LabelLovely Music, Ltd.GenreExperimental
Out of stock
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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.
Recorded at The Recording Studio, Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College (Oakland, California), July, 1977. Jacket comes in yellow and grey color variations The tabla player credited as "Kris" is actually Krishna Bhatt (Source: Gann, Kyle: "Robert Ashley", University of Illinois Press, 2012 pg 55).
| A1 | The Park | 21:32 | |
| B1 | The Backyard | 23:56 |
“The record is both bewitching and not quite like anything else out there, then or now, and while the context is fascinating in its own right this is also the kind of work that rewards being encountered on its own singular terms.”
“Charming, mysterious, and utterly hilarious, Private Parts is a tour de force from one of the more singular personas in the American avant-garde.”
“Private Parts is as mesmerizingly odd four decades later as it was then; the only music it closely resembles is other work by Robert Ashley.”
