Lexical Music
Label: OTM Catalog: OM1023-2 Format: CD Amirkhanian, Charles; Lubberhuisen, Henk; Napper, Susan; Giteck, Janice; Shumaker, Robert; Koremans, Piet; Antheil, Böske; Reiziger, Han; Law, Carol; Duykers, John; Vervoorn, Bert; Goldstein, KarlIn their notes for its original vinyl release in 1979, Stephen Ruppenthal and Larry Wendt locate Charles Amirkhanian’s Lexical Music in relation to “text-sound composition,” a recently developed hybrid artform given its name in 1967 by two distinguished Swedish exponents, Lars-Gunnar Bodin and Bengt Emil Johnson. According to Johnson’s own description, text-sound composition is “a sort of borderline form between electronic music and poetry in which the works are based on read texts, which are then used both as a source of sound and as semantic material- sometimes in combination with electronic and concrete sounds.” As a borderline form, text-sound composition emerged within a much bigger picture, a shifting paradigm in the arts, and the loosening up and reconfiguration of social practices and relationships more generally. Lexical Music is an elegant, multi-faceted and persuasive instance of intermedia creativity. Its supple polyphonic skeins of interwoven words and non-verbal utterances may bring to mind at various points the rhythmic impetus of Brion Gysin’s permutation poems, the processual development of Steve Reich’s early tape compositions, the variable flow of Meredith Monk’s vocal choreography, Jackson Mac Low’s aleatory mantras or Alvin Lucier’s probes into acoustic phenomenology, (not to mention the chanting of Ba-Benzele pygmies, which Amirkhanian acknowledges as a source for “Mugic”). Yet the strong and distinctive American accent which this record brings to the field of text-sound composition is essentially Amirkhanian’s own, underpinned firmly in its rhythms by his training as a percussionist, and spiced with his wit and evident relish for words.When Charles Amirkhanian’s Lexical Music was released on pioneering Bay Area record label 1750 Arch Records in 1980, it was heralded as a masterpiece of the then-nascent text-sound poetry scene. The New York Times called Amirkhanian “expert at the sort of things his imitators do not do half so well as he.” Lexical Music is a sort of high water mark for American text-sound poetry, an album with many imitators but few equals. It sounds like nothing before or since. The style developed in electronic music studios across Europe, primarily in Scandanavia, but was slow to develop similarly in the United States. The Bay Area proved to be a fertile grounds for the music, due in part to Amirkhanian’s work and support through his position as Music Director at Berkeley’s KPFA-FM Radio.Amirkhanian himself is the primary performer throughout Lexical Music. His background as a percussionist combined with his radio voice make Amirkhanian the ideal candidate to execute the spoken word scores. Single words lose their meaning through repetition. Nonsense phrases build into intricate hypnotic grooves. The wavering line between intelligible text and pure sound weaves through the entire record. The pieces combine the topography of William S. Burroughs’ audio cut-ups with the psychic space of the early tape loop experiments of Amirkhanian’s peers Steve Reich and Pauline Oliveros. Amirkhanian’s dry wit occasionally shines through, an absurist touchpoint in a field of mostly dour experimentalists. Jesting aside, Lexical Music investigates the nature of language and how our verbal comprehension is altered in the face of repetition, density, and acoustic space, both real and imagined. This new edition of Lexical Music has been remastered by Andrew Weathers for CD from the original tape and includes the liner notes by Larry Wentz and Stephen Ruppenthal for the 1750 Arch edition. Designer Gretchen Korsmo modeled the new artwork as closely as possible after the original LP. In addition to digging up new color photographs by Carol Law, Other Minds has commissioned a new introductory essay by Julian Cowley (The Wire, Musicworks) in which Cowley traces the continuing legacy of Amirkhanian’s work since the initial release of Lexical Music. Other Minds Records is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Naxos of America and internationally by Naxos Global and can be found through iTunes, Amazon, and oth Price: $25.98 |