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La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela

The Black Record + Dream House 78'17" (2LP Bundle)

Label: Superior Viaduct

Format: 2LP (Bundle)

Genre: Experimental

In stock

€53.00
€29.00
VAT exempt
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The only two full-length records La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela released, together. Four sides and four dates, each one printed in the title to the minute: August 1964, July 1969, January 1973, July 1973. Nine years, from a bowed gong to three sine waves with nobody playing them.

Special Bundle. Two LPs, both on black vinyl, Superior Viaduct. These are the only two full-length records La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela ever put out, made five years apart, and until Superior Viaduct went back to them neither had been available since the year it appeared.

Young dated his recordings to the minute and put the date in the title, so between them the four sides carry four exact timestamps spread across nine years.

The Black Record, from 1969, came first. Side one, "31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM", was recorded at Heiner Friedrich's gallery in Munich on the evening of the 31st of July, where the two had just premiered the Dream House sound and light installation: their voices over a sine wave drone, twenty-three minutes, a section of Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery. Side two goes back five years earlier, to their New York studio at ten to three in the morning. "23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta" is a section of Studies in the Bowed Disc, for a gong bowed continuously, on an instrument the sculptor Robert Morris had given them. The liner notes state that it can be played at 33 and a third, or at any slower speed down to 8 and a third for turntables that allow it. The cover is Zazeela's, with Young's notes hand-lettered across it, and it is what gives the record its name.

Dream House 78'17" followed on the French label Shandar in 1974, with the Theatre of Eternal Music as a quartet: Young and Zazeela, Jon Hassell on trumpet and Garrett List on trombone. Side one, "13 I 73 5:35 - 6:14:03 PM NYC", runs thirty-nine minutes, close to the physical limit of a twelve-inch side, which is where the title comes from. Side two has no players on it at all. "Drift Study 14 VII 73 9:27:27 - 10:06:41 PM NYC" is three sine waves, all of them below 202.5 hertz, tuned by Young on oscillators built for him by Robert Adler for their frequency stability and then left to drift out of phase with one another. The sleeve carries two instructions: turn the treble control to minimum, since sine waves have no harmonic content and treble raises only the surface noise of the record, and listen both seated and while walking through the room, because the standing waves change with the position of your head.

Taken together the two records follow the Dream House from the year it was first shown in a gallery to the year it had become a way of living. Marian Zazeela, who made both covers and the light in the room itself, died on the 28th of March, 2024.

Details
Cat. number: SV198
Year: 2023
Notes:
Eponymous untitled album popularly known as "The Black Record" or "The Black Album" Detailed cover credits as follows: Side A: This work was recorded at the date and time indicated in the title, at Galerie Heiner Friedrich, München 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM - is a section of the longer work: Map Of 49's Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery. Play this side at 33 1/3 rpm only. Side B: We recorded this gong duet in our studio in New York City on the date and time indicated in the title. It is a section of a larger work: Studies In The Bowed Disc begun in September 1968. To listen to the live performance, playback at 33 1/3 rpm. However, this side may be played back at any slower constant speed down to 8 1/3 rpm, i.e., 16 2/3 rpm which is available on some turntables.

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