John M. Bennett
Blanksmanship (LP + Booklet)
LabelEditions Basilic, Luna Bisonte ProdsGenreSound Art
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Edition of 200 copies, hand-stamped sleeve, 24-page booklet. The first ever reissue of 1994 sound poetry masterpiece Blanksmanship, a high point in the work of legendary avant-garde poet and artist John M. Bennett. Editions Basilic and Luna Bisonte Prods previously collaborated on »A Flattened Face Fogs Through: Selected Sound Poetry (1986-1994)«, an anthology of Bennett’s sound poetry released in 2022 to widespread acclaim.
John M. Bennett’s Blanksmanship is a totemic representation of something impossible: a linguistic object containing a totality. Written and recorded in the early 1990s and released as a sound poetry cassette and chapbook, Blanksmanship begins and ends with a ten word mantra, distilling the poem’s ten cantos that act as phases of an extended meditation. Performed by the author accompanied only by minimalist shakuhachi flute and bell, a narrative emerges from a mythic place, spoken by a single voice that eventually multiplies into a horde of selves. The author states that Blanksmanship refers to a state of mind, the "empty yet swarming void from which the poem’s voice arises, as if it were the voice of completeness itself".
RIYL: Robert Ashley, Akio Suzuki, William S. Burroughs, Steve Dalachinsky, Max Headroom, Japanese Shakuhachi Flute Music
Format
Comes with 21 page full color booklet containing photographs, liner notes, and other ephemera.
Release notes
Originally relesed on cassette in 1994. Limited edition of 200 copies. Sticker on shrinkwrap. Comes with a 24 pages booklet.
| A1 | Blanksmanship I | ||
| A2 | Where It | ||
| A3 | Moments Slowed | ||
| A4 | Leaky Toilet | ||
| A5 | Curfew Withered | ||
| A6 | Light Steams | ||
| B1 | Looking Wavers | ||
| B2 | Number Wing | ||
| B3 | Through Forking | ||
| B4 | Notion's Nulled | ||
| B5 | Spend And Saw | ||
| B6 | Blanksmanship II |
- Jeroen Wille
- Design
- John Also Bennett
- Remastered By, Transferred By
- John M. Bennett
- Text By, Voice, Shakuhachi, Bells
