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LP
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JBH 097LP
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Sublime unreleased soundtrack by Ron Geesin for one of the most important and controversial films in British cinema history. Side one is the score for Sunday Bloody Sunday, the controversial 1971 drama directed by John Schlesinger. Starring Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson, and Murray Head, it tells the story of an open love triangle between a gay Jewish doctor, a divorced woman and a bisexual young male artist who makes glass fountains. Daniel Day Lewis also makes his uncredited screen debut as a yobbo scratching up posh cars. The films significance at the time of release lay in the depiction of a mature gay man who was both successful, well-adjusted and at peace with his sexuality. Features Bridget St. John on two tracks. The music on side two comes from two different sources: tracks one to four are from the 1985 Channel Four documentary about Viv Richards. Simply called Viv it was directed by Greg Lanning, with words and narration by Darcus Howe. It was (and still is) a fascinating film recounting Richards's rise from young talented Antiguan to global cricket superstar. It also explored the long history of West Indian players through the English game. Howe later recalled how seeing Viv Richards walking out to bat at the Oval (just down the road from where Howe lived in Brixton) without a helmet on no matter how fast the bowler was -- and wearing his Rasta sweatbands of gold, green and, red, was inspirational. The documentary was later re-titled Viv Richards - King Of Cricket for the video market. The last six cues of side two are from a 1970 BBC Omnibus film Shapes In A Wilderness. Directed by Tristram Powell, this was a documentary about the importance and influence of art therapy in mental hospitals, tracing its origins from a painting hut in a wartime military hospital to its successful and widespread incorporation in institutions. It featured fascinating medical insights, disturbing imagery and Ron's finely tuned accompaniment. The music confirms the fact that Ron Geesin is one of the most underrated, inventive and versatile composers (and musicians). Sleeve art taken from the 1971 film poster.
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LP
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JBH 087LP
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2021 restock. Sublime, unique, sexy, and peculiar unreleased scores by electronic and jazz pioneer Ron Geesin, made for the films by maverick director Stephen Dwoskin. Geesin made great music and worked with Pink Floyd. Dwoskin made odd films, most of them are in the BFI permanent collection. These superb unreleased soundtracks come from a fascinating, progressive, and important period in British film history. They represent an intriguing collaboration between the lively Ron Geesin from Scotland and the American Stephen Dwoskin, who both met in London. Musically they are minimal, charismatic, and quite groundbreaking. Ron's soundtracks for Dwoskin' films, recorded in the Geesins's flat, encompassed Ron's very eclectic range of styles -- madcap piano and fretted banjo as well as tape manipulation. Aside from Ron's soundtracks, some of which belong to films that no longer exist (including Pot-Boiler). There was no London equivalent to the underground film scene that Dwoskin had known in New York, and his films remained unseen until such a scene began to come into being, in the autumn of 1966. Some of them made their debut at the Mercury Theatre, near Notting Hill Gate, that September. Dwoskin wrote Alone, starring Zelda Nelson (from Ron Rice's Chumlum), and Chinese Checkers, with Beverly Grant and Dwoskin's friend Joan Adler. Soon both Dwoskin and Geesin became involved in the nascent London Film-Makers' Co-op, which put on screenings in Better Books on Charing Cross Road. In the same autumn, Dwoskin moved into a flat almost opposite the Geesins on Elgin Crescent. More collaborations followed, including Naissant, on which Gavin Bryars, whom Geesin had met during a stint on the northern club circuit with novelty act Dr Crock and His Crackpots, played double bass. Around the end of 1967, Geesin released his first solo LP, A Raise of Eyebrows, and Dwoskin won recognition at the Fourth Experimental Film Competition, aka EXPRMNTL 4, an occasional film festival staged at Knokke-le-Zoute in Belgium. By now the films had optical soundtracks. For Moment, a single-shot film, Geesin provided his most experimental score yet. At the time of its debut in 1970, Dwoskin and the Geesins were sharing a house in Ladbroke Grove. By then, Ron was working with Pink Floyd, and soon afterwards he and Frankie moved out to the country, to be replaced by Bryars both in the house and as Dwoskin's principal collaborator. Until now these scores have remained part of the Geesin Archive and have never been issued. Sleeve notes by Ron Geesin.
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CD
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DCLP 010CD
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Ron Geesin on ExpoZoom: "In 1969, I was commissioned to make all the music and organized noises for nineteen looped films to be run in the British Pavilion at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. The overall concept was to have all the films running in fixed positions so that the individual visitors would 'mix' their audio and visual experience by the speed and direction of their movement through and around the environment. Since most of the ninety-second films focused on highly technical aspects of British industry, it was decided with the producer, James Archibald and Associates, that we should do the final sound mixes with the finished films in the dubbing studio from as many ingredients as I thought necessary for each film. So I made all those textures separately, but was never provided with the finished mixes. Recently, I pulled out the five 10.5" spools of tape from my archive and ran them. Firstly, after nearly fifty years, the physical tapes were in good condition being formulated from stable chemicals before the horrible 'sticky tape syndrome' of the 1980s. Secondly, having not revisited any of this material after 1973, I noticed that there were many prototypes of ideas made with much tape editing and analog synthesizers that only emerged from me in the pieces for KPM Electrosound and later in the 1970s, so there was a certain energetic outpouring of crude vitality from these earlier works. After all those years, I had little idea of how the original film tracks were mixed, so I transferred all those initial ingredients to my preferred digital setup and made new pieces, keeping each group of modules under its original title where known. In a few cases I added or strengthened a melodic line and, where pure electronic tones were made on tape with inevitable dropouts, remade the tones digitally. The pieces, influenced by the original pavilion layout, then suggested to me that they be grouped in four movements. One piece, 'Wool', is left out because it was lifted as 'Twist And Knit For Two Guitars' for my As He Stands (1973) album. Maybe if this lowly composer had been allowed to go to Japan, to join and probably embarrass the gray-suited British Government officials, he would have remembered more about the final structure of the films - and maybe just as well he wasn't, and therefore didn't." Recorded, composed, and mixed by Ron Geesin.
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LP
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DCLP 010LP
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LP version. Ron Geesin on ExpoZoom: "In 1969, I was commissioned to make all the music and organized noises for nineteen looped films to be run in the British Pavilion at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. The overall concept was to have all the films running in fixed positions so that the individual visitors would 'mix' their audio and visual experience by the speed and direction of their movement through and around the environment. Since most of the ninety-second films focused on highly technical aspects of British industry, it was decided with the producer, James Archibald and Associates, that we should do the final sound mixes with the finished films in the dubbing studio from as many ingredients as I thought necessary for each film. So I made all those textures separately, but was never provided with the finished mixes. Recently, I pulled out the five 10.5" spools of tape from my archive and ran them. Firstly, after nearly fifty years, the physical tapes were in good condition being formulated from stable chemicals before the horrible 'sticky tape syndrome' of the 1980s. Secondly, having not revisited any of this material after 1973, I noticed that there were many prototypes of ideas made with much tape editing and analog synthesizers that only emerged from me in the pieces for KPM Electrosound and later in the 1970s, so there was a certain energetic outpouring of crude vitality from these earlier works. After all those years, I had little idea of how the original film tracks were mixed, so I transferred all those initial ingredients to my preferred digital setup and made new pieces, keeping each group of modules under its original title where known. In a few cases I added or strengthened a melodic line and, where pure electronic tones were made on tape with inevitable dropouts, remade the tones digitally. The pieces, influenced by the original pavilion layout, then suggested to me that they be grouped in four movements. One piece, 'Wool', is left out because it was lifted as 'Twist And Knit For Two Guitars' for my As He Stands (1973) album. Maybe if this lowly composer had been allowed to go to Japan, to join and probably embarrass the gray-suited British Government officials, he would have remembered more about the final structure of the films - and maybe just as well he wasn't, and therefore didn't." Recorded, composed, and mixed by Ron Geesin.
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