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.
Blinding Turbulence
Tip! Recorded and mixed by Bob Bellerue at Ridgewood Badlands.Mastered by Ivan FU Pjevcevic at Short Straw studio, Bologna
Sound
Sound: An Exhibition of Sound Sculpture, Instrument Building and Acoustically Tuned Spaces opened at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in the summer of 1979 (and was also on view later that year at PS1 in New York). Curated by Bob Wilhite and Robert Smith, the exhibition surveyed the field of sound art. The forty-four participants were painters pivoted toward performance, conceptual artists attracted to time-based mediums, self-styled creators of environments, and musicians (formally…
John Duncan / T.R. Kirstein
*Limited edition of 200 copies* "On May 31st, 2019, the day Roky Erickson from 13th Elevators died (I later found out), I woke up from a dream of sound and text. I dreamt that John Duncan kept repeating the words You Are Safe entangled with sine waves. So I instantly shot him a message asking if it was too weird to do exactly that. He replied: "not too weird". " -- Tobias R. Kirstein -- You Are Safe and Come To Me are the first two collaborative tracks by Danish composer/artist Tobias R. Kirstei…
Try Again
**Purple vinyl edition** Distorted classical choral recordings, synths, processed guitar… The exquisitely complex human-machine interface experiments conducted by Stefano Pilia are kept in a delicate balance by John Duncan‘s lyrics and the soulful quality of his vocals, for an album of electroacoustic songs that are a unique blend for both artists. Seeds and memories from the past are re-actualized in the present through a machine electroacoustic compositional process creating a dark, gloomy and…
Insnitt
Ideal Recordings presents Insnitt By Carl Michael Von Hausswolff. Recorded at the opening of CM von Hausswolff’s solo exhibition ”Insnitt” at 3:e Våningen, Gothenburg on September 14th 2018. With: John Duncan, Leif Elggren, Jean-Louis Huhta, Joachim Nordwall, Henrik Rylander. Cover photo by CM von Hausswolff. Design by Joe Gilmore at Qubik. Produced by Joachim Nordwall.
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…
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…
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…
Da sich die Machtgier
Compiling the results of what was originally intended to be a compositional collaboration between John Duncan and renowned sound artist Asmus Tietchens, Da Sich Die Machtgier… transcends its tumultuous creation to stand as a distinctive addition to the catalogue of both artists "Asmus Tietchens proposed that he and I work together years ago — many years ago. For a variety of reasons it didn't happen , and at this point I don't remember any of them. Finally we agreed to start: I asked him to send…
s/t
**Released in a limited edition of 500 numbered copies** A compilation of live recordings specially released for a Die Stadt label night feat. All artists, at Argos in Brussels on 18. October 2007. The John Duncan recording was made at The Compound , San Francisco on 21 July 2007. Kontakt der Junglinge (Asmus Tietchens & Thomas Koner) 'Montreal Solution 1' is an excerpt from their live performance at Mutek Festival, Montreal on 28 May, 2003. The final track on this CD is by C.M. Von Hausswolff a…
Our telluric conversation
'23five Incorporated proudly presents Our Telluric Conversation - the second collaborative album from John Duncan and Carl Michael von Hausswolff. This is an album which Duncan describes as having been galvanized by magnetism. In a semantic sleight of hand, Duncan and Hausswolff reveal magnetism through a duality of meanings. One on hand, they speak of the physical phenomenon of charged objects that exert an attraction or repulsion upon other objects; yet on the other, magnetism can be defined t…