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LP
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BLUME 014LP
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It's little wonder that Julius Eastman (who died in 1990 under unexplained circumstances), remained the supreme underground composer. He was Afro-American and gay, a composer who rocked the cerebral world of process music with his explosions of free improvisation. Crazy Nigger is the first time any of Eastman's music has been available on vinyl, and is one of three extended pieces for four pianos, along with Gay Guerrilla and Evil Nigger, written and performed around 1980. All three works generate their epic soundscapes through adamantly restated patterns and interlocking canons, not fragmenting, but preaching urgent truths. To quote the brilliant Mary Jane Leach liners: "He wrote what can be categorized as minimal music, but also wrote 'post-minimal' music -- before minimal music was fully established." His pieces straddle both styles of minimal music; rhythmic/pulse-driven music (Steve Reich and Philip Glass) and spectral drone music (La Monte Young and Phill Niblock). There is a flexibility that lends an organic feel to his music, a muscularity missing in a lot of other music from that time; with the re-emergence of this powerful music, a missing gap in the history of contemporary music has been filled. Not released commercially upon their recording, they were instead shared on cassettes, copied and passed from one admirer to another. Unlike today's instant access to music, at that time each new copy represented a time commitment, since it took as long to copy as its playing time, while also removing itself further from the original recording with a resultant deterioration in sound quality. The three pieces occupy a high point in Eastman's oeuvre, the culmination of his mature style. Crazy Nigger is a sprawling sonic study, the last section exploring canonic form both harmonically and rhythmically, using the same process as James Tenney's Spectral Canon, but notated in a more intuitive way. Offering extensive liner notes by Leach and Bradford Bailey, this is a seminal work by one of the most important, but neglected, American composers of the 1970s and '80s, returning to the light once more. Not only is Crazy Nigger an entire rethinking of minimalism, but it ferociously blows the doors of what classical music can be seen to be. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi. Includes printed inner sleeve housing a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve, plus obi-style original insert in a fold-out outer sleeve. 180 gram, color vinyl.
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LP
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BLUME 015LP
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Julius Eastman's seminal classics are now reissued on vinyl for the first time ever. Gay Guerrilla and Evil Nigger, both composed in 1979 with a third work Crazy Nigger, make up what Eastman called The Nigger Series. Some of the most challenging and beautiful works composed for piano during their era, they double as a window into the intricate thought process and contentiousness of their creator. When the composer was asked to perform the series at Northwestern University in 1980, due to protests by African American students, their titles were censored in the event's program. His response was a flamboyant foreshadowing of the sentiments toward bigoted language which later arose within hip-hop culture -- to publicly take back these words, assert ownership of them, and deploy their power for positive change. What Eastman was early to recognize, was that there is a fundamental difference in what happens when these words are spoken by white people toward people of color, and when people of color deploy them toward a white audience. The balance of power shifts. Eastman's audience was largely heterosexual and white. He knew exactly what he was doing, and to whom he spoke. The object in your hands contains some of the most striking and important music composed during the later decades of the 20th century -- music which remained lost and unheard for years, not because of what it is, but because of who its composer was. It is music, doubling as the voice of a man, which, because it refused to be oppressed, was suppressed or ignored. Eastman's work is a conscious act of intervention, plowing into a context defined by heterosexual whiteness, attacking its unjust demands from within. It is Christ-like -- metaphor and beauty which is impossible to separate from the evils of the world. It is a music which carries the body of a man. As it speaks to our hearts, as it offers a glimpse of the freedoms implied by the sublime, a shackle is bound -- a consciousness of our complicity with unforgivable sin. Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi. Includes printed inner sleeve housing a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve, plus an original insert that functions as obi; Housed in a fold-out outer sleeve. 180 gram, color vinyl.
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2LP
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BLUME 014-15LP
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$52.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 3/29/2019
Very limited double-LP bundled version of the two individual LPs, 180 gram color vinyl. Includes printed inner, Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve, plus and Obi-style insert in a fold-out outer sleeve. Only a handful of years ago, the name Julius Eastman would have been met by a unanimous blank look. The legacy of this once-darling of the New York post-minimal avant-garde had, since his untimely death at the age of 49, in 1990, been almost entirely lost. Eastman's story is as fascinating as they come: black, angry, and queer in an all too polite, straight white musical world. A prodigy and genius whose music took him to astounding heights, whose unwillingness to conform and play by the rules took him down the path of drug abuse and homelessness, as well as the loss of his scores. Even before his death, he was already a forgotten name. Eastman belongs to a generation of composers who inherited the mantel left by minimalism, but despite being highly respected by his peers, he was given few chances to record his work, relegating most of his talent as a singer and pianist to the realization of others' work. It was Eastman who conducted the iconic recording of Arthur Russell's Tower of Meaning, and whose piano cuts its way across the 1976 recording of Morton Feldman's For Frank O'Hara. It's likely that Eastman's work would have been entirely lost, had it not been for rigorous efforts of a few close friends, the most persistent of whom was the composer, Mary Jane Leach, who spent years tracking down his lost scores. These efforts eventually led to the comprehensive CD collection, Unjust Malaise (2005). It was the beginning of a turning tide, and over the 13 years since, Eastman's singular voice has slowly returned to the audience he always deserved. It also represented the recorded debut of some his most thrilling and controversial work, three compositions for piano from what he called the N*gger Series: Gay Guerrilla, Evil N*gger, and Crazy N*gger. The three pieces are now issued across two LPs in their first-ever vinyl release with extensive liner notes by Leach and Bradford Bailey. These three seminal works by one of the most important, but neglected, American composers of the 1970s and '80s, return to the light once more. Not only are they an entire rethinking of musical minimalism, but they ferociously blow the doors off of what classical music can be. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
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CD
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NW 80797CD
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"'The composer is therefore enjoined to accomplish the following: she must establish himself as a major instrumentalist, he must not wait upon a descending being, and she must become an interpreter, not only of her own music and career, but also the music of her contemporaries, and give a fresh new view of the known and unknown classics.' --Julius Eastman Just when you think you are grasping the breadth and quality of the music of Julius Eastman (1940?1990), a recording such as Julius Eastman: The Zürich Concert shows up, and you have to go back and reassess his work and wonder what will show up next. This recording is from a 1980 solo seventy-minute improvisatory concert in Zürich, a cherished cassette made by a friend of Eastman's, who recently realized its uniqueness and decided that he should share it. The Zürich Concert was performed on October 25, 1980 in the Aula Rämibühl gallery. Eastman was in Europe participating in The Kitchen tour, and a Swiss friend, Dieter Hall, a painter who had been living in the East Village, arranged the concert. Hall recorded it on a cassette machine, so there is the inevitable gap when the tape had to be turned over, as Eastman played non-stop for seventy minutes. Simply put, The Zürich Concert is a revelation. Listening to this recording, one is overwhelmed by the cascades of sound, the power of the playing. It almost seems as if the piano will start bouncing across the floor like an out-of-control washing machine. But there is also space and delicacy in the playing. As a whole, the music never flags, and your attention doesn't wane, as you are drawn in by the intensity of the playing and the coherence and wonder of the music being made."
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CD
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FR 006CD
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Restocked. This recording is the première release of Julius Eastman's Femenine, for chamber ensemble. It is Femenine's only known recording, documenting a 1974 performance by the S.E.M. Ensemble (with the composer on piano) that has lain unheard for decades. The music of Julius Eastman (1940-1990) is enjoying an ongoing period of rediscovery. Known best in the past for his work with figures like Peter Maxwell Davies, Arthur Russell, and Meredith Monk, today his own formidable compositions continue to draw increasing admiration. Joyous, insistent, and immersive, Femenine bathes the listener in surges of tonal color from intertwining winds, piano, violin, pitched percussion, synthesizer, and -- uniquely -- the composer's own invention of mechanized sleigh bells, which provide the 72-minute piece with its characteristic pulse. Illuminating sleeve notes are provided by composer and author Mary Jane Leach, who is co-editor of Gay Guerrilla, a 2015 collection of essays on Eastman's life and music. Recorded by Steve Cellum -- co-producer of Arthur Russell's World of Echo -- and mastered by Denis Blackham. CD in slim card package with insert. "Eastman's stated aim with Femenine was to please listeners, saying of the piece that 'the end sounds like the angels opening up heaven . . . should we say euphoria?' " --Mary Jane Leach
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3CD
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NW 80638CD
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Restocked. "This three-disc set marks the first appearance on disc of the music of the African-American composer Julius Eastman (1940-1990), who died fourteen years ago under unexplained circumstances and whose musical legacy was thought lost. This comprehensive and definitive document, which comprises almost all of Eastman's signature works, will undoubtedly be a revelation for those who have thus far been unable to hear his work. In his book American Music in the Twentieth Century, composer/author Kyle Gann briefly sums up Eastman's work and its importance: 'Born in New York, he graduated from the Curtis Institute in composition and was discovered by Lukas Foss, who conducted his music, including Stay On It (1973), one of the first works to introduce pop tonal progressions and free improvisation in an art context... Applying minimalism's additive process to the building of sections, he developed a composing technique he called 'organic music,' a cumulatively overlapping process in which each section of a work contains, simultaneously, all the sections which preceded it. The pieces he wrote in this style often had intentionally provocative titles intended to reinterpret the minorities Eastman belonged to in a positive light: for example, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and Gay Guerrilla (all circa 1980). These three pieces, all scored for multiple pianos, build up immense emotive power through the incessant repetition of rhythmic figures.' Eastman was an energizing underground figure, one whose forms are clear, whose methods were powerful and persuasive, and whose thinking was supremely musical. His works show different routes minimalism might have taken, and perhaps some of those will now be followed up. This set of discs is a bold beginning to restoring to history the works of one of the most important members of the first post-minimalist generation."
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