ANNA LOCKWOOD glass world LP 1970 fluxus experimental

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53

Anna Lockwood "Glass World of Anna Lockwood" LP issued by Tangent Records (TGS 104) in the UK, 1970. ****** Rec:vg+++ / Cov:ex ****** New Zealand-born composer Annea Lockwood worked in New York throughout the '60s alongside some of the pioneering avant-garde composers of the time, such as John Cage, Phillip Corner, and Alvin Lucier. She created conceptual pieces that walked a fine line between modern composition sound art and experimental theater, as well as works for string quartets and large-scale outdoor installations. "The Glass World" is a series of experimental compositions based on the sounds of glass that was originally released in 1970 on the rare LP by Tangent Records offered here (the same label also issued Henri Chopin first LP). Overtones and resonations of glass sheets are folded into concise minimalist compositions; crunching and shattering sounds are used as complex tonal orchestrations. This collection is a highly intriguing experimental recording and, expectedly, is filled with a music of unease. Much like Cage, the composer makes her music from the detailed study of everyday sounds. "The Glass World of Annea Lockwood" is a record of her early explorations of natural and found sounds. "The Glass World" originated in 1966 as a live, two hour performance work entitled "The Glass Concert", and was presented in over 70 concerts in England Scandinavia and Australasia, the final performance being at WBAI's Free Music Store in New York City in 1973. Many types, shapes and sizes of glass are used, singly or combined and are manipulated in a variety of ways so as to extract from them their latent sounds. The glass used has not been specifically prepared or shaped as with musical instruments; pieces of glass have been used which are not normally seen, fragments collected from factory floors, such as small glass discs which are rubbed together, and sea-green glass rocks which are knocked against each other; a thin glass rod is drawn across the edge of a large suspended pane, as a bow across a violin string; another pane, struck lightly like a gong is then raised and lowered in a water-filled tank, sending undulating reverberations through the glass and the water; the 'breathing machine' consists of two interlocking laboratory jars, one containing water and one air. Annea Lockwood unobtrusively allows them to sing their songs in an aesthetic with direct ties to post-Cageian art movements such as Fluxus. Lockwood wrote at that time of these concerts, "I am working with sound-as-energy, the concept and experience of sound as a natural source of energy and nourishment, there to be tapped once you are aware of its nature and effect. With 'The Glass Concerts' (1967-73), I began trying to eliminate what I feel are screens between the sound and the person receiving it, i.e. composition, by means of which sound is manipulated through a structure. The structure reflects the mind of the composer, inevitably, so that you receive the sound indirectly, channeled, super-structured. Sounds have their own innate and complex structures and energies. I don's see them as raw material. 'The Glass Concerts' were full-evening audio-visual performances in which all sounds were made with glass, amplified; some were presented in complete darkness, to focus the ears, some with light projected onto glass structures such as curtains of glass tubing, or a very large mobile. The focus of the work being on the spectral structure of each sound, only one sound source was heard at a time. For me this was a shift from creating scores to observing sounds closely, as if they were autonomous beings with their own life, their own behavior. True, I initiated the resonance in the glass by touching it, but what followed was often unpredictable. I would move the glass until it started to sound, not pre-determining which sounds to make but letting them happen, until I came to feel that the glass played me, rather than I it. The Glass Concerts were an intensive ear training course for me, an extended lesson taught me by sound itself, and they turned my music in a radically different direction, just as I'd intended". ****** Record plays with occasional surface noise which should disappear once the record is cleaned. Some minimal cover wear (see photo). ****** Please wait to receive my invoice before sending the payment after the auction ends. Attention! Real postage costs are not USD 4 as all the items are located in Doha, Qatar (which has a very safe and professional post system). Postage costs registered up to 1 Kilo (generally 3 LPs): to Europe and Japan is USD 16,50 / to America and Oceania is USD 22,50. Postage costs registered up to 2 Kilos:  to Europe and Japan is USD 28,00 / to America and Oceania is USD 34,00. ****** Thank you for your kind attention and good luck with your bids.