John Duncan (born June 17, 1953 in Wichita, Kansas, USA) has operated for decades at the cutting edge of performance, video, experimental music, installation, pirate radio and television. He has played a pivotal role in the development of performance art in Los Angeles, of experimental music as a member of LAFMS Los Angeles Free Music Society, of Japanese noise and pirate radio in Tokyo.
John Duncan
John Duncan (born June 17, 1953 in Wichita, Kansas, USA) has operated for decades at the cutting edge of performance, video, experimental music, installation, pirate radio and television. He has played a pivotal role in the development of performance art in Los Angeles, of experimental music as a member of LAFMS Los Angeles Free Music Society, of Japanese noise and pirate radio in Tokyo.
Chimeratorium
**100 numbered copies in gatefold sleeve, to be released in June 2020** Chimeratorium is based on an audio dream that Deison had. He dreamt about making a new piece together with John Duncan: they were in a large room, in an old church, sculpting frequencies repeatedly for hours. Sounds and frequencies have been then recreated in the studio according to that particular event, becoming the long beautiful suites Theta Waves and Portal, the latter being a collaboration track by both artists.John Du…
MMXX-02
The second instalment of Matière Mémoire Éditions’ MMXX series - Panic@11000 Feet - comes from John Duncan, a near legend who, since his emergence during the 1970s, has straddled the complex territories of performance art, installation, avant-garde music, video art, and experimental film.Many will remember the widely heralded reissue of his debut LP from 1979, Organic, released in 2018 as part of Superior Viaduct’s États-Unis series, but Duncan’s practice began years before, carving a furious pa…
Stark
**numbered edition of 40 copies** New works by John Duncan recorded using shortwaves as a sound source. Recorded and mixed at Pieve del Pino, Sasso Marconi (Italy). Original handdrawn self-portrait by the artist, in a UV luminous sprayed gatefold record sleeve that the artist set on fire. Numbered, dated and signed edition, each copy is different.
Conventional Wisdom
Rich, multi-layered vocal studies and shortwave electronics from avant-garde polymath John Duncan (LAFMS, collaborator with Pan Sonic, Chris & Cosey, Jim O’Rourke and countless others), bolstered by synths, drum machines and arrangements by Joachim Nordwall. Highly recommended if you’re into anything from Scott Walker and Pere Ubu to Jay Glass Dubs, Coil and Ilpo Väisänen’s classic Liima Versions. Venerable avant-garde composer John Duncan follows his prized cycle of cover versions ‘Bitter Ear…
États-Unis Bundle II
**5LP Bundle with Tote Bag**Since its quiet beginnings back in 2011, the San Fransisco based imprint, Superior Viaduct, has come to hold a dominant place in the cultural landscape, stitching an intertwined narrative, crossing multiple genres, between countless forms and periods of counter-cultural music. In 2017 the label launched one of its most interesting and ambitious projects to date, their new sub-label Etats Units, a sonic intervention - an open challenge to how connections in sound are f…
Riot
Hand-numbered LP. Edition of 400 copies. Re-dition of this John Duncan 1984 le Riot album: re-recorded, re-mixed at EMS and expanded with material that didn’t make the initial pressings, all taken from original 8-track master tape - which required them to revive obsolete machinery - and all re-mastered by Rashad Becker for this release; which, according to the legendary avant-garde agitator himself, is finally packaged in artwork befitting of his vision. Or take it straight from the horse’s gob:…
Organic
Lucky restock, totally sold-out at source **First-time vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl, one time pressing.** The inter-disciplinary maverick John Duncan emerged in 1970s Los Angeles as a confrontational performance artist and, as the decade progressed, aligned himself with the experimental-music collective Los Angeles Free Music Society. His sound art appeared on various self-released cassettes and alongside artists such as Jim Pomeroy and Yoshi Wada on the L…
Mantra / Ur Sonate
**edition of 200, numbered*Two new vocal based recordings by the conceptual, and ever challenging artist John Duncan. "Mantra" is a piece by himself and is a choral drone that is highly capturing and transcendent. "Ur Sonate" is a classic sound poem by dadaist Kurt Schwitters composed between 1922-1932. The piece was banned from being recorded for many years (by the Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung). This album is something new for Duncan, but also in a way connected to his "Bitter Earth…
Klaar
Black Truffle present the first ever vinyl reissue of legendary performance and sound artist John Duncan's forgotten gem Klaar, originally released by Extreme in 1991 and partly created in collaboration with Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio). Duncan is perhaps most well-known for his notorious early performances pieces, which explored violence, self-denial, and the establishment of extreme psychological and physical states in both artist and audience. Alongside these transgressive experiments, D…
This Bitter Earth
This is the completing release to John Duncan's masterful 'Bitter Earth' LP (iDEAL129). Here, Duncan is covering songs by Gladys Knight ('This Bitter Earth'), Pere Ubu ('Final Solution') and Jule Styne ('I Fall In Love Too Easily'). Beautiful versions by one of the most important conceptual artists of our time. Edition: 200.
Bitter Earth
Bitter Earth is the much anticipated, long-in-the-making new album from John Duncan joined by a broad cast of adroit collaborators; Oren Ambarchi, Jim O’Rourke, Smegma, Chris Abrahams, Joe Talia, CM Von Hausswolff, Eiko Ishibashi, France Jobin - all written in dedication to Mika Vainio (who, for avoidance of doubt, is not dead!). It's a remarkable suite of cover versions - from The Gun Club to Nina Simone and Iggy Pop - and original material by an arch experimenter who continues to explore unfa…
The Black Album
'Masami's and my conversations look like heroin addicts talking : A phrase. A five minute silence. Another phrase. A five minute silence. A question. A five minute silence. Another phrase. A five minute silence. An answer. Et cetera.The BLACK ALBUM shows what's going on in our heads.' - John Duncan
Yeah
Restocked Side A: recorded and mixed in 1993 by John Duncan and Jim O'Rourke at Christoph Heemann's studio in Aachen. Final mix in 2013 by Jim O'Rourke in Tokyo. Side B: Stay alive recorded live with Oren Ambarchi and Joe Talia on 9 March 2013 at SuperDeluxe, Tokyo; mixed by Joe Talia.
YEAHJim and I worked fast and furiously in Christoph Heemann's studio to record this, working in shifts, day and night, three days later had it all but finished -- then Jim said 'Let me do just a couple of t…
Conservatory (San Sebastiano)
Referring to the soundtrack for Conservatory (San Sebastian), John Duncan speaks of 'ghost voices', emphasizing a line of research he's followed in the last several years beginning with Phantom Broadcast (2002), the audio work and live concert performances that utilize a shortwave radio transmission intercepted in the course of a single recording: a shadow play that assumes the form of bells resonating into infinity, where they merge and reverberate, morphing into choruses suspended in space. Du…
First Recordings 1978-85 V1.2
John Duncan was born in Wichita, Kansas and arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, where he became closely associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society, working with Tom Recchion, Fredrik Nilsen, and Joe Potts. His early practice combined radical performance work, live radio experimentation over KPFK's Close Radio with Paul McCarthy, and an obsessive engagement with shortwave radio that would define his sound for decades. He left the United States for Tokyo in 1982, continued work with p…
There must be a way accross this river / The abject
EVP recordings made in 2009 by Esposito at the onetime home of Duncan in Prospect Heights, Illinois, to which the current resident would not permit entry (though his spouse had previously agreed to it). Heidi Harman, the medium who was present at the encounter, heard Duncan's name specified by the voice. There Must Be A Way Across This River represents Duncan's involvement and processing of the events at his childhood home; The Abject is the result of Z'ev dealing with the occurrences in …
The Tailing
Slow writhing in near-total darkness Intertwining drones from a church organ Movement and sound heavy, thick as oil Erotic and forbidden. Produced and directed by John Duncan, Music by John Duncan - A microscopical audiovisual study on pornography by the great american sound artist - "The calligraphy of the title frame has a distinctly Gothic flourish, and John Duncan taps deeper into that culturally overplayed yet still potent and potentially transgressive tradition as The TAILING unfurls. It'…
Fresh
The zeitkratzer ensemble performing two tracks by John Duncan in a collaboration promoted last year by Podewil in Berlin. A project started over a year ago, the result of continuous and tenatious work over several meetings between Duncan and the musicians, in charge of performing two originally electronic compositions with their acoustic instruments.The 27 minutes of the first piece revisit NAV-FLEX, a composition published last year by Duncan in the double CD with Francisco López, NAV . In zeit…
Nine suggestions
NINE SUGGESTIONS gathers collaborations over the past couple of years between sound installation artist John Duncan and the two members of Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. Duncan's previous collaborators have included Elliott Sharp, Bernhard Günter and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and the album is on his own label. As Pan Sonic's reputation would lead you to expect, there's enormous confidence here in the handling of material, whether we're talking about distorted screeching like the st…
Crucible
Crucible is a minute sound installation recorded at an outdoor concert in the tiny village of Topolò on the Italian-Slovenian border in July 1997. Its thunderous opening is literally the sound of a downpour which Duncan harnesses and treats to produce something elemental yet edgily unnatural. Bruce Gilbert's work springs to mind though Duncan has a less synthetic touch. The aquatic theme continues as water drains down pipes, gutters and sewers. Thereafter an eerie quiescence pervades. There is s…