Lovely Music, Ltd.
Lovely Music (full name Lovely Music, Ltd.) is an American record label devoted to new American music. Based in New York City, the label was founded in 1978 by Mimi Johnson, an outgrowth of her nonprofit production company Performing Artservices, Inc. It is one of the most important and longest running labels focusing exclusively on new music and it is devoted to recording American experimental/avant-garde music.
Vernal Equinox
First 1978 Lovely Records editionof Jon Hassel's groundbreaking first album featuring David Rosenboom, Nana Vasconcelos, etc.
Out of the blue
Highly desirable and sought after first LP from 1978 by Tyranny on Lovely Records.
Accordion & Voice
Pauline Oliveros' first LP as soloist in its glorious 1982 original first edition on Lovely, the beginning of a legendary path!
Mesa / Pontpoint / Fwyyn
Original 1986 edition on Lovely of music for bandoneaon and cybersonic console by Mumma featuring David Tudor and Pauline Oliveros. Only the best of the best!
Dresden / Venezia / Megaton
Original 1979 first pressing of one of the most uncompromising records out on Lovely Music and of the American avant-garde at large.
Music on a long thin wire
Legendary sound installation for audio oscillator and electronic monochord. 1980 first edition on Lovely Music from 1980.
On the Other Ocean
Original 1978 edition on Lovely Records of an album so startling in its beauty and subtlety that it should be used as a textbook guide for how to approach innovative technology!
Automatic Writing
Original 1979 Lovely Records first edition of the breathtaking album by Robert Ashley at his most extreme and uncompromising, as furious as he can get in your wildest dreams!
Private Parts
Original 1978 Lovely Records edition of Robert Ashley’s masterpiece from the late 70s, a deeply hypnotic and powerful record.
Stop Vicious Cycles
**Original 1982 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** Jill Kroesen with Peter Gordon, David Van Tieghem, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Bill Laswell, George Lewis, Arthur Russell, and others; produced by Peter Gordon
The subjects of Kroesen's songs range from the old Wayne Hayes sex scandal to Alexander the Great, to tunes of personal and political exploitation. On the first side she rocks, rolls, wails, and whines her way through songs with spunky, sometimes …
An Hour For Piano
**Original 1979 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** A trance music piece made up of repeating 4/4 cells in which an absolutely steady eighth-note motion predominates. Often several cells are going on simultaneously, and one cell frequently mutates into another through the addition or subtraction of a note or two. One has to step back far enough to get a perspective on the large-scale shifts in density and tonality before the impact of An Hour For P…
Fire & Ice
**Original 1982 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** Intriguingly sets the apocalyptic Robert Frost poem, with trumpeter Yousef Yancy as the ice and Garrett List as the fire. Haunting settings of vital dada poet Blaise Cendrars' incandescent lines and Sweetness, an ineffably lovely poem by Bayard Lancaster, whose alto parallels soaring synthesizer parabolas, and the riveting voice of Genie Sherman, whose sinuous, sibilant messages are those of pure…
Star Jaws
**Original 1978 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** Peter Gordon and 'Blue' Gene Tyranny were long-time Lovely Music stalwarts, having contributed their talents to many a LML release: Peter Gordon has acted as producer for a few early Robert Ashley recordings; 'Blue' Gene Tyranny is Robert Ashley's go-to pianist. Gordon and Tyranny have also collaborated in Gordon's Love of Life Orchestra (aka LOLO) and on Jill Kroesen's Stop Vicious Cycles. So, it…
Western Classics
**Original 1982 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** Ned Sublette, voice, guitar and piano; Jack Carr, harmony fiddle; Nelwyn Essary, rhythm mandolin; O.C. "Dink" Essary, melody fiddle; L.W. McGuffin, tenor ukelele; Bill Vance, lead mandolin; Lois Vance, rhythm guitar
Sublette's trip into the folk roots of country music. Post-modern cowboy music that simultaneously exults in and pokes fun at, and stretches the boundaries of genre conventions. The hi…
Perfect Lives
2023 upgraded and remastered version of Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives -- in 1080P full HD video format, pressed on double-Blu-Ray (175 minutes; stereo; Region 0/worldwide). Perfect Lives has been called "the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s." At its center is the hypnotic voice of Robert Ashley. His continuous song narrates the events of the story and describes a 1980s update of the mythology of smalltown America. Perfect Lives is populated with myriad characters revolvi…
The Guests Go in To Supper (Book)
Rare 1st edition from 1986. Nearly 400 pages, large size, paperbound, smythe-sewn. Texts, scores and ideas of 7 American composers using language in composition: John Cage (Mushrooms et Variationes), Robert Ashley (Improvement), Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Charles Amirkhanian, Michael Peppe, and Kenneth Atchley.
Published by Burning Books, 1986. Edited by Melody Sumner Carnahan, Kathleen Burch and Michael Sumner. Introductions by Charles Shere and Frances Butler.
Qicksand (Book)
Quicksand was written to be an opera libretto. But it was written in the form of a novel. . . . I am devoted to "mystery" stories. I read them one after another, mostly two or three times. Some of the best writers today are writing in this form. So, I thought that I would try to make an opera libretto from a mystery story, told verbatim. That is, the libretto and the novel would be the same: no scenes moved around or actions adapted to the proportions of a libretto, just tell the story the way i…
Atalanta (Acts of God) (Book)
Rare 1st edition hard cover. The definitive text of Atalanta (Acts of God) is followed by an Afterword by Robert Ashley. An excerpt from the Afterword: "I had already decided who the three characters of Atalanta (Acts of God) would be: Max Ernst, a long-time artistic hero for me; Willard Reynolds, my uncle, a storyteller to whom I had listened for most of my life; and Bud Powell, a legendary jazz pianist. The "successful suitor" in the Atalanta myth now has three forms (reminding us of his succe…
Distant Images
A delicate and mysterious vinyl LP release of two works for chamber ensemble in which Reymolds addresses the dualistic nature of aural perception, approaching the elusive territory between the polarized pair and the unified whole.
Settings For Spirituals / Solo
**Original 1984 copies, still sealed and log time stored (copies may have minimal wear on covers)** Joel Chadabe, computer/synthesizer; Irene Oliver, soprano
In Settings for Spirituals Chadabe uses a computer programmed to follow the soprano's voice in every nuance and to generate "settings" to expand the musical quality of the vocal sound. In Solo, Chadabe uses a computer-music system that determines the notes of a melody and its accompaniment chords. Chadabe performs the piece by moving his h…