Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad was one of the most compelling figures in 20th century music, a profoundly influential composer whose radical styles resist textbook definitions and challenge accepted notions of the minimalist canon. In 1962 he co-founded the groundbreaking ensemble known as the Dream Syndicate. Wielding a drone both aggressively confrontational and subtly mesmerizing, he and his collaborators -- including La Monte Young and future Velvet Underground co-founders John Cale and Angus MacLise -- created some of the most revolutionary music of that – or any -- decade.
Tony Conrad was one of the most compelling figures in 20th century music, a profoundly influential composer whose radical styles resist textbook definitions and challenge accepted notions of the minimalist canon. In 1962 he co-founded the groundbreaking ensemble known as the Dream Syndicate. Wielding a drone both aggressively confrontational and subtly mesmerizing, he and his collaborators -- including La Monte Young and future Velvet Underground co-founders John Cale and Angus MacLise -- created some of the most revolutionary music of that – or any -- decade.
In the Merry Month of May
Huge Tip! In the Merry Month of May is the final studio recording of the late, great Tony Conrad, and the first duo release with Jennifer Walshe, one of Conrad’s most important collaborators in the final decade of his life. Befitting these two absurdly gifted hell-raisers, this is a wild, improvisatory flaying of song, with Walshe’s clarion voice at the heart of the enterprise. The sheer sonic force of opener “In the Merry Month of May” recalls the ecstatic charge of Conrad’s Slapping Pythagoras…
Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain
Premiering to the world at large, Tony Conrad’s gobsmacking quintessential opus Ten Years Alive is now available to hear for the first time, featuring Laurie Spiegel and Rhys Chatham and arriving via Superior Viaduct just over a year since the death of the iconoclastic avant-garde violinist and composer in 2016
Outside The Dream Syndicate
Temporary Super Offer! Violinist, composer and filmmaker Tony Conrad started his career in New York in the early 1960s. As a member of the Theatre of Eternal Music (a.k.a. the Dream Syndicate) alongside John Cale, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Angus MacLise, he participated in now-legendary and often legendarily loud drone performances with many pieces having no beginning and no end. During a fateful trip to Germany in 1972, Conrad met with avant-rock visionaries Faust and made the very fir…
Writings
** 2023 Repress ** Writings is the first collection to widely survey the singular Tony Conrad polymath’s prolific activity as a writer. Edited by artists Constance DeJong and Andrew Lampert, the book spans the years 1961 – 2012 and includes fifty-seven pieces: essays originally published in small press magazines, exhibition catalogs, anthologies, and album liner notes, along with other previously unpublished texts. Conrad writes about his own work, with substantial contributions on The Flicker, …
Tonic 19-01-2001 (LP)
Celebrating its one hundredth release, Black Truffle is honoured to present a major archival discovery: a stunning document of the only performance by the trio of Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt and Jim O’Rourke. Across a two-night programme organised by David Weinstein at legendary New York experimental venue Tonic in January 2001, Conrad, Dreyblatt and O’Rourke presented individual projects before performing a collaborative set each night, the first with members of Dreyblatt’s ensemble and the s…
Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995–2020
The collection of previously unpublished interviews and extended versions of Alan Licht's famous conversations with figures in the American art and music scene.
Musique Fragile 02
** 2021 Stock. Edition of 500 ** A limited edition series of 3xLP box sets with extensive screenprinted art/packaging for the slipcover box, the individual LP jackets, and three different posters (one for each album). Volume 02 features 'lost' and/or recuperated recordings by Hangedup + Tony Conrad (previously unreleased 24-track and 2-track sessions captured in Montréal several years ago), Kanada 70 (aka Craig Dunsmuir, compiled from his many obscure CD-R bedroom recordings released in Toronto …
Two Degrees of Separation
A compact monograph containing gathering a visual documentation, two essays and a conversation with Tony Conrad, whose multi-faceted contributions since the 1960's have influenced and redefined music, filmmaking, minimalism, performance, video and conceptual art.Tony Conrad, who can be described as an artist, composer, musician, filmmaker, and performer, might be considered the first true “crossover artist.” For the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wien, Conrad built a replica of a jail cell that wa…
Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective
Throughout his six-decade career, Tony Conrad (1940–2016) forged a unique path through numerous artistic movements and a vast range of cultural forms—from Fluxus to rock music, from structural film to public access television. Published on the occasion of the first large-scale museum survey devoted to works Conrad presented in museum and gallery settings, this richly illustrated catalogue offers an in-depth introduction to Conrad's life and career.Often unified by the diverse tastes of fans, ava…
Live At Donau Festival, Krems, Austria, 2012
In a rare performance at Donau Festival in Krems, Austria in May of 2012, Tony Conrad (member of the Dream Syndicate project by La Monte Young), Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Psychic TV / Throbbing Gristle...) and Edley ODowd (Psychic TV / Toilet Boys...) collaborate to create a unique, completely improvisational soundtrack that is at once transcendental & visceral. Consisting mainly of 2 violins, orchestral percussion and sparse electronics, quiet droning gives way to volcanic crescendos a…
Dreaminimalist
A film by Marie Losier & Tony Conrad 'DreaMinimalist', 16mm, color, sound, 26 minutes. A film by Tony Conrad, 'The Flicker', 16mm, black & white, 1966, sound, 30 minutes. Contains a 24-page booklet by Victor Gresard. 'The Flicker sweeps away reality, transports us into another environment and acts as a sort of instrument of perceptual experimentation. The filmmaker himself considers it as a kind of science fiction film which, instead of entering us into strange worlds Ð which have everyth…
Dreamweapon III
Limited 2nd pressing. "A second LP of previously unheard recordings of Angus MacLise and Tony Conrad from the MacLise tape archives. Remastered from the original tapes.
Dreamweapon I
Mostly unheard tape-recorded, Eastern-influenced drone material from MacLise, Tony Conrad and Jack Smith, as a sonic companion to the recent exhibition dedicated to MacLise "Dreamweapon: The Art and Life of Angus MacLise (1938-1979)". Totally stoned out stuff! In a silkscreened sleeve. Second LP Edition of 500.
Taking Issue
"An exclusive vinyl release of the live violin collaboration between avant-garde legends Tony Conrad and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge featuring percussion by Morrison Edley. Presented by filmmaker Marie Losier and recording live in January, 2009 at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY. " - Dais.
XXX Macarena
Edition of 500. Primary Information and From The Nursery are pleased to announce their first collaborative release, an album by XXX Macarena, a band comprised of Tony Conrad on violin, Jutta Koether on synthesizer, and John MILLER on guitar. XXX Macarena was recorded live at the Kunsthalle Zurich in June 2009. The performance is an entirely improvised 42-minute piece that ranges from microscopic detail to seismic wall-of-sound, full of intensities and introspection; a composition in-the-moment -…
Musculus Trapezius
An epic performance captured pristine, unfurling its massive limbs patiently and cannily over the course of seventy-plus minutes. Conrad mingles amongst his trusted wood-and-steel sidekicks, engaged in both age-old conversations and inspired new inquisitions; Yeh bookends his passive/aggressive behaviour on violin with spare piano incantations; Duchs acts as a ghostly anchor, casting formidable binding and deft velocity. Yes, the drones do flow freely, but these reliable horizons fracture into s…
The Pyre Of Angus Was In Kathmandu
a rare 7-inch single of studio outtakes by the violin-and-percussion drone masterpiece Outside the Dream Syndicate. Long out of print
Let There Be Music
One-sided release, restocked every so briefly. "YES!!! Finally!! Angus and Bon Scott would def label this knockout collab as grade A T-N-T!!! Here's how it went down: The Machines were kicking it Brooklyn style last January for some jam time with Burning Sess Core, and the Tovinator had a solo slot in Glasslands on Super Bowl Sunday. Seeing how we both were worked up from the Pitts power plays and amazing Puck and Queen B quality time, Thurston added fuel to the fire and suggested that Conrad hi…
Primordial Lift
Originally released on the Table of the Elements label and long out of print, this Pauline Oliveros's version of the recording contains an additional 30 minutes of material not included on the original release. Recorded live on March 20, 1998 at Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY. Primordial/Lift is based on information concerning the shift in the resonant frequency of the earth from 7.8hz to 13hz given in Awakening to the Zero Point by Gregg Braden, Radio Bookstore Press (1997). According to Braden, the re…
Sharing a Sonority
Alga Marghen proudly presents a new chapter in the documentation series of Charlemagne Palestine's historical works. This CD of previously-unavailable recordings not only presents you Charlemagne Palestine activities in 1974, collaborating with some of most important experimental artists and composers from either the New York loft scene and Cal Arts, but also features world premiere recordings of Terry Jennings and The Fundamental D Flat Group. "Short & Sweet" is the title of a breathtaking duo …