Le Forte Four

Edition of 180 copies. Reissue of the Slowscan cassette from 1985. Recorded December 1984. Engineered by Rick Potts & Joseph Hammer. Le Forte Four (Rick Potts, Joe Potts, Tom Potts, Susan Chapman & Chip Chapman) were the original line-up of the Los Angeles Free Music Society or LAFMS. While they were working on their first album ‘Bikini Tennis Shoes’, they changed their name from LAFMS into ‘Le Forte Four’ and used the name LAFMS for the label on which they released that album in 1975. All the elements of later LAFMS incarnations and ensembles were already present in that original release: loose improvisations, combinations of conventional musical instruments and household instruments, samples taken from TV and vinyl, a psychedelic use of electronics, record players, and tape recorders, and a deconstructionist take on music in general. When their first record reached the seminal Poo-Bah Record Shop in Pasadena and was played there to like-minded musicians,the loose collective of improvisational musicians now known as the Los Angeles Free Music Society was born. In the course of time ‘Le Forte Four’ dissolved and merged naturally into all sorts of other LAFMS projects.