S/T

Jacques Bekaert

Continuing in the Igloo appreciation thread, here is a replication of IGL 008; Jacques Bekaert's 1981 eponymous LP - following 1979's "Summer Music" for Lovely - containing three tape pieces composed between 1969 & 1978, featuring contributions by a who's who of 60s & 70s Avant Garde & Fluxus figures - Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, David Behrman, David Rosenboom, Maggi Payne, George Lewis, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Ryo Koike, amongst many others. The extended "Late Lunch" - at 28 minutes barely fitting onto an LP side - was composed in 1978; it's a bizarre pastiche of instrumental Concrète figures, subtly tape-delayed per each stereo channel & bordering on the inaudible at times that has, in spots, the same aleatoric Tape-Collage energy of pieces such as Dub Taylor's "Lumiére" or Luis De Pablos's "We (Nosotros);" yet retaining a more composerly lilt that makes me think of another recent Creel Pone "Graduate" - David Cope's "K • Weeds." "A Summer Day At Stony Point" was composed in 1969 Brussels' Studio de Musique Electronique APELAC & comes out of the gate with all pistons firing via a spectacularly bleep-oriented phase of errant electronics & backwards-masked squawks before heading into a long section of tape-echo'ed insectoid formations & vague held-tone Oscillator drift. Finally, "Mon Petit Album" was prepared in 1974 at Mills' CCM - Center of Contemporary Music & consists of Bekaert & Kosugi's flute & violin phrasings wrapped around a subtly transfigured array of processed sounds, both alienating & simultaneously quite welcoming. Both "Late Lunch" & "Mon Petit Album" were used as scores to experimental films by Akiko Iimura. An amazing selection of pieces that straddle the divide between Ensemble Composition, Live Electronic augmentation & GRM styled assemblage of constituent instrumental playing; if you've only heard the - frankly, tepid - Lovely outing, this should rewire your brain suitably as to Bekaert's range & prowess.

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Creel Pone, 2007