Henri Chopin

1st Edition. Alga Marghen proudly presents a new edition of the already historical Henri Chopin's Revue OU. All the original contents (4CDs + book + complete inserts) have also been included here, but presented now in a more modern and flexible way. The first press heavy boxset had been substituted with a lighter and colour slipcase while many important details and info about the contents of this anthology (missing in the original layout) are presented on a new colour obi." Incredible that this has been reissued again, at a slightly cheaper cost even! Miraculously over-the-top presentation of Henri Chopin's famous sound-poetry "magazine", issued on 4CDs (or 6 LPs -- a few copies of the original LP reissue box still available). "Since the end of the fifties, Henri Chopin, an explorer in the new recorded sound poetry field, has never ceased, through hid own work as well as through his publishing activities (Revue OU, a magazine with record from 1963 to 1974) to defend the electronic exploration of the voice and the body. If Henri Chopin's Revue OU is such a remarkable publication, then this is surely because it is one of the truly -- and most authentically -- 'contemporary' publications of its time.

Yet at first sight, the word 'contemporary' seems to offer a rather simplistic description of such a visionary publication as Chopin's OU. When we consider in the general cultural context of the sixties, for example, aren't all mid-century art publications generally 'contemporary' in one way or another? And when considered in terms of most other poetry publications of the sixties, doesn't Chopin's OU clearly stand out as one of the most significant 'experimental' or 'avant-garde' publications of the mid-century? As Chopin observes, he considered the sound poetry published on the records in OU to be a distinctively 'new form of art'. On one hand sound poetry constitutes an almost archetypal practice, but on the other hand sound poetry also emerges from the very sources of recording technology by means of its use of electro-magnetics. As this collection of CDs (remastered under the supervision of Henri Chopin) reissuing the complete Revue OU records indicates, Chopin's most striking achievement was to consistently identify and publish the first major works of many of the most visionary transatlantic artists exploring the new recording technologies of the fifties, sixties and seventies. Far from attempting to establish any monodimensional 'movement', Chopin characteristically championed a wide veriety of those poets, writers and composers whom he perceived to be 'in movement', and whom he subsequently applauds as 'Fabulous Independents'. Following an editorial logic of selectively eclectic inclusion, Chopin's OU records published an astonishing diversity of inter-generational and international experiments. These include intense electronic readings by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin; pioneering optophonetic works by the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann; 'crirythmes' and vocalic improvisations by François Dufrene and Gil J Wolman; fragmentary poemes-partitions by Bernard Heidsieck; high-tech text-sound works by composers such as Ake Hodell and Sten Hanson; electronic abstractions by Bengt Emil Johnson; phonetic poems by Mimmo Rotella; 'handy tech' performances on self-built electronic instruments by Hugh Davies; haunting tape-manipulations by Ladislav Novak; playful improvisations by Bob Cobbing with Anna Lockwood; dramatic monologues by Paul de Vree; electronic concrete music by Jacques Bekaert and -- of course -- Chopin's dynamic orchestrations of the body's 'factory' of corporeal sounds. Chopin's writings equally consistently championed the 'electronic language revolution' facilitated by what he describes as 'technological means which extend the human body', thereby inaugurating an enormous expansion of human expression. Many manifestos and theoretical texts, as well as original photos, have been published in a 76 page book. Also included are 30 fold-out black and white OU inserts reproducing the original scores of the audio works featured on the 4 CDs (by Chopin, Heidsieck, de Vree, Davies, Cobbing, Bekaert) as well as graphic works by John Cage, Tom Phillips, Arrigo Lora-Totino, Michel Seuphor, Ben Vautier, Stefan Themerson, Richard Orton, Pierre Albert-Birot."