Browse by Artist: ASHLEY, ROBERT

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	String Quartet.../How Can I Tell The Difference
Label:	ALGA MARGHEN (ITALY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	ALGA 030CD

"'String Quartet Describing The Motions of Large Real Bodies' was composed as the potential orchestra for an opera based on the text of 'In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men And Women'. When the work was composed, in 1972, it was clear that a huge change in electronic instrumentation was just beginning, a change that would involve computers and sound producing devices as yet undreamed of. The piece consists of an electronic orchestra of 42 sound producing modules. The technique of the string quartet is for each player to make a stream of intentional but unpremeditated (that is, random) very short sounds, pulses, somewhat like pitched clicks, but with the formats and overtones of a string instrument (this idea came from the rumor of a performance by Takehisa Kosugi). These sounds go directly to a set of four loudspeakers, but at the same time they are delayed electronically, and those delayed sounds are sent to a series of seven networks of sound producing modules activated by the very brief coincidence of an original sound and a delayed sound. The operation of the networks as a result of the coincidence can, in the theoretical world of electronics, produce almost any sound imaginable. In the performance recorded here few of the technical resources were available. Now, of course, there are computer 'patching' programs that would make the job possible, but complicated. Such are dreams, when technology promises a 'new world'. Sort of like 1492. The hills and mountains separating San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean are filled with a labyrinth of endless concrete tunnels constructed by the military in the 1930s in anticipation of World War II, to defend San Francisco Bay from invasion. At the entrance of every tunnel is a huge steel door. When the door is slammed, the reverberation through the labyrinth seems to last forever. It is one of the wonders of the world. Naturally, Robert Ashley tried to record this phenomenon. On the occasion of the recording, just as the reverberation seemed to die away, a motorcyclist, miles away in the tunnels, started coming closer. The effect, which took minutes, was as if the reverberation had been reversed, as if the tape recording was running backwards. A perfect case of coincidence as illusion. In Version One of 'How Can I Tell The Difference?' the composer tried to create the drama of the recording of the reverberation and the motorcyclist, using the 'String Quartet' as an 'orchestra', in the way it was intended to be used in the opera. In Version Two of 'How Can I Tell The Difference?' a solo string player using the same playing technique as in the 'String Quartet' opens and closes the sound 'gates' to electronic reverberations and prerecorded sounds running continuously with the performance. A digipack CD edition including an 8 page booklet with scores and liner notes written by Robert Ashley."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Private Parts (The Record)
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1001

1990 CD issue of a 1977 recording, which was the first Lovely Music release. A softly pedaling mood enhancer of exotically weird proportions, this suffers quite a bit from mis-appreciation in today's harsh reality scenario. Ashley's words hover just above your lips like a glowing lung, and it's easy to understand why all of Kyle Gann's friends in the 70s were going around reciting phrases memorized from this album, as they emanate connectively to some false dream society like little else in the world of 70s contemporary art. Not for everyone, I suppose, but the properly channelled will melt right into the couch. "Eventually he recognizes what he's created as the first and last episodes of his opera for television, Perfect Lives, the middle opera of a monumental trilogy tracing the history of the movement of consciousness across America (east to west). This original recording with Ashley's voice, accompanied by 'Blue' Gene Tyranny on keyboards, and 'Kris' on tablas, remains a classic. It is a masterpiece in its simplicity of form and in the purity and intensity of its effect on the listener...Everything in Ashley's creation makes metabolic connections; there's a transpersonal, time-exempt freedom in it; 'the feeling of the idea of silk scarves in the air.' In other words, the effect of his engaging, lyrical expression is that the mind opens. Only a masterpiece does that." -- Melody Sumner.

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Automatic Writing
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1002

A 1996 CD compiling three early Ashley works from the years 1967-79 -- some of his most experimental and out-there works. A classic electronic music collection and an ideal intro into the somewhat foreboding oeuvre of Robert Ashley's recorded works. The title piece is a 46-minute classic from 1979, which rather famously formed the basis for Nurse With Wound's A Missing Sense. Steven Stapleton's commentary upon this summarizes the intense vibe of this recording: "A Missing Sense was originally conceived as a private tape to accompany my taking of LSD. When in that particular state, Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing was the only music I could actually experience without feeling claustrophobic and paranoid. We played it endlessly; it seemed to become part of the room, perfectly blending with the late night city ambience and the 'breathing' of the building." The piece features the voices of Ashley and Mimi Johnson, with electronics and Polymoog backing, with a switching circuit designed and built by Paul DeMarinis. A fascinating and mysterious work focused on "involuntary speech". The second piece on this CD is "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" from 1968. It features the voice of Cynthia Liddell, backed by singers, bells and crackle. Originally issued on the Mainstream label, as an excerpt for a theatre work for amplified voices and tape. The final piece, "She Was a Visitor" is from 1967, originally issued on the infamous electronic compilation Extended Voices (CBS Odyssey), featuring experimental vocals works. Performed by the The Brandeis University Chamber Chorus, directed by Alvin Lucier.

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Yellow Man With Heart With Wings
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1003

1990 CD issue of this 1978 piece for voice and electronics. The electronics (with additional Clavinet by "Blue" Gene Tyranny) start out shimmering and subtle, slowing building up in strange, menacing fashion. The first part is in Spanish (with Guillermo Grenier providing the voice); the second part is "in English" (heavily processed vocals by Ashley) and quite radical -- easy to imagine this one sitting very high in a United Dairies-like universe.

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	eL/Aficionado
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1004

1994 release, with 48 page libretto. Featuring Thomas Buckner as The Agent and Sam Ashley, Jacqueline Humbert & Robert Ashley as his interrogators. Orchestration by Robert Ashley. Engineering and mixing by Tom Hamilton. "This is the fourth opera in Ashley's Now Eleanor's Idea tetralogy: Junior, Jr.'s story. A group of scenes from the life of an Agent. The scenes are a kind of debriefing to a jury of Interrogators, in which the Interrogators challenge the Agent in various forms of musical dialogue. The mood of the opera owes much to our fascination with espionage and with the character of those people who lead double lives."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Dust
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1006

"Dust features the voices of Robert Ashley, Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Tom Hamilton, Jacqueline Humbert, and Joan La Barbara. 'Blue' Gene Tyranny and Tom Hamilton provide synthesizer and live mixing. The electronic orchestration is by Robert Ashley, Tom Hamilton and 'Blue' Gene Tyranny, with sound effects for 'Friends' composed by Tom Hamilton. This recording was made live at the Kitchen in April of 1999. Modeled upon the medieval form of a motet, Dust layers the voices of five characters, drawing upon the 'street-talk' practice of speaking and hearing at the same time. Introducing new techniques in vocal and orchestral styles, and featuring video projections by Yukihiro Yoshihara, Dust conjures up a Futurist fusion of dream and reality to deal with questions of memory and irretrievable loss. Through a series of related works over the past two decades, Robert Ashley has connected opera with stream-of-consciousness poetry, with advanced forms of narrative and with new ideas about the nature of operatic ensemble. A major figure in American experimental music theater, the depth of Ashley's librettos reveals a highly developed literary mind as well as that of a first rate composer."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Celestial Excursions
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1007

"After the ground-breaking work, Dust, godfather of experimental opera Robert Ashley returns with Celestial Excursions. Ashley's latest endeavor explores remarkably uncharted territory -- the kind of language that is common among 'old' people who talk all the time or not at all, to anyone passing by or to themselves. Celestial Excursions delves into the wild intermingling of reminiscence, regret, love, nightmare, old sayings, and songs on the radio -- all seemingly to no purpose, except for the operatic end of relentless speed and precision in ensemble singing and the possible stage magic inherent in illusion, hallucination, and a physically changed state of the senses. The opera's originality lies in a use of a new vocal technique Ashley has built over the last 20 years, which enables several stories to be heard at the same time. In an intricate vocal system, a principal voice is 'chased' by other voices whose parts rotate in sequence in a given order. The result of this technique creates a complex jungle of voices, delivered with an extraordinary rhythmic intensity rarely heard in ensemble singing. As for all of Ashley's latest works, the orchestra music of Celestial Excursions was composed in the computer-synthesizer studio. All the voices and the orchestra (on multi-track tape or on disc) are processed again during the concert in order to match the sound of the opera to the performance space. And for this CD release, Ashley went back to the studio with live recordings to rework the piece, extending the orchestra in the final act. 2-CD jewel box and 104-page libretto in slipcase."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Foreign Experiences
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1008

"Robert Ashley's Now Eleanor's Idea is a quartet of short operas based on the notion of a sequence of events seen from four different points of view. At the same time, each opera is an allegory, like Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for an individual's self-realization within the context of a major religion found in the United States. Improvement takes its imagery and plot from Judaism, Foreign Experiences from Pentecostal Evangelism, eL/Aficionado from Corporate Mysticism, and Now Eleanor's Idea from (Spanish) Catholicism. The inspiration for these works came specifically from four sources: the work of the historian, Frances A. Yates (1900-1983), whose specialty of interests included the influence of Kabbalistic mysticism on the birth of modernism and scientific philosophy in Italy in the 16th century (as a result of the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the Inquisition); the writings of Carlos Castaneda (and the arguments about him as a writer and about the intentions of his work); Low Rider Magazine, the fan-cult magazine of the Low Rider movement in the Southwestern United States; and finally, corporate vocabulary, what it sounds like and how it is used in popular publications, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or Fortune Magazine. Slipcase contains one CD in jewel box with 96-page libretto booklet."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Now Eleanor's Idea
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1009

"At long last, the complete Now Eleanor's Idea quartet of operas is available on CD with the release of the final opera in the quartet, also called Now Eleanor's Idea. This release includes a booklet with the libretto and several pages of fantastic color photographs from Chimayo, NM, the town that helped inspire the story (well, that and Low Rider magazine). 'Opera likes to simplify and enlarge its characters to make them fit grand themes. Mr. Ashley goes in the opposite direction and arrives at the cosmos just as easily. Mundane chitchat about good eating habits or car repair turns to metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, not to mention psychiatry, before we know it.' --Bernard Holland, The New York Times. Robert Ashley's Now Eleanor's Idea is a quartet of short operas based on the notion of a sequence of events seen from four different points of view. At the same time, each opera is an allegory, like Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for an individual's self-realization within the context of a major religion found in the United States. Improvement takes its imagery and plot from Judaism, 'Foreign Experiences' from Pentecostal Evangelism, 'eL/Aficionado' from Corporate Mysticism, and 'Now Eleanor's Idea' from (Spanish) Catholicism. While working at The Bank, the title character, Now Eleanor, has a sort of 'religious experience' that fills her with an 'approach of the end of the world feeling.' This feeling compels her to leave her job in the Midwest, move to New Mexico, and become a newscaster to try to discover the point where the religions of America -- Judaism, Protestantism, Business and Catholicism merge. But there is more in store for her than she realizes."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Concrete
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1010

This 2CD set comes packaged with a 96-page booklet. "Premiered in January 2007 at the legendary La Mama Theater, Concrete is Robert Ashley's newest masterpiece. Though it is not made explicit in any way, the libretto concerns itself with the 'musings' of an old man alone. He thinks about strange questions and even as the questions are asked, they are answered in various forms of sarcasm, indifference, questions about the questions and explanations. In other words, he is talking to himself. The opera takes the form of five 'discussions' about matters he wonders about: why do people keep secrets about themselves? Why do the buildings in the city all line up perfectly (vertically) when the surface of the planet is round? Why is it that so many things that people do as recreation are played counter-clockwise? What has happened to the many women friends ('lovers') he has had and 'left behind' and why were they left behind? And, finally, he ponders the incident in which he recently saw a 'flying carpet' in his bedroom. The five 'internal' discussions alternate with four reminiscences about people the old man has worked with and loved. The reminiscences are short and detailed biographies of seemingly ordinary people who in the past did extraordinary things -- sometimes criminal, sometimes just brave in an unusual way -- but will never be recognized for what they did. The stories will never be known, except to the audience. No one is named. These are secret lives. The musical technique of the opera allows the singers, in ensemble and as soloists, complete freedom with regard to vocal pitch, speech nuance and inflection. The orchestra, recorded on the computer, is made up of some hundreds of composed, short orchestral 'samples' which can be chosen at the moment to make up the accompaniment to the singers' decisions about how to tell the story." Music & libretto, orchestra samples, design and live mixing by Robert Ashley. Voices: Joan La Barbara, Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Jacqueline Humbert. Voices and orchestra live mixing and processing: Tom Hamilton.

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Atalanta (Acts of God)
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	2CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	LCD 3301

Originally released in 1997. "Ashley makes use of the story of 'Atalanta' -- a royal princess, discarded by her family, who was raised by the animals to become the fastest-running human, and who was later reclaimed by her father to marry her off for dynastic purposes -- to present the character aspects of the 'successful suitor.' These three aspects of character are presented in the opera as anecdotes about three extraordinary men of our times: Max Ernst (surrealist painter), Willard Reynolds (shaman storyteller) and Bud Powell (composer pianist). The genius of these three men can be taken to represent three aspects of the opera itself: image, narrative and music. In the imaginary setting of Atalanta (Acts of God), one companion (singer) reminds her of her excellence (the 'Odalisque' arias); another recommends to her the characteristics of excellence in men (the 'Character Reference' arias); and a third amuses her with anecdotes, as if told to her by each of the three men (the 'Anecdotes'). Robert Ashley, solo voice; with Thomas Buckner, Carla Tato, Jacqueline Humbert, voices; 'Blue' Gene Tyranny, keyboards; Paul Shorr, mixing and electronics. Recorded live at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome. Sung in English and Italian."

Artist:	ASHLEY, ROBERT
Title:	Perfect Lives
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	2DVD
Price:	$58.00
Catalog #:	LDVD 4917

Double DVD release! Ashley's classic "Opera For Television", from 1983. "Perfect Lives has been called 'the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s.' At its center is the hypnotic voice of Robert Ashley. His continuous song narrates the events of the story and describes a 1980's update of the mythology of small town America. Perfect Lives is populated with myriad characters revolving around two musicians -- 'R,' the singer of myth and legend, and his friend, Buddy, 'The World's Greatest Piano Player.' They have come to a small town in the Midwest to entertain at the Perfect Lives Lounge. As Robert Ashley describes in the opera synopsis, 'they fall in with two locals to commit the perfect crime, a metaphor for something philosophical: in this case, to remove a sizable about of money from The Bank for one day (and one day only) and let the whole world know that it was missing.' The eloping couple, Ed and Gwyn, the old people at the home, the sheriff and his wife (Will and Ida) who finally unravel the mystery, and Isolde who watches the celebration of the changing of the light at sundown from the doorway of her mother's house are some of the characters who journey through the seven episodes of the opera. Derived from a colloquial idiom, Perfect Lives transforms familiar material into an elaborate metaphor for the rebirth of the human soul. It has been called a comic opera about reincarnation." First time on DVD, digitally re-mastered. Deluxe digi-pak packaging. NTSC format, 175 minutes long.

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