Entropies And Mimetic Patterns
**CD edition** Gustavo Costa is a musician and an artist with numerous talents guided by a constant exploration of the limits of listening. He is a drummer, an instrument maker, a creator of new sounds, a sound sculptor, a teacher, a programmer, and a generous booster of the contemporary music and sound art that is made in Portugal nowadays. After 30 years of an intense connection with the musical universe, Gustavo decided to present his first solo album with the instrument he plays since his ch…
Empty Words Part IV
* Rare original copies from the 80s* Comes in gatefold cover. A double LP set of John Cage performing his "Empty Words Part IV" at the Römerkeller, Cologne, on September 4, 1984. By this point in this piece, there are just collections of phonemes, no recognisable words. Truly extreme stuff.The cover is overall dominated by white, text in black, with a photography of John Cage on the back. Inside left there's an extract of the work. Inside right there's a photography of the first manuscript of Em…
Song for Any Voice(s) and Instrument(s) (Book)
* Rare original artist' book - Music scores and instructions for performance * This score by Dick Higgins consists of letters and arrows arrayed across one sheet of musical notation paper. A cover sheet provides the instructions for the four-minute, fifty-two second performance, stating that any number of people may interpret the score simultaneously if they do so independently of one another. Guidelines for interpretation are fairly specific, but the piece is different every time it is perform…
Piano Sonata #2 (Book)
* Rare original artist' book - Music scores and instructions for performance * After folding Something Else Press in 1974 due to financial difficulties, founder Dick Higgins would move on to other publishing projects for the remainder of his life and career, mostly under the imprint of Unpublished Editions and later Printed Editions. From 1980-1983, Higgins produced a remarkable series of publications using the format of common sheet music books. Within are experimental musical scores and instru…
Variations on a Natural Theme for Orchestra (Book)
* Rare original artist' book - Music scores and instructions for performance * Variations on a Natural Theme (1982), as in Dick Higgins words, is a large orchestral work, in some ways a companion to the Ten Ways, since this time it uses gamuts (in this case selected by the individual musicians) and photo derivations made from a female model; she was insistent that she not be recognizable, since she was a teacher and was afraid that it would be damaging to her professionally if it were known that…
Sonata for Prepared Piano (Book)
*Rare original arist' book - Music scores and instruction for performance* Sonata for Prepared Piano (1982) is a short work which, again, uses photoderivations as parts of the notation—this time nature with incomplete figure photographs, mostly obscured by the natural objects around them. (Dick Higgins, "The Strategy of Each of My Books" from Horizons, 1984)
"Four movements make up this thirteen minute work. Each uses a very different method of interpreting its materials, a set of four phot…
Twenty-Six Mountains for viewing the Sunset from (Book)
Rare original artist' book - Music scores and instructions for performance ** Twenty-Six Mountains for Viewing the Sunset From (1981) is for a small ensemble, including three dancers. It is a different kind of notation, not using photographs but using an indication of what kinds of tex- tures and patterns are desired. The title comes from a trip I took late one night with a teenager from Vermont, who brought me to some of his favorite places to view the sunset from; it was magical evening…
Ten Ways of Looking at a Bird for Violin and Harpsichord (Book)
Rare original artist' book - Music scores and instructions for performance Ten Ways of Looking at a Bird (1981)...is a playful variation on the name of a poem by Wallace Stevens whose work I have always admired, though, goodness knows, there is no modern poet more different from myself. This is a piece for violin and harpsichord; the harpsichord part is developed in “live time” (that is, during the performance) from what the violinist is doing, according to a set of rules. The violinist uses mu…
Piano Album. Short piano pieces (Book)
* Rare original artist' book - Music scores and instructions for performance * Although Dick Higgins is best known as a performance poet and artist, his creative life began with music, he studied with composers Henry Cowell and John Cage, and he has even made a phonograph record of compositions by himself and by Erik Satie. In fact, some of his Happenings and Fluxus works are essentially musical, such as the 1965 “Opera a Gogo” Hrusalk. For him music sometimes seems to be a matter of behavior ( …
Blue Iris, Black Rose by Burroughs and Ira expert Ian MacFadyen
Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Ira Cohen was born to deaf parents and instead of just developing speech, began developing his vision early, learning to spell with his fingers. In 1961 he took a Yugoslavian freighter to Tangiers where he lived for four years and published Gnaoua, a magazine devoted to exorcism, introducing the work of Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs and other members of the Interzone mob.
In 1970 he wen…
Live New Departures 1960-1967 (Ephemera Map)
*A numbered edition of 26 copies* Live New Departures featured some of the UK’s finest modern jazz musicians together with poets Pete Brown (co-writer/Cream) and Michael Horovitz (Britain’s Beat Laureate). Live New Departures 1960-1967 ephemera map. An A 5 envelope filled with Live New Departures ephemera. Facsimile prints of programs, selections of letters, press sheets, flyers and much more.
Live New Departures was a series of poetry, folk and jazz happenings - where interaction between artis…
Antechamber
Michael McClure’s mysticism is vigorously scientific. Even the familiar patterned shapes of his poems remind us of the stars in the night sky and those we see when we shut our eyes. In the dancing lines of his newest work—the title poem “Antechamber” most especially—are the whirl of galaxies, the radiance of molecules, the energy lines of the double helix coiling around its core. — New Directions, 1978
Songs
Foamola is an underground musical group from New York City, consisting of Sparrow and his wife, who went by the cyber alias Violet Snow. Also in the group is artist Lawrence Fishberg and Sparrow's daughter, poet Sylvia Gorelick. Their music has been described as "folk-minimalist", and as "anti-Plutarch pop"
“Foamola is the only anti-rock band named after an herbal arthritis remedy. All our music is original, with tunes by Lawrence Fishberg (keyboard, vocals) and lyrics by Sparrow (ocarina, item…
Black Phoenix: Third World Perspective on Contemporary Art and Culture (Book)
*In process of stocking* Primary Information is pleased to announce the release of Black Phoenix: Third World Perspective on Contemporary Art and Culture. Edited and published by Rasheed Araeen and Mahmood Jamal between 1978 and 1979 in the United Kingdom, Black Phoenix remains a key and radical document of transnational solidarity and cultural production in the visual arts, literature, activism, and beyond. This publication collects all three issues of the journal into a single volume.More than…
My Niece's Pierced Knees (7")
When visiting Antwerp last summer, Uncle Jim (aka Alvarius B), recorded a rant for the invitation card single that anounces Dennis Tyfus' exhibition 'My Niece's Pierced Knees', opening on October 27th at Middelheim Museum in Antwerp. This card single was send out for free to everyone in the museum's mailing list.
Plays John Cage II
Celebrated Scandinavian experimentalist CM Von Hausswolff pays respect to the great John Cage with this release which includes a homage to Cage’s seminal 4’33”. For his interpretation, the minimalist uses an electric guitar and a faulty amplifier to highlight the finer details that come to the fore in the format. Taking on the godfather of experimentalism is no simple task but the fresh take from Von Hausswolff stops this release falling into any kind of ‘cover version’ category. This is a limit…
3 Angels / 3 Hjørner
*Transparent purple vinyl. Limited edition of 100 copies.* Installation soundtrack from Martin Erik Andersen's installation 'ALLE LIGE VEJE LEDER HJEM / EVERY STRAIGHT ROAD LEADS HOME' 2006Originally created as an installation for a private home. Modified version exhibited at Galleri Møller Witt 2006.
Failands
*25 copies limited edition* Archaic Vaults presents Failands. Double A-side, pro dubbed, unmarked clear cassette.
Composed and recorded by Joseph Johnson Artwork by Severin Black Mastered by Owen Pratt
Conspiracy
** 250 copies limited edition. one sided transparent 7" flexi with postcard artwork** Tuli Kupferberg (1923-2010) a prolific poet/ lyricist cartoonist pamphleteer, anarchist and founding fug. This flexi contains a song for are time ... from another time, (c1970s) or for almost any time in human existence. One song recorded live and unaccompanied on the Lower East Side of NYC, by the master of political song-writing.
Couscous Bizarre
* In process of stocking * Absolute collage hell from the bowels of several known earths. We have worked with the horrible Orchid Spangiafora (aka Rod Carew) before. Back in 2013 we were tricked into doing an expanded 2LP reissue of Rod's 1979 Twin/Tone album, Flee Past's Ape Elf. A mistake we swore we'd never make again. Glands are a different story, being a two-headed beast comprised of Allie Caulfied (of Just Bananas magazine) and Bobbi Manring (former leader of both Poop World and The Giant …