condition (record/cover): NM / VG+ (edges wear)

Ilhan Mimaroglu (1926-2012) was Turkish-born, came to Columbia in 1955 as a Rockefeller Fellow, and stayed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center under Vladimir Ussachevsky for the rest of his American life. Through Nesuhi Ertegun he became a producer at Atlantic, where he ran his own avant-garde subsidiary Finnadar from 1971; Face the Windmills is its sixth release.

The LP collects eight short tape pieces, mostly Preludes for Magnetic Tape (Nos. 1, 2, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16), revised in 1976 from sources of various dates. Visual Study No. 4 after Arshile Gorky and Bowery Bum (after Dubuffet's drawings; built from amplified rubber-band sounds) are highlights. The title piece Prelude No. 16: Face the Windmills, Turn Left (1976), with vocals from a young Janis Siegel (then about to form Manhattan Transfer), closes the album. Cover art by the Turkish painter Burhan Doğançay. Mastered at Atlantic Studios by George Piros.