Browse by Label: KOPF (GERMANY)

Artist:	MOONDOG
Title:	Elpmas
Label:	KOPF (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	KD 123314CD

Originally released in 1991, Moondog's Elpmas is a landmark late-period work by the legendary composer. After a prolonged period of silence while living in Germany, Louis Thomas Hardin (aka Moondog) returned to America in 1989 to partake in a highly-praised performance at the 10th New Music America Festival, sharing the program with John Zorn and Butch Morris. Although returning to his home in Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany shortly after the performance, the sudden attention and renewal of interest in his work prompted Moondog, then in his late-70s, to record new material. Elpmas is the stunning result of a revitalized legend still at the peak of his vitality and innovation. On Elpmas, Moondog uses a sampler for the very first time, complementing his compositions with field recordings, and explaining, "The sampler is ideal for my kind of music, which is mostly contrapuntal, specifically canonic." The percolating marimba patterns on opening track "Wind River Powow" recalls the type of pure, luscious tone-studies that once deemed Moondog "the founder of minimalism" by Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but Elpmas is a varied, thematic work, epic in scope and dedicated to the aboriginal peoples of the world. "Westward Ho!" is an 8-part canon depicting the western migration from Europe to the New World, and features guest musicians Götz Alsmann and Andi Toma (Mouse On Mars). "Suite Equestria" is the most energizing piece on the album, its intricate marimba pattern carried to epic heights by the incursion of a valiant male chorus. Elpmas also introduces Moondog's "Overtone Continuum," an ambitious compositional system in which a 4-part male chorus is overdubbed 12 times, resulting in the disorienting 144-voice experiment "The Message." The album ends with "Cosmic Meditation," a 24-minute expanse of hazy warmth and melancholic, Eno-esque ambience intended to suggest the rising and falling waves of the Siderial Sea. As Moondog concludes in the liner notes, "Its unworldly sound brings one close to the essence of things, to the 'peace that passeth all understanding.'"

Artist:	MOONDOG
Title:	A New Sound Of An Old Instrument
Label:	KOPF (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	KD 133017CD

Originally released in 1979 by Kopf and reissued in 1999. By the time A New Sound Of An Old Instrument was released, Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin) had made his home in Germany for 5 years, and decided to compose this suite of pieces in honor of "The King Of Instruments," the pipe organ. "The organ has not been called the 'King of Instruments' for nothing, because of all instruments, it has the widest range of possibilities, lending itself to any mood or style. In suffering the organ to emit secular and even profane music, namely dance music, I do not find it out of place, since I am fully aware of the organ's pagan beginnings, the pipes of Pan." Playing upon this notion, Moondog matches several of these organ pieces with shakers and other forms of knocking percussion which lends an organic feel to what is traditionally thought of as a formal, unbendable instrument. On the contrary, Moondog emphasizes the percussive and contrapuntal/staccato tones the organ is capable of producing, rather than drones, although those are also used here to provide a background for what does feel like decidedly vernal, lilting, woodland pipes. He also explains in the liner notes his "logrundrs," a canonical method of counterpoint. A New Sound Of An Old Instrument is a true Moondog oddity, but his mastery of illustrating the neverending nature of patterns in melodic tone and sequence are especially prominent here, focused as it is on one instrument. Organs played by Fritz Storfinger and Wolfgang Schwering. Package includes liner notes written by Louis T. Hardin himself.

Artist:	MOONDOG
Title:	In Europe
Label:	KOPF (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	KD 330140CD

Originally released by Kopf in 1977, and reissued in 1999, Moondog In Europe was visionary composer Louis Thomas Hardin's (aka Moondog) first release after moving to Germany. Perhaps reflecting the historicity of his new environment, this album is more structured and formal than most of his previous releases; however, his layered song-cycles are just as circular and experimental, and still backed by a fair amount of tribal percussion. There are moments of whimsy, as on "In Vienna," with its bouncing, music-box like celesta, or on "Viking I," also reflected with a snappy celesta melody, but there are also moments of parlor-room somberness, as on the string arrangements for "Romance In G" or the last 20+ minutes of the album, which is comprised exclusively of extremely heavy pipe-organ suites. Moondog In Europe, though less playful than other of his albums, displays Moondog's virtuosity as a classical composer, with elegantly stylized pieces that see Moondog embracing a grandiosity he hadn't approached previously.

Artist:	MOONDOG
Title:	H'Art Songs
Label:	KOPF (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	KD 330160CD

This is Kopf Records' 1999 CD reissue of Moondog's H'art Songs, originally released in Germany in 1978. In 1974, New York City's famous "Viking Of Sixth Avenue" travelled to Europe to produce a concert of his works with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. Afterwards, Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin, 1916-1999), who once told an interviewer that he considered himself a "European in exile," felt compelled to stay on the continent in order to realize the imagined European identity he invoked with his clothing and music. Moondog felt culturally and artistically closer to Europe and it was here where he spent the rest of his life, developing some of the most unique and surprising, if not lesser known developments in his vast body of work. H'art Songs is one anomaly in the composer's output during this period, as each of the songs are considerably traditional in form with a sing-song, almost pop-oriented mentality. All the songs consist of Moondog singing to minimal, catchy piano accompaniments and occasional percussion. Moondog sings with a quavering sincerity in his voice that recalls Robert Wyatt while the pathos and humor in the lyrics to songs like "Enough About Human Rights" ("What about hog rights?/What about frog rights?") and "I'm Just A Hop Head" ("...and so I'll be, till I'm dead/I started hopping when first I hopped into bed") suggests the innocent despair of Daniel Johnston. The simplicity in these songs, however, is misleading, as the repetitive melodies are blessed with subtle chord structures that gradually take on an epic, even otherworldly, feel. This singular quirkiness and radiant uniqueness in approach makes this music distinctly Moondog. Highly accessible yet criminally overlooked, H'Art Songs' music reveals a fascinating stage in Moondog's artistic development, blessed with the understated beauty that makes his work so timeless.

Artist:	MOONDOG & THE LONDON SAXOPHONIC
Title:	Sax Pax For A Sax
Label:	KOPF (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	KD 943333CD

Originally released in 1999, this is a collection of Louis Hardin's (aka Moondog) works arranged and performed by The London Saxophonic, originally intended as a commemoration of Antoine Joseph Sax. "The composer calls his saxophone project 'Sax Pax,' underlining that in this case the saxophones are not to be linked with military bands for which the instruments originally had been intended, but are used exclusively for peaceful purposes. 'Pax' like peace or packs, meaning different sized groups within the ensemble, the first 'pack' involves 4 saxes, as in 'Single Foot,' the second one using 5 saxes, as in 'Sandalwood,' then seven saxes, as in 'New Amsterdam,' nine saxes in 'Novette No. 1,' and so on." --from the liner notes. The layering of saxes as such can alternately sound like chamber music, and also very much like raucous street jazz. Most pieces are written in canon form, having up to 36 voices. The ensemble also features luminaries of British saxophone music and other key artists including Peter Hammill, Danny Thompson (Pentangle), Andrew Davis, and Stuart Gordon. Includes a 16-page booklet featuring extensive liner notes on the music, lyrics, and photos.

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page