from Atalanta that he could perform in concert: the ‘Odalisque’ aria from Max, ‘The Mystery of the River’ from ‘Willard’, & ‘The Producer Speaks’ from ‘Bud’. So this first section of the album is one of many possible versions of Atalanta, albeit in strikingly different versions from the originals.

The second section of the album is dubbed Occasional Pieces, and holds two unpublished Ashley works. ‘When Famous Last Words Fail You’ & ‘World War III Just the Highlights’ are not from any Ashley opera. However, each is highly dramatic and theatrical. They were written as standalone pieces for Thomas Buckner. Buckner’s distinct vocal cadence projects the sharp wit and wry storytelling of Ashley’s librettos.

A portion of the record was recorded live at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY, at an intimate memorial concert held for Robert Ashley in 2014. Spontaneous Musical Invention, in essence, functions as a tribute to both exceptional artists, and to their decades of collaboration.

TRACKLIST:

  1. Odalisque  (1984-1990)  – 7:24
  2. The Mystery of the River  (1991-2014)  – 12:28
  3. The Producer Speaks  (1991)  – 21:04
  4. When Famous Last Words Fail You  (1997)  – 19:04
  5. World War III Just the Highlights  (2011)  – 15:54

• 2xLP Edition of 350 | CD edition of 350
• 24 page 12” x 8.5” booklet of Ashley librettos, scores, & program notes, with an introduction by Alvin Lucier [LP version only].

PURCHASE


Buckner / Ashley ALBUM RELEASE CONCERT in LOS ANGELES:

Recital and 2220 Arts present an evening of music and video by renowned composer Robert Ashley (1930-2014).
 
Baritone singer Thomas Buckner will perform two rarely heard Ashley pieces, “The Mystery of the River” and “When Famous Last Words Fail You.” The night will end with a special screening of the rarely seen Ashley video Atalanta Strategy (1984, 28 mins). Sean McCann of Recital will DJ before the performance and screening.
Date:
Sat, Jun 17, 8:00 PM Doors open at 7:45pm
 
Event:
Thomas Buckner sings Robert Ashley 
8:00 PM Sean McCann DJ
8:45 PM Thomas Buckner performance
9:30 PM
Robert Ashley’s ATALANTA STRATEGY screening
Location:
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA
Tickets:

 

 

Recital’s first BluRay edition “Margrethe Fjorden”

R101 – Eric Andersen – “Margrethe Fjorden” BluRay + CD Box Set

Recital is excited to present its first ever BluRay video edition, Margrethe Fjorden. Produced in 1996 by Fluxus artist Eric Andersen, the citywide Intermedia event included performances from Alice Damas, Willem de Ridder, Larry Miller, and other artists from around the world. Inspired by the mysterious tale of Queen Margrethe the First (1353-1412), the multi-sensory event was comprised of three major themes: UNION, WOMAN, and FAITH.

Over 4 hours of video is presented, from a full organ concert held in the Roskilde Cathedral, replete with models on stilts and toy frogs hopping through the pews, to a helicopter “air ballet” dancing over the water at night. The whole town became the stage for the three performance evenings. The immersive handheld footage flows between the circus-like events, navigating the streets, spilling between events. A surreal home-movie quality.

The original press release reads: “Margrethe Fjorden is everything; its near and far, quiet and violent. It smells, its wet, burning and at times foreign and disturbing. Often it feels secure and humorous. There will be live sheep, a child birth, a car crash, window-washers, wheelchairs and trekkers. People will unite and separate again. A world of conception where the audience enters another reality…”

Also included with the BluRay is a curated audio-CD with six elements from the videos, beginning with the entire Eric Andersen organ concert performed by Yuzuru Hiranaka, and ending with the “A piacere (Fog Drifts Across the Meadow)” by Ib Nørholm and Eric Andersen; a 100+ person choir positioned on the Roskilde Fjord with a solitary amplified flutist performing from a small boat.

• Limited Edition of 100pc, hand-numbered in printed box
• Includes: BluRay Video (4.5 hours, region-free), Audio CD (65 minutes), 36-page pamphlet, red satin fabric
• Digital download for audio & private links for streaming the videos online

Pre-Order  HERE  (out April 7th, 2023)

Price: $34.95