Ein Geheimtipp für Klangsucher

Ich liebäugelte seit langem damit, mir diese Box zuzulegen. Jetzt tat ich es: Amazon verramscht diese wundervolle Schatzkiste mit sechd Cds für schlappe 10 (!!!!) Euro – jetzt gilt es, schnell zuzugreifen, Freunde des unerhörten Sounds. Das ist eine Avantgarde mit Charme, Witz, Tiefe, Melodie, Lust, und sanfter Radikalität. Sie lieben es, aus dem Staunen nicht mehr rauszukommen – bittesehr! Den letzten Anstoss gab Eric Chenauxs Loblied (s.u. – Eric ist nun dauerhaft auf unserem „Blogroll“). Ich nehme mal stark an, Amazon braucht Stauraum für die nächsten 25 Paletten Taylor Swift.

product description: Recorded between 1963-2019, Degrees Of Freedom Found is a six CD set “Blue” Gene Tyranny hand selected from archival, live recordings, and brand new first recordings before his passing in 2020. Part new album, part retrospective, this box offers a fresh perspective on “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s musical legacy. Blue’s career defining moment, composing the music for Robert Ashley’s magnum opus, Perfect Lives, typifies the Buddha-like self-effacement of his musical life. Often lending a substantial supporting role to his friends’ more visible projects, Blue’s music under his own name blossomed in a more esoteric and highly personal manner outside of the spotlight. Across its many previously unreleased recordings, Degrees Of Freedom Found showcases a surprising, extroverted side of Blue’s music, alongside the virtuoso works of sensitive spirit for which New Music devotees have long revered him.

I was so happy to hear that this record was coming out. Six CDs of “Blue” Gene Tyranny is wonderful – it could be 30. I adore his music so much. His work with Robert Ashley was my entry point, and then his solo piano playing and his strange kind of rock music that he was making in New York. He was of the generation of folks maybe one or two generations younger than John Cage and Morton Feldman, and he’s so unabashedly beautiful in what he plays. I don’t think he has any problem with something emerging that’s almost saccharine, with a DX7 sound, a washy keyboard. And it’s not ironic, he really means it. Yet it’s strange, it’s not just beautiful. 

Whatever he’s tapping into there is at the centre of what I love about music. I’m very interested in finding strangeness in not the obvious places. Finding strangeness in beautiful places, and beauty in strange places. Also widening what is strange – like “Blue” Gene Tyranny playing a G major chord, the triad is just weird. Robert Wyatt’s a genius at that too – he knows how to make super simple things sound strange, and I think that comes out of curiosity in a radical sense, that allows people to show beautiful and strange things in a new light. “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s music will do that. He’s just a monster, and I really wish he were still around making music.