Search Result for Artist charlemagne
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VOCSON 082LP
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2022 repress. Alga Marghen present the first ever release of Illuminations, or Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti duo interactions, illuminated with dim red lights. In early 1970 Mort Subotnick asked Charlemagne Palestine to join his soon to be created Media Department at the new "Dream School of the Future" endowed by the Disneys to be called the California Institute of the Arts. Charlemagne and Simone Forti met there in 1970, when La Monte Young asked them to arrange a California concert for Pandit Pran Nath. They decided to try an improvisation session together and Charlemagne invited Simone the first time to the electronic music studio where he worked regularly. Their medium blended as a play of interacting sound waves and solid matter in motion as Charlemagne and Simone shared energy and focus. The three previously unreleased recordings on this LP were made between October and December 1971. The first take, titled "Illumination", is for two voices moving in the space with small bells and crystal glasses while Simone Forti plays the molimo, a corrugated tube meant for connecting the gas stove. The second take titled, "Wed Oct 13th 1971", has Simone and Charlemagne in a song dialogue as animals do. It was also at Cal Arts that Charlemagne Palestine first encountered a Bosendorfer Imperial Piano of Vienna. He played it often as Simone danced during their "Illuminations". Take three is a song sang in falsetto while playing the Bosendorfer Imperial in an arpeggiated style that predates the "strummings". Listening to these "three takes" 40 years later, they ooze a timeless, carefree mystical, magical, dreamy atmosphere that evoked the times of the late '60s to early '70s in Charlemagne and Simo ne part of the California Art Scene. Illuminations were a unique open spontaneous form of performance, ritual and prayer. Edition limited to 365 copies with an essay by both Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti, as well as photos of the performances reproduced on the LP front sleeve.
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VOCSON 161LP
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Alga Marghen presents the second and final chapter in documenting Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti seminal collaborations. The Meditative Sound Environments LP is more centered around electronic music and also includes a unique two-voice work based on Simone's chanting, the magically suspended "Simone Tape". All the tracks of this new LP present only previously unreleased recordings. Charlemagne Palestine met Simone Forti through Dr. Richard Alpert, a professor at Columbia University who went to India to study with a Hindu guru and he himself became a guru afterwards called Baba Ram Dass. Coming back to US he brought Pandit Pran Nath with him. It was a time when everybody was experimenting. All came with a lot of orientalism because people were into timelessness, meditation, and being stoned. It was in that atmosphere that Charlemagne met Simone because she also knew Pran Nath. Around that time Palestine moved from NY to California to work with electronic music at the newly invented school California Institute of the Arts. Simone was also living in LA and even though she was not officially connected to CalArts she knew many of the artists who were teaching there. In summer 1970 Simone Forti was invited by Allan Kaprow (one of the Deans of CalArts) to do an evening of dance at the Pasadena Art Museum and for this performance she asked Charlemagne Palestine to try developing a new kind of work together. It immediately clicked. In January 1971 in Pasadena they did their first Illuminations. All of a sudden, they were doing a new kind of jamming together. Everybody in the audience loved it because it was so dreamy and they found amazing how a man and a woman can act in that strange, very dreamlike oriental way as in trance, together. Other artists were mostly doing very structural works while with Illuminations it was totally like they were on magic drugs. These performances had certain fixed elements... the piano or some electronics like in "Meditative Sound Environment", the title track of this LP. It turned out they liked red lights so they started to always do it in red light. Also, they liked to do it in a resonant spaces. It became more an approach than a piece, because there were never two "Illuminations" that were alike. The aspect of Charlemagne's music that most inspired Simone Forti's imagination was his melodies. Sometimes their texture of repetitions and evolving variations were so close that the term melody doesn't seem to apply. Liner notes by Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti. Edition of 365.
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ANGELICA 038CD
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2019 release. Recorded live at the AngelicA Festival this album consists of two pieces, one by Charlemagne Palestine (quasi liturgical) featuring himself on crystal glasses and voice, accompanied by tubular bells and a string ensemble; the other by experimental Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, for 26 strings in continuous sliding motion. Both concerts were spatialized with the ensemble surrounding the public (and Palestine himself moving around the space).
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SP ALPHA-LP
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Architect John Körmeling and maverick musician Charlemagne Palestine collaborate on a whole new system of music. A famous English conductor said that the harpsichord sounded like "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof". An instrument that was once the basis of every orchestra and chamber ensemble was long ago replaced by the stronger and, for some, sweeter sounding piano. Now the harpsichord is very much the preserve of specialists and early-music supporters and has seen very little progress in design. Enter architect and musical philosopher John Körmeling. In addition to designing utopian public spaces like the "Happy Street" which served as the Dutch pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, and the "Straight Road" artwork which played with the mismatch between the curvature of the earth and our need to see life in two dimensions, Körmeling has devised a system of music that sets aside familiar Western tuning and is based instead on square roots, areas, and volumes. In order to realize this music, he turned back to the harpsichord and adapted its jangling sound to an intonation that literally plays Pythagorean ratios. Körmeling made it possible to hear ratios and proportions that we usually only encounter on the pages of a math book. Körmeling now had his instrument, but who would have the imagination and vision to play it. He turned to the veteran rule-breaker Charlemagne Palestine, pioneer of long-form improvisations on harpsichord, harmonium, and other neglected keyboard instruments. The idea of "playing a triangle" immediately appealed. Responding to the invitation from Körmeling, he said that "thiss Pythagoriann harpsichordd was just upp myy alley,,,,,,,,,". Palestine saw the new instrument and named it the Frogsichord after its color. This record documents performances on the Frogsichord made in Brussels, Rotterdam and in Cappadocia, Turkey. The sound is strange, perhaps even estranging, but Palestine has made it his own, and created a music that is rich and detailed, not simply "exotic". It's no longer a question of Western tonality colliding with non-European harmonic systems. Here is music that taps into the universal language of mathematics.
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SP ALPHALTD-LP
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Double LP version. Limited fur cover edition (color varies). Architect John Körmeling and maverick musician Charlemagne Palestine collaborate on a whole new system of music. A famous English conductor said that the harpsichord sounded like "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof". An instrument that was once the basis of every orchestra and chamber ensemble was long ago replaced by the stronger and, for some, sweeter sounding piano. Now the harpsichord is very much the preserve of specialists and early-music supporters and has seen very little progress in design. Enter architect and musical philosopher John Körmeling. In addition to designing utopian public spaces like the "Happy Street" which served as the Dutch pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, and the "Straight Road" artwork which played with the mismatch between the curvature of the earth and our need to see life in two dimensions, Körmeling has devised a system of music that sets aside familiar Western tuning and is based instead on square roots, areas, and volumes. In order to realize this music, he turned back to the harpsichord and adapted its jangling sound to an intonation that literally plays Pythagorean ratios. Körmeling made it possible to hear ratios and proportions that we usually only encounter on the pages of a math book. Körmeling now had his instrument, but who would have the imagination and vision to play it. He turned to the veteran rule-breaker Charlemagne Palestine, pioneer of long-form improvisations on harpsichord, harmonium, and other neglected keyboard instruments. The idea of "playing a triangle" immediately appealed. Responding to the invitation from Körmeling, he said that "thiss Pythagoriann harpsichordd was just upp myy alley,,,,,,,,,". Palestine saw the new instrument and named it the Frogsichord after its color. This record documents performances on the Frogsichord made in Brussels, Rotterdam and in Cappadocia, Turkey. The sound is strange, perhaps even estranging, but Palestine has made it his own, and created a music that is rich and detailed, not simply "exotic". It's no longer a question of Western tonality colliding with non-European harmonic systems. Here is music that taps into the universal language of mathematics.
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RDM 103LP
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Charlemagne Palestine first started using electronic instruments in his music in the late 1960s. Palestine on the release: "Electronic instruments were very rare and exotic in the 1960s.There were Moogs around New York but they were only in universities who preciously guarded them from us young composers. So after all this time visiting The Moog Sound Lab is like a dream come true for me... to have so many oscillators all singing together is a truly beautiful experience. I am so glad I am still around and able to be making music I first dreamt of 50 years ago." These two releases come from Moog Recordings Library second UK lab session and is the first Charlemagne Palestine Moog Sound Lab. All electronic longform drone works from an archive of six recordings.
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RDM 104LP
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Charlemagne Palestine first started using electronic instruments in his music in the late 1960s. Palestine on the release: "Electronic instruments were very rare and exotic in the 1960s. There were Moogs around New York but they were only in universities who preciously guarded them from us young composers. So after all this time visiting The Moog Sound Lab is like a dream come true for me... to have so many oscillators all singing together is a truly beautiful experience. I am so glad I am still around and able to be making music I first dreamt of 50 years ago." These two releases come from Moog Recordings Library second UK lab session and is the first Charlemagne Palestine Moog Sound Lab. All electronic longform drone works from an archive of six recordings.
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3CD
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NMN 151CD
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Alga Marghen introduce a historical event, the publication of The Lower Depths, a three-CD set of previously unreleased unique piano sonorities by Charlemagne Palestine. In 1977, Charlemagne Palestine was regularly performing in his red and gold loft on North Moore Street in Tribeca, down the street from Magoos bar where all the local artists hung out back then. He was working on a trilogy called The Lower Depths, a work conceived during the crucial moment when he experienced one of the peaks of his creative power. The trilogy takes its name from the potentials of his Bösendorfer weapon which had lower notes than any other piano. The first section starts in the middle of the piano keyboard and the second section two octaves below, while the third section arrives till the very bottom of the instrument. It's a deep, thunderous, rumbling world that we experience. An extreme immersion in the depths of the dark side of strumming music. The Lower Depths is a central work within the history of musical minimalism, stretching and expanding what is understood and expected of an already singular voice. Edition of 300 (numbered).
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VOCSON 155LP
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In 1974, Ileana Sonnabend commissioned Charlemagne Palestine to create a limited edition, double LP in conjunction with a performance to celebrate the opening of her new Soho gallery at 420 West Broadway. Charlemagne made several recording attempts, first at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania where they had a Bösendorfer Imperial Piano in their theater. He recorded "Bösendorfer + Voice", "Voice Piece" as well as some Bösendorfer tests, with Mayo Thompson as producer and Kurt Munkacsi as sound engineer. These ecstatic Swarthmore recordings, recorded late at night in the big empty theater space, represented the original elements on which Charlemagne Palestine later created the piano pieces for Four Manifestations on Six Elements (ALGAMARS 004LP, MAGNE 008LP). For more than 40 years since these recordings were made, Palestine never went back to listen to them, but recently on re-listening to these Swarthmore recordings with Alga Marghen, he found several blissful, arpeggiated piano and falsetto voice studies which he feels now deserve to be heard. Included in the Alga Marghen VocSon series, this LP of two previously unreleased 1974 recordings finally see the light of day. Edition of 405.
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2LP
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IMPREC 448LP
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Important Records present Omminggg and Schlomminggg, the second release by continuous music pioneer Charlemagne Palestine and Grumbling Fur, consisting of London based multi-disciplinary artists Daniel O'Sullivan and Alexander Tucker; the Time Machine Orchestra being the extended drone arm of Tucker and O'Sullivan's experimental avant-pop conception. This double LP captures a performance of the trio at Copenhagen's illustrious Jazzhouse on November 28th, 2016. The pin-drop acoustic clarity of the venue providing an ideal setting for this mesmeric recital of eternal music. A Grumbling Fur redux/remodel constitutes side four. The signature strumming of Palestine's piano augmented by Tucker and O'Sullivan's earthware electronics and processed strings create seamless sonic ripples in a constant state of unfolding. This is perhaps the most demonstrative document of Palestine's powerful vocal delivery - an alien hybrid of sacred music drawing deep from the well of the cantorial synagogue and Hindustani classical styles in a bid to channel inter-dimensional beings from ancient cultures. In some respects, this could be thought of as Charlemagne in dub as Grumbling Fur carefully twist and mangle their palette of electrified harp, viola, bowed mandolin, percussion, tapes, and voice transformers through chains of loopers, resulting in a slowly dilating vapor. A unique document of portal opening music that defies time and space. Gatefold sleeve art by Alexander Tucker; Inside art by Daniel O'Sullivan. Assembled and mixed by Grumbling Fur; Mixed at O'Sullivan's Dream Lion Studio; Cut by Matt Colton, Alchemy Mastering.
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SSH 003LP
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Repressed. The classic minimal music album, available again on vinyl for the first time since the '70s. Primed with a glass of cognac, Charlemagne Palestine sits at the keyboard of a Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano. One foot firmly holds down the sustain pedal while both hands perform an insistent strum-like alternation on the keys. Soon Palestine and his Bösendorfer are enveloped in sound and bathed in a shimmering haze of multi-colored overtones. For 45 minutes, this rich pulsating music swells and intensifies, filling the air. When Strumming Music first appeared on the adventurous French label Shandar during the mid-1970s, it seemed a straightforward matter to place Charlemagne Palestine in the so-called minimalist company of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, whose work also featured in the Shandar catalog. Palestine too used a deliberately restricted range of materials and a repetitive technique, but as he has often pointed out in more recent times, the opulent fullness of his music would more accurately be described as maximalist. Strumming Music, recorded in Palestine's own loft in Manhattan, has no written score. In an age of recorded sound he still feels no need for traditional notation. The surging energy of this particular recording stands comparison with the improvising of jazz visionaries who impressed and inspired him while living in New York as a young man. But, as Palestine himself has made clear, primarily he brings to music-making the sensibility of an artist rather than a musician. Although the technique of the piece has roots in Palestine's daily practice, when a teenager, of playing the carillon at a church, hammering sonorous chimes from a rack of tuned bells, it also draws on his later work as a body artist, staging vigorously muscular, physically demanding and often reckless performances. In addition, Strumming Music can be heard as a sculptural tour de force, while its textures connect with the color moods, plastic rhythms, and tactile space of Mark Rothko's abstract expressionist canvases. Strumming Music remains the essential index of Palestine's singular creative vision. Fundamentally this fascinating piece is a collaboration between an artist and an instrument. Palestine had first encountered the Bösendorfer Imperial back in 1969. "The Bösendorfer at its best is a very noisy, thick molasses piano," he has remarked. Charlemagne Palestine embraced its clinging sonorousness, its clangorous resonance and out of that embrace came the voluptuous sonic fabric of Strumming Music.
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BT 019LP
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Limited repress. "The first vinyl release of Charlemagne Palestine's Godbear, a 1987 solo piano recording originally scheduled to sit alongside Sonic Youth and Swans in the catalogue of Glenn Branca's Neutral Records but eventually released on CD by the Dutch Barooni label in 1998. Although Palestine has worked in an enormous variety of media, his long form performances for solo piano are perhaps his most acclaimed works. Palestine immersed himself in the study of overtones throughout the 1960s, working first with carillons and then with electronic synthesis, searching for the 'golden sound'. Beginning in the early 1970s he continued his exploration of the complexities hidden within seemingly simple tones and intervals on the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand Piano, the 'Rolls Royce' of pianos. With the piano's sustain pedal constantly depressed, Palestine hammers out rapidly repeated notes, allowing a complex cloud of overtones to rise above the percussive texture of the struck keys. Initially working with simple intervals such as octaves and fifths, Palestine gradually expanded the harmonic range of his piano performances over the years, while still retaining their ecstatically single-minded nature. Revisiting his signature piano style in 1987 after several years focusing on visual art, Godbear presents three distinct variations that demonstrate the development of his piano music after the classic recordings of the early 1970s. Occupying the entire first side, 'The Lower Depths' stages a slow descent from the piano's mid-range to the Bösendorfer's cavernous additional low octave, building into a thundering swarm of booming overtones. Breaking entirely with the stereotype of clinical minimalism, Palestine's journey to the depths embraces passages of darkly romantic melody before slowly ascending to its starting point. The version of 'Strumming Music' performed here condenses the developmental arc of the piece into eleven minutes, fanning out from a single octave to a complex harmonic wash that calls to mind Palestine's enthusiasm for Debussy and Ravel. 'Timbral Assault' is like an evil twin of 'Strumming Music,' transforming its insistency and harmonic complexity into aggressive intensity and creeping dissonance, foreshadowing Palestine's later collaborations with Christoph Heemann. A classic release, and one that, because of the variety of approaches surveyed within, serves as an ideal introduction to Palestine's ecstatic and mysterious sound world" --Francis Plagne. Remastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Presented in a deluxe gatefold sleeve designed by Stephen O'Malley.
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YMO 001CD
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2007 release. Charlemagne Palestine's The Apocalypse Will Blossom is a stunning piano performance that brings Palestine's recorded work thundering into the 21st century. Working in the lower registers of the piano, as Palestine did in the late '70s, this intensely powerful live performance is unlike anything he's previously released. Recorded in 2000 by Christoph Heemann at the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst in Aachen, Germany (on the occasion of the 1000-year celebration of Charlemagne), and subsequently processed by Heemann, The Apocalypse Will Blossom offers the closest experience one can have to hearing Palestine live without witnessing one of his performances. This recording is offered in a CD digipak printed in full color with a collage inspired by Palestine's visual work representing the four horsemen of the apocalypse and an original collage detail of Triomphe de la Morte by the French artist Jacques Brissot. Charlemagne, NOW!
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IMPREC 409LP
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In 2013, when Daniel O'Sullivan was invited to curate the sixth installment of Ravenna, Italy's Transmissions festival, his first request was for Charlemagne Palestine, the shamanic world-maker, sacred toy emissary, and one-time student of Pandit Pran Nath associated with the New York '60s minimalist scene and known primarily for extended performances with Bösendorfer piano, cathedral organs, and falsetto voice. After Transmissions O'Sullivan invited Palestine to play a two-night residency at London's Cafe OTO, the second night of which was a collaboration with Grumbling Fur, the duo of O'Sullivan and Alexander Tucker. The performance at OTO was a ritualistic union of crystalware, processed strings, live tape manipulations, Indian harmonium, shimmering piano clusters, bleating cattle, a Japanese orgy, disembodied vocal harmony, and rousing choruses often led by sing-a-ma-jigs (singing Fisher-Price toys affectionately referred to as "the singing assholes"). A continuous flow of overtones and plainchant sieved through mutant simulations of processed pulses, orbiting strings, and heliotropic vocal mantras. Following 2013's Glynnaestra and 2014's Preternaturals, both of which The Wire listed in its top avant rock albums of their respective years, this is the first incarnation of the Grumbling Fur alter-ego Time Machine Orchestra, an alias put together to explore extended drone works, improvisation, and automatic composition. Recorded at Cafe OTO and Fur Island and assembled by Grumbling Fur. LP pressed in an edition of 500 copies.
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ALGA 049LP
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Edition of 400 copies. Includes original photos from the recording sessions. High up in a tower, accessible only by a spiral staircase that led to a concrete platform above the whole city, Charlemagne Palestine's "HellsBells" became the sonic mainstay of 53rd Street and 5th Avenue, NYC, from 1963 to 1970. In 1963, while attending The High School of Music & Art in New York, the 15-year-old Palestine was asked if he'd be interested in playing a 26-bell carillon at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church. He decided that he loved the voluptuous Taylor bells, and played them every day from 1963 to 1970, when he left New York to study and teach at CalArts. During his time above 53rd and 5th, Palestine became known as the Quasimodo of midtown NYC, and his dissonant and "klanggdedangggebannggg" style of playing attracted a diverse group of fans, from Moondog to John Cage to Tony Conrad, among others. Palestine was able to continue playing his clanging-bell soap operas for seven years, dinggdonggingggg every late afternoon and Sunday mornings. This LP collects some of the most relevant recordings from those early days. Side A presents the complete reel-tape "Bells Studies," an intense, pulsating work in five movements. It begins with slow, hypnotic, large sonorities and accelerates into more dense and maximal explosions. Side B collects some shorter studies: "Bells," the two parts of "Confiscated Bell Tape," and an excerpt from "Dumb Bell Tape." Each track was recorded by the composer in single takes around 1965 and unheard since, until now.
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NMN 090CD
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Presented in tri-fold digipak sleeve. Alga Marghen presents the "sixSIXsix"th installment of its Golden Research Charlemagne Palestine archive series: CharleBelllzzz at Saint Thomas. These previously unreleased recordings of Palestine's "Bells Studies" are both some of his earliest recordings and some of his darkest and most accomplished works. In 1963, while attending The High School of Music & Art in New York, the 15-year-old Palestine was asked if he'd be interested in playing a 26-bell carillon at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church. He decided that he loved the voluptuous Taylor bells, and played them every day from 1963 to 1970, when he left New York to study and teach at CalArts. During his time high above 53rd Street and 5th Avenue, accessible only by a spiral staircase, Palestine became known as the Quasimodo of midtown NYC, and his dissonant and "klanggdedangggebannggg" style of playing attracted a diverse group of fans, from Moondog to John Cage to Tony Conrad, among others. Palestine was able to continue playing his clanging-bell soap operas for seven years, dinggdonggingggg every late afternoon and Sunday mornings. "Bells Carillon" and "St Thomas Bells," both recorded at unidentified dates between 1966 and 1968, are maximal-bells-pure-resonating frontal attacks, building up in a structure that anticipates the later Strumming campaigns (SR 297CD). Unique and clashing dissonances created like an instinctive, spontaneous outburst. Palestine played the bells right next to his body. The sounds became physical, visceral; each crack of the clapper was like a small earthquake.
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NMN 080CD
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2021 restock; 2015 remastered version of Alga Marghen's 2010 reissue of the Sonnabend Gallery's 1974 limited edition double LP. Presented in digipak sleeve with full-color 12-page booklet including two essays, originals score, and visual materials relating to the composition. Alga Marghen presents the fifth installment of its Golden Research Charlemagne Palestine archive series: Four Manifestations On Six Elements, one of Palestine's most well-known works. In 1973 the Sonnabend Gallery in New York commissioned Palestine to make Four Manifestations On Six Elements. "Two Perfect Fifths, a Major Third Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is an electronic piece that deals with the search for the essence of timbre -- sound color -- through exploration of the inert chemical activity in the overtone series of tone fundamentals. This genre of Palestine's work is akin to a kind of sound alchemy, blending elements over and over again in search of the Golden Sound: the essence of the chord or harmonic structure itself. In "One + Two + Three Perfect Fifths, in the Rhythm 3 Against 2, for Piano" (1973), Palestine uses the resonant Bösendorfer piano to create a more lively and complex variation of tones, intervals, overtones, and rhythms. "One Fifth" evolves by reinforcing the fundamentals of a fifth with their higher octave. Each performance of this work is different, as Palestine reinterprets these simple elements and listens within them for variations of amplitude, mixture, and inertia at the moment of the performance. "One + Two Fifths" deals with the way a rhythmic sonority sounds when the sustain pedal of the piano is not used, thus focusing on its rhythmic aspect. Gradually, by adding the sustain pedal, the external rhythmic pattern begins to internalize, becoming an inert part of the whole timbral fabric -- a piece expressing the struggle for dominance between rhythm and timbre. In "One + Two + Three" a third fifth is added -- variations of melody and sonority reinforcements culminating in a rhythmic deceleration process. "Sliding Fifths for Piano" (1972) is an impressionistic version of the three fifths used in the entire work. The continuous liquid waterfall of pure romantic piano sound and color is an homage to Debussy, Ravel, and Monet. "Three Perfect Fifths, a Major Second Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is the complexification and continuation of track one. A pure and sonorous phenomenon.
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SR 367LP
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Sub Rosa presents Youuu + Mee = Weee (First), a vinyl edition of the first disc of the three CD set Youuu + Mee = Weee (SR 367CD, 2014). Youuu + Mee = Weee is the first recorded collaboration between Charlemagne Palestine and Rhys Chatham. And it's precious. Following the musical meetings with Z'ev (Rubhitbangklanghear Rubhitbangklangear, SR340CD/LP), and with Tony Conrad, these new Sub Rosa sessions create a sort of trilogy. Rhys Chatham began his musical career as a piano tuner for avant-garde pioneer La Monte Young, also working as a harpsichord tuner for Gustav Leonhardt, Rosalyn Tureck, and Glenn Gould. He soon studied under electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick became a member of Young's group, The Theater of Eternal Music, during the early '70s. Chatham also played with Tony Conrad in an early version of Conrad's group, The Dream Syndicate. In 1971, while still in his teens, Chatham became the first music director at the experimental art space The Kitchen in lower Manhattan. His early works, such as Two Gongs (1971), owed a significant debt to Young and other minimalists. His concert productions included experimenters Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, and early alternative rockers such as Fred Frith, Robert Fripp, Arto Lindsay, and John Lurie. He has worked closely with visual artist and musician Robert Longo, particularly in the 1980s, and with visual artist Joseph Nechvatal on an experimental opera called XS: The Opera Opus (1984-6). By 1977, Chatham's music had become heavily influenced by punk rock after an experience at an early Ramones concert. He was particularly influential upon the group of artists music critics would label "no wave" in 1978. Members of the New York City noise rock group Band of Susans began their careers in Chatham's ensembles; they later performed a cover of Chatham's "Guitar Trio" on their 1991 album, The Word and the Flesh. Chatham began playing trumpet in 1983, and his more recent works explore improvisatory trumpet solos employing amplification and effects. Youuu + Mee = Weee (First) features Charlemagne Palestine on Bösendorfer piano, Yamaha organ, and voice and Rhys Chatham on trumpet, loop pedal, and electric guitar. This first edition is pressed on clear red vinyl and limited to 500 copies.
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Book w/CD
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ALGA 017BK
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2004 release. Special edition of Sacred Bordello (originally published by Black Dog Publishing) bundled with a limited edition CD released by Alga Marghen. As one of the most influential figures of experimental music and performance, Charlemagne Palestine has remained an enigma. Unlike his illustrious contemporaries Terry Riley, John Cale, Steve Reich, and Phillip Glass, little has been written on Palestine and his continuing influence. In his own right, he was and remains today a pivotal personality whose research in musical composition and performance has been characterized over the years by its incantatory repetitiveness, its flamboyance, and its mysticism, but also by its violence. Born in Brooklyn in 1947, his first musical experiences were as a cantorial singer in the synagogues of New York. Through his contact with Tony Conrad, Palestine was soon introduced to the thriving experimental art scene of the late 1960s. The circles around Andy Warhol and La Monte Young provided a crucial backdrop for Palestine's work, which increasingly extended beyond the scope of music. His groundbreaking appearances, which combined violent piano playing, performance, video, and installation, were considered to be amongst the most radical musical experiences, leaving a lasting impression on followers such as Arto Lindsay, Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth, and the Sex Pistols, as well as Tintin creator Hergé. Palestine's epic durations, microtonal trembles, and dense overtones are reoccurring features in contemporary industrial and electronic music. Sacred Bordello is a flexi-cover sewn, full color, 192-page, 11" x 9" book that includes essays, scores, and original photos of performances and installations, providing the most complete documentation of Charlemagne Palestine's art. The included CD features an hour-long recording of a lecture that Palestine gave on March 7th, 1975 at the ArtNow Centre in Canada. Following the performance of a strumming music concert, Palestine freely speaks about his music and philosophy, involving the students in some kind of magic ritual. Starting as a question-and-answer conversation, the lecture develops into an intimate speech in which particularly private subjects are discussed. The CD also includes a previously unreleased multi-layer voice study from the early 1960s.
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3CD
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SR 367CD
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Youuu + Mee = Weee is the first recorded collaboration between Charlemagne Palestine and Rhys Chatham. And it's precious. Following the musical meetings with Z'ev (Rubhitbangklanghear Rubhitbangklangear, SR340CD/LP), and with Tony Conrad, these new Sub Rosa sessions create a sort of trilogy. Rhys Chatham began his musical career as a piano tuner for avant-garde pioneer La Monte Young, also working as a harpsichord tuner for Gustav Leonhardt, Rosalyn Tureck, and Glenn Gould. He soon studied under electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick became a member of Young's group, The Theater of Eternal Music, during the early '70s. Chatham also played with Tony Conrad in an early version of Conrad's group, The Dream Syndicate. In 1971, while still in his teens, Chatham became the first music director at the experimental art space The Kitchen in lower Manhattan. His early works, such as Two Gongs (1971), owed a significant debt to Young and other minimalists. His concert productions included experimenters Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, and early alternative rockers such as Fred Frith, Robert Fripp, Arto Lindsay, and John Lurie. He has worked closely with visual artist and musician Robert Longo, particularly in the 1980s, and with visual artist Joseph Nechvatal on an experimental opera called XS: The Opera Opus (1984-6). By 1977, Chatham's music had become heavily influenced by punk rock after an experience at an early Ramones concert. He was particularly influential upon the group of artists music critics would label "no wave" in 1978. Members of the New York City noise rock group Band of Susans began their careers in Chatham's ensembles; they later performed a cover of Chatham's "Guitar Trio" on their 1991 album, The Word and the Flesh. Chatham began playing trumpet in 1983, and his more recent works explore improvisatory trumpet solos employing amplification and effects. Youuu + Mee = Weee is 166 minutes of Charlemagne Palestine on Bösendorfer piano, Yamaha organ, and voice and Rhys Chatham on trumpet, loop pedal, and electric guitar.
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2LP
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MAGNE 008LP
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One of Charlemagne Palestine's most well-known works, Four Manifestations on Six Elements is presented here as 2LP record edition limited to 120 numbered copies pressed into white vinyl. The gatefold sleeve is silkscreened in one color and presents the original score from 1970. In 1973 Charlemagne Palestine was commissioned to make Four Manifestations on Six Elements by the Sonnabend Gallery in New York. As the gallery was well-known for its presentation of conceptual art, Palestine decided to create a record similar to an exhibition space with four walls to expose on, each wall corresponding to a side on a double LP record. "Two Perfect Fifths, A Major Third Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is an electronic piece that deals with the search for the essence of timbre, sound color, through exploration of the inert chemical activity in the overtone series of tone fundamentals. In this genre of his work Palestine feels akin to a kind of sound alchemy -- blending elements over and over again through the years searching for the Golden Sound - the essence of the chord or harmonic structure itself. In "One + Two + Three Perfect Fifths, In The Rhythm 3 Against 2, for Piano" (1973) the elements introduced are now elaborated upon on the piano. The resonant Bosendorfer allows Palestine to create a more lively and complex variation of tones, intervals, overtones and rhythms. "One Fifth" evolves by reinforcing the fundamentals of a fifth with their higher octave. Each performance of this work is different as Palestine reinterprets these simple elements listening within them for variations of amplitude, mixture and inertia at the moment of the performance. "One + Two Fifths" deals with the way a rhythmic sonority sounds when the sustain pedal of the piano in not used, thus focusing on its rhythmic aspect. Gradually by adding the sustain pedal the external rhythmic pattern begins to internalize becoming an inert part of the whole timbral fabric -- a piece expressing the battle of rhythm versus timbre for dominance. In "One + Two + Three" a third fifth is added -- variations of melody and sonority reinforcements culminating in a rhythmic deceleration process ending the work. "Sliding Fifths for Piano" (1972) is an impressionistic version of the three fifths used in the entire work. The continuous liquid waterfall of pure romantic piano sound and color is an homage to Debussy, Ravel and Monet. "Three Perfect Fifths, A Major Second Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is the continuation of wall one. A pure and sonorous phenomenon.
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CD
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NMN 035CD
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Originally released in 2000. The Golden Research is the name chosen for the complete documentation of previously unpublished works by Charlemagne Palestine starting from the early 1960s to the mid-late 1970s. Such a huge project will include seminal collage and electronic music, Bell Studies, New York and California drones, piano drones as well as more specific compositions. All the recordings will be exclusively available through Alga Marghen. Be ready to change your own opinion about minimalism and music in general? Holy1 and Holy2 were both recorded in NYC in 1967. Charlemagne Palestine was listening to a lot of ethnic world music; he was also immersed in the late night New York soundscape, absorbing the spatial sound diversity and beauty that such a big city could only express very late at night. He also worked at night building up a sound, oscillator by oscillator; then adding tiny increments of white noise that would gradually make the sounds thicker and thicker until they were immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibetan bees. The sounds were played very, very loud, making all the objects in the room resonate, while outside all was quiet and sleeping. Holy1 & Holy2 were done this way. Then, in 1969, Tony Conrad asked Charlemagne Palestine to make some carillon music for his film Coming Attractions. They were seeing each other regularly when the Free Music Store of radio station WBAI asked Palestine to create a piece for an event they were preparing to broadcast live on radio. So he asked Tony, his saxophonist Bob Feldman and his then-wife and soprano Deborah Glaser to collaborate on a work that he would organize around an instrument that he invented at that time called an Alumonium. Tony Conrad played an instrument that he invented, the Long String Drone, that was a long string attached to a long wooden structure and amplified. Bob played the chimes and a conch. Deborah sang and played chimes and Charlemagne sang, also played the chimes and some percussion instruments that they found lying around the hall where they played. The piece became Alloy and the sound used as an all-electronic background continuum, played through loudspeakers in the hall, were Holy1+2 from 1968. Digipak CD edition with folded insert and liner notes.
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CD
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NMN 047CD
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Originally released in 2003. The first electronically generated sounds that Charlemagne Palestine ever heard came from the machines he encountered in ordinary daily urban life. Machines like the refrigerator electric motor, or electrical generators; but it was especially the sounds of motion (race cars, motorcycles, war planes, rocket ships) that first excited his sonic imagination as a young teenager. Then he heard the electronic music of Tod Dockstader, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, the famous "Podme Electronique" of Varèse, Xenakis and "Gesang der Junglinge" of Stockhausen. He immediately reacted buying a cheap reel-to-reel tape recorder, cutting and pasting recording tape and making collage sound experiments. Then, one day, Charlemagne Palestine experienced at an electronic music studio what electronically produced sound waves looked and sounded like through an oscilloscope and he began studying Helmholtz's On the Sensation of Tone. He started dreaming of an expressive, continuous, ever-moving, ever-changing sound form; an enormous sonorous, 3-dimensional sculptural canvas in mid-air using electronically produced sounds. The first experiments were done with simple sine tone generators emitting the purest sound waves without any overtones. With access to more complex systems, the sound was constructed using the sine/sawtooth/square wave oscillators in a fluid, ever-changing mix of adding or filtering overtones and white noise to create sonorities, constantly changing timbres, and weight. Five early electronic compositions including "Sine Tone Study" (1967); "Open Closing" (1968), created through speed alterations of "Holy 1+2"; "Seven Organism Study" (1968); "Negative Sound Study" (1969) and "Timbral for Pran Nath" (1970). Late night electronic sonorities created on the Buchlas 100 & 200 systems available at the New York University Intermedia Centre. All compositions previously-unreleased. 3-folded digipak cover with original photos and liner notes written by the composer.
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CD
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NMN 068CD
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2008 release. Alga Marghen proudly presents a new chapter in the documentation series of Charlemagne Palestine's historical works. This CD of previously-unavailable recordings not only presents you Charlemagne Palestine activities in 1974, collaborating with some of most important experimental artists and composers from either the New York loft scene and Cal Arts, but also features world premiere recordings of Terry Jennings and The Fundamental D Flat Group. "Short & Sweet" is the title of a breathtaking duo for piano and sax performed on April 24th by Charlemagne Palestine and Terry Jennings. The two composers happened to play together in very private concerts at Cal Arts, but never recorded those sessions, until a special day when Charlemagne happened to have a little tape recorder around. The recording was considered lost for more than 30 years, when finally a copy was found thanks to Tony Conrad. Terry Jennings' soprano sax is very elaborated and decorative. Around 1967, Charlemagne was experimenting mainly with voice and electronics. He also occasionally recorded piano and sax improvisations with his friend Bob Feldman. This CD featured a very special duo by Palestine and Feldman playing electronics and flute. The two artists met in 1961 when Bob Feldman worked in a jazz record shop in the Times Square subway station. Palestine didn't know much about jazz and Feldman guided him through the new progressive jazz styles of the times. Later at the Intermedia Center of NYU where they had a Buchla synthesizer, Charlemagne and Bob Feldman experimented with jazz raga and electronics. Very little was recorded. This is one rare duet that dates probably from around 1967. The last track on this CD is the first 30 minutes of a recording from April 22, 1974 by The Fundamental D Flat Group performing in Db. During one trip back to NYC from Cal Arts, Charlemagne Palestine was invited by Tony Conrad (together with Rhys Chatham) to Albright College in New Jersey for a Sunday afternoon concert. That was the first and last time The Fundamental D Flat Group played in public (Tony Conrad : violin, horn, string drone; Rhys Chatham: flute, organ, string drone; Charlemagne Palestine: voice, pipes, snifter). Although the piece lasted all afternoon, the first 30 minutes were the only portion recorded during the performance. The Fundamental D Flat Group invites you to listen and meditate in the mode of Db. To hear this is to enter the deepest realm of knowledge of the sound current. This CD is housed in a beautiful digipack with a full-color sleeve with photos and liner notes. The edition presents some of the best recordings ever issued by Charlemagne Palestine, a highlight in the Alga Marghen catalog and a unique chance to listen to the core of Charlemagne Palestine.
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2LP
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ALGAMARS 004LP
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One of Charlemagne Palestine's most well-known works, Four Manifestations on Six Elements is presented here as a 2LP record edition limited to 180 numbered copies, the first publication of Algamars, the new sonic art division of Alga Marghen. The gatefold sleeve is silkscreened in one color and presents a signed drawing by Charlemagne Palestine on the front cover. In 1973 Charlemagne Palestine was commissioned to make Four Manifestations on Six Elements by the Sonnabend Gallery in New York. As the gallery was well known for its presentation of conceptual art, Palestine decided to create a record similar to an exhibition space with four walls to expose on, each wall corresponding to a side on a double LP record. "Two Perfect Fifths, a Major Third Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is an electronic piece that deals with the search for the essence of timbre and sound color, through exploration of the inert chemical activity in the overtone series of tone fundamentals. In this genre of his work Palestine feels akin to a kind of sound alchemist -- blending elements over and over again through the years searching for the "Golden Sound" -- the essence of the chord or harmonic structure itself. In "One + Two + Three Perfect Fifths, in the Rhythm 3 Against 2, for Piano" (1973) the elements introduced are now elaborated upon on the piano. The resonant Bösendorfer allows Palestine to create a more lively and complex variation of tones, intervals, overtones and rhythms. "One Fifth" evolves by reinforcing the fundamentals of a fifth with their higher octave. Each performance of this work is different as Palestine reinterprets these simple elements listening within them for variations of amplitude, mixture and inertia at the moment of the performance. "One + Two Fifths" deals with the way a rhythmic sonority sounds when the sustain pedal of the piano in not used, thus focusing on its rhythmic aspect. Gradually by adding the sustain pedal, the external rhythmic pattern begins to internalize, becoming an inert part of the whole timbral fabric -- a piece expressing the battle of rhythm versus timbre for dominance. In "One + Two + Three" a third fifth is added -- variations of melody and sonority reinforcements culminating in a rhythmic deceleration process ending the work. "Sliding Fifths for Piano" (1972) is an impressionistic version of the three fifths used in the entire work. The continuous liquid waterfall of pure romantic piano sound and color is an homage to Debussy, Ravel and Monet. "Three Perfect Fifths, a Major Second Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is the continuation of wall one. A pure and sonorous phenomenon. Edition limited to 180 signed and numbered copies in a silkscreened gatefold sleeve, with an original drawing by Charlemagne Palestine on the front cover.
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