John Duncan (born June 17, 1953 in Wichita, Kansas, USA) has operated for decades at the cutting edge of performance, video, experimental music, installation, pirate radio and television. He has played a pivotal role in the development of performance art in Los Angeles, of experimental music as a member of LAFMS Los Angeles Free Music Society, of Japanese noise and pirate radio in Tokyo.
John Duncan
John Duncan (born June 17, 1953 in Wichita, Kansas, USA) has operated for decades at the cutting edge of performance, video, experimental music, installation, pirate radio and television. He has played a pivotal role in the development of performance art in Los Angeles, of experimental music as a member of LAFMS Los Angeles Free Music Society, of Japanese noise and pirate radio in Tokyo.
Blinding Turbulence
Tip! Recorded and mixed by Bob Bellerue at Ridgewood Badlands.Mastered by Ivan FU Pjevcevic at Short Straw studio, Bologna
The Welt
Cross-generational titans of noise and sound experiments, John Duncan, Joachim Nordwall & Henrik Ryland supply a proper drone zoner hashed from shortwave radio, no-input mixer and analogue synths on the iDEAL powerhouse.
Nightfall
Elliott Sharps's release on Erototox Decodings is no different in terms of his ongoing homage to science, entitled 'Phlogiston', aptly named after a substance supposed by 18th-century chemists to exist in all combustible bodies, and to be released in combustion. It’s also his first purely electronic and synthesized record to date.
Sound
Sound: An Exhibition of Sound Sculpture, Instrument Building and Acoustically Tuned Spaces opened at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in the summer of 1979 (and was also on view later that year at PS1 in New York). Curated by Bob Wilhite and Robert Smith, the exhibition surveyed the field of sound art. The forty-four participants were painters pivoted toward performance, conceptual artists attracted to time-based mediums, self-styled creators of environments, and musicians (formally…
John Duncan / T.R. Kirstein
*Limited edition of 200 copies* "On May 31st, 2019, the day Roky Erickson from 13th Elevators died (I later found out), I woke up from a dream of sound and text. I dreamt that John Duncan kept repeating the words You Are Safe entangled with sine waves. So I instantly shot him a message asking if it was too weird to do exactly that. He replied: "not too weird". " -- Tobias R. Kirstein -- You Are Safe and Come To Me are the first two collaborative tracks by Danish composer/artist Tobias R. Kirstei…
Try Again
**Purple vinyl edition** Distorted classical choral recordings, synths, processed guitar… The exquisitely complex human-machine interface experiments conducted by Stefano Pilia are kept in a delicate balance by John Duncan‘s lyrics and the soulful quality of his vocals, for an album of electroacoustic songs that are a unique blend for both artists. Seeds and memories from the past are re-actualized in the present through a machine electroacoustic compositional process creating a dark, gloomy and…
Soft Eyes
Quietly stunning, sensitive songcraft by boundary-pushing avant gardist John Duncan on a starkly haunting and timelessly beautiful new album of observations on society and intimacy, featuring Eiko Ishibashi, Stefano Pilia and friends, and highly recommended if yr feeling Scott Walker, Keiji Haino, Jandek, Tom Waits, Mark Lanegan, David Thomas & Two Pale Boys.
Insnitt
Ideal Recordings presents Insnitt By Carl Michael Von Hausswolff. Recorded at the opening of CM von Hausswolff’s solo exhibition ”Insnitt” at 3:e Våningen, Gothenburg on September 14th 2018. With: John Duncan, Leif Elggren, Jean-Louis Huhta, Joachim Nordwall, Henrik Rylander. Cover photo by CM von Hausswolff. Design by Joe Gilmore at Qubik. Produced by Joachim Nordwall.
Backfire of Joy
Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Backfire of Joy, a previously unheard recording from Phew, John Duncan and Kondo Tatsuo, documenting a concert at Tokyo’s Hosei University in 1982. Though the fertile exchange of ‘zines, tapes and records between the Japanese underground and the Los Angeles Free Music Society meant the artists were familiar with each other’s work, this performance (occurring on Duncan’s first visit to Japan) was their first meeting and only performance as a trio.
Duncan is h…
Chimeratorium
**100 numbered copies in gatefold sleeve, to be released in June 2020** Chimeratorium is based on an audio dream that Deison had. He dreamt about making a new piece together with John Duncan: they were in a large room, in an old church, sculpting frequencies repeatedly for hours. Sounds and frequencies have been then recreated in the studio according to that particular event, becoming the long beautiful suites Theta Waves and Portal, the latter being a collaboration track by both artists.John Du…
MMXX-02
The second instalment of Matière Mémoire Éditions’ MMXX series - Panic@11000 Feet - comes from John Duncan, a near legend who, since his emergence during the 1970s, has straddled the complex territories of performance art, installation, avant-garde music, video art, and experimental film.Many will remember the widely heralded reissue of his debut LP from 1979, Organic, released in 2018 as part of Superior Viaduct’s États-Unis series, but Duncan’s practice began years before, carving a furious pa…
Stark
**numbered edition of 40 copies** New works by John Duncan recorded using shortwaves as a sound source. Recorded and mixed at Pieve del Pino, Sasso Marconi (Italy). Original handdrawn self-portrait by the artist, in a UV luminous sprayed gatefold record sleeve that the artist set on fire. Numbered, dated and signed edition, each copy is different.
Conventional Wisdom
Rich, multi-layered vocal studies and shortwave electronics from avant-garde polymath John Duncan (LAFMS, collaborator with Pan Sonic, Chris & Cosey, Jim O’Rourke and countless others), bolstered by synths, drum machines and arrangements by Joachim Nordwall. Highly recommended if you’re into anything from Scott Walker and Pere Ubu to Jay Glass Dubs, Coil and Ilpo Väisänen’s classic Liima Versions. Venerable avant-garde composer John Duncan follows his prized cycle of cover versions ‘Bitter Ear…
États-Unis Bundle II
**5LP Bundle with Tote Bag**Since its quiet beginnings back in 2011, the San Fransisco based imprint, Superior Viaduct, has come to hold a dominant place in the cultural landscape, stitching an intertwined narrative, crossing multiple genres, between countless forms and periods of counter-cultural music. In 2017 the label launched one of its most interesting and ambitious projects to date, their new sub-label Etats Units, a sonic intervention - an open challenge to how connections in sound are f…
Riot
Hand-numbered LP. Edition of 400 copies. Re-dition of this John Duncan 1984 le Riot album: re-recorded, re-mixed at EMS and expanded with material that didn’t make the initial pressings, all taken from original 8-track master tape - which required them to revive obsolete machinery - and all re-mastered by Rashad Becker for this release; which, according to the legendary avant-garde agitator himself, is finally packaged in artwork befitting of his vision. Or take it straight from the horse’s gob:…
Organic
Lucky restock, totally sold-out at source **First-time vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl, one time pressing.** The inter-disciplinary maverick John Duncan emerged in 1970s Los Angeles as a confrontational performance artist and, as the decade progressed, aligned himself with the experimental-music collective Los Angeles Free Music Society. His sound art appeared on various self-released cassettes and alongside artists such as Jim Pomeroy and Yoshi Wada on the L…
Mantra / Ur Sonate
**edition of 200, numbered*Two new vocal based recordings by the conceptual, and ever challenging artist John Duncan. "Mantra" is a piece by himself and is a choral drone that is highly capturing and transcendent. "Ur Sonate" is a classic sound poem by dadaist Kurt Schwitters composed between 1922-1932. The piece was banned from being recorded for many years (by the Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung). This album is something new for Duncan, but also in a way connected to his "Bitter Earth…
Klaar
Black Truffle present the first ever vinyl reissue of legendary performance and sound artist John Duncan's forgotten gem Klaar, originally released by Extreme in 1991 and partly created in collaboration with Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio). Duncan is perhaps most well-known for his notorious early performances pieces, which explored violence, self-denial, and the establishment of extreme psychological and physical states in both artist and audience. Alongside these transgressive experiments, D…
This Bitter Earth
This is the completing release to John Duncan's masterful 'Bitter Earth' LP (iDEAL129). Here, Duncan is covering songs by Gladys Knight ('This Bitter Earth'), Pere Ubu ('Final Solution') and Jule Styne ('I Fall In Love Too Easily'). Beautiful versions by one of the most important conceptual artists of our time. Edition: 200.
Bitter Earth
Bitter Earth is the much anticipated, long-in-the-making new album from John Duncan joined by a broad cast of adroit collaborators; Oren Ambarchi, Jim O’Rourke, Smegma, Chris Abrahams, Joe Talia, CM Von Hausswolff, Eiko Ishibashi, France Jobin - all written in dedication to Mika Vainio (who, for avoidance of doubt, is not dead!). It's a remarkable suite of cover versions - from The Gun Club to Nina Simone and Iggy Pop - and original material by an arch experimenter who continues to explore unfa…