condition (record/cover): NM / EX (2" bottom seam split)
The first record on Mimi Johnson's newly minted Lovely Music label. Recorded at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music in July 1977. Two side-long monologues, The Park (A) and The Backyard (B), delivered by Ashley in his Midwestern speaking voice with no theatrical projection. "Blue" Gene Tyranny (Robert Sheff) plays piano, Polymoog and Clavinet; Krishna Bhatt, credited as "Kris," plays tabla.
The text is not exactly narrative, not exactly poetry: overheard fragments and declarative non-sequiturs that build a portrait of two unnamed figures (a man in a hotel room, two men on a park bench). Both pieces later became the opening and closing episodes of Perfect Lives, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1984. Sleeve by Ariel Peeri, yellow and grey variants. Ashley was co-founder of the ONCE Group and the Sonic Arts Union.
