Erik Satie/Alan Marks - "Vexations" CD Album, 1990 (Decca)

This piece of music by Erik Satie is one of keen interest.  To quote the liner note:  "It consists of a single page of music, only three lines long, and its full duration is calculated to be a whole day and night."   This, of course, is a masterpiece.  Satie wrote "Vexations" in 1893, yet it took John Cage to give the music its world premiere in 1963.  Cage did an 18-hour performance of the piece using various pianists throughout the day and night.   Which in theory, the piece should last for 24-hours, but alas economics and intensity of the promoters of such a work would be a great challenge.  "Vexations" is made for the CD format.  A regular 12" vinyl usually lasts for 40 minutes, but a CD can last for 80 minutes, and you don't have to change sides, like what you have to do with vinyl.  Still, to be true to Satie's vision, it would take 21 CDs to complete the official work.  Us Avant-Garde fans are waiting for the boxset.  

The late pianist Alan Marks did a 70-minute version, and as far as I know, this 1990 release is the first recording that lasts that long.  There was a vinyl edition made by another artist, and recently there is a recent CD by Stephane Ginsburgh which is one hour and nine minues long.  Nevertheless, all the versions I have heard (Ginsburgh and Marks) are exquisite.  

Whatever Satie meant this piece to be a joke or a serious statement on an aesthetic and the philosophy, we may never know.  The truth is this piece of music is one of the great ambient works on disc/CD.  I play Marks/Vexations to stamp out the world outside my head.  It's a perfect time length to focus on either the music or if you are doing some writing or creative work.  I can imagine just playing the music while you're mopping the floor would be OK as well.  Yet, the piece due to its length is a very demanding work.  For the musician, it must be either a sense of hell or enlightenment. For the listener, it is music that draws you into its world.  There are pieces like "Discreet Music" by Eno that is furniture or wallpaper music, but there is something more demanding in "Vexations."  Perhaps the live aspect that the work lasts so long with a living musician actually following the instructions of the pace, which is slow, or just how one can take so much repetition in a work of aural art.   For me, it's music that makes me both focus on the music lines, but also clears my head to focus on my writing.  It's crucial work.   Joke or art, or both, Satie's "Vexations" is one of the great wonders on this planet. 

Marcel Duchamp - "The Entire Musical Work of Marcel Duchamp" Vinyl, LP, UK (Song Cycle Records)

To call Marcel Duchamp the most important or greatest artist of the 20th century seems too small of a credit.  Perhaps one of the great philosophers?  Nevertheless, his stamp on culture and thinking is a remarkable aspect of Duchamp's genius.  For sure, he thought conceptually, where work is important as a visual, but also the thinking of such artwork.  Duchamp approached music the way he approached his art - he thought it out like it was a game.  Everyone knows that chess was just as important (if not more than) as art.  The music he "wrote" are based on the individual who follows his score.  Of course, Duchamp was Fluxus before there was Fluxus.  But those artists basically took the Duchamp method and used it for their own works.  And that's a good thing that happened!

Side one is (hold on to your breath) "LA MARIEE MISE A NU PAR SES ELIBATAIRES, MEME. ERRATUM MUSICAL" (1913) is 25 minutes long and very ambient.  To me, it's a dialogue between the alto flute, trombone, celeste, and glockenspiel.  The intensity of the piece is each instrument either acknowledges the other one, or it sounds like a gentle chase among them.  A chase where the results don't happen in an obvious way.  There is another version of this music piece that is done by a player piano realized by Duchamp.  Not surprisingly the work reminds me of Erik Satie's "Vexations." The Satie piece is made for the background of a room, literally furniture music, but Duchamp's piece is more urgent and demanding.  

"Erratum Musical" (1913) is a vocal piece where each note is picked out of a hat.  The voices are Duchamp and his two sisters. Not on this record mind you, but in the original conception.  "Musical Sculpture" is mysterious.  The liner notes state that this is an "undated, unspecified piece." The sounds here are a toy music box, a horn, and a hum, but that maybe caused by my stereo system.  It's a sweet ending to a very wonderful album. 

The music on this album is played by Petr Kotik and S.E.M. Ensemble in 1976.  Limited edition of 500 copies.  

Gil J Wolman - "Wolman et son double" Vinyl LP, (Alga Marghen)

"Wolman et son double" 

Gil J Wolman is one of those figures that is almost ghost-like in the 20th century avant-garde.  Painter, poet, fllm-maker, and member of both The Letterist movement as well as Letterist International, which eventually turned into the Situationist International.   Works by him are sparse in the States, but one that is here for sure is his album “Wolman et son Double.” Influenced by Anton Artaud’s lecture/performance in Paris in 1947, Wolman takes the sound poetics of Artuad and is applied to his own sensibility, which serves him of course, but clearly a tribute to Artaud as well. 

Gil J Wolman

Letterism came from the post-war years of World War II, mostly organized by poet/filmmaker Isidore Isou. The principal mediums for this group are poetry, film, painting and political theory.   Sort of a little brother to DADA and Surrealism, but Isou and company looked up to DADA poet Tristan Tzara, but not much of the other artists in those two movements.  The other medium they had an interest in is performances and recodings using the voice as an instrument, but not necessary with the actual words, but sounds.  Like his fellow Letterist and “vocalist” Maurice Lemaître, Wolman made sound art, and did a recording sometime in the 1970s of his performance work.  “Wolman et son Double” is that work. 

The Letterist International

Multi-tracked, and often very intense, there is a heaviness compared to Lemaître’s work, which is quite funny and very sexual.  Wolman clearly takes his influence of Artaud, but to another level.   The album is very much a musique concrete recording, but all from his vocal abilities.  Screams, hiccups, coughing, breathing, yelping -all adds a sense of tension.  It’s a brilliant piece of work (the recording) and the ideal state of hearing it is in a room, playing this album very loud, and in total darkness.  A limited edition of 350 copies. 

Gil J Wolman