2016-06-24

albrecht/d. playing his endless music long string installation accompanying a coum performance at the kiel regatta in 1975

all that glitters is not kunst: in 1974 and 1975 the london artist unit coum (genesis p-orridge, cosey funny tutti, sleazy,  john gunni busck [?] as technical director, and lelli maull as musical director, plus friends and relatives) invaded the continent: they executed performances in belgium, france, the netherlands, and germany, where they met the stuttgart postfluxus-artist albrecht/d. and became friends with him. the reflection press gallery in stuttgart exposed some of their works, they played together on many rather obscure occations, and lateron in 1975 and 1976 they lived together in a london flat and recorded and released the first three or four session tapes using the name throbbing gristle.
in june 1975 coum and albrecht/d. were commissioned to be part of the "spiellinie an der kiellinie" during the kiel regatta, an open space for artists, children, kraut rockers and hope heads: irritating, provoking and illurkiminating. at least genesis p-orridge took the chance to perform and act like an artist happening ass-a member of the new world (nobody knows if the other members of coum really happened and happenined in kiel), and albrecht/d. played his long string endless music goes zen bambus installation to accompany his actressitudes. 
in the heritage of albrecht/d. we found a tape (c120, two hours!) with some recordings of the event, eventually recorded on some occasions between the 21st an the 28th june of 1975. the long string experionces are scattered all throughout this tape featuring some steel bands and gypsy jazz elsewise. i performed some magic surgery to save at least some 22 fragments of the performances albrecht/d. executed, and nobody knows if crystal p-orridge was there performing the same time. butt anywhay: the music is absoulutelay annoying, and you will hate it, so that's okay.
so you'll get one hour of of unmediative long one string noise split up into 22 fragments; and may be coum were there when this happened, and may be they were not. 
as a bonus i include some twenty minute of the performance 'endless music goes zen' that albrecht/d. performed in berlin at the akademie der künste in the early spring of 1980. more of thisthat performance will follow; watch this-here blog for more information.

(mp3 / scans included / direct download)



2 comments:

Alan Burns said...

Many, many thanks - a very important piece of COUM/TG history!

Bodhi Amol said...

Hello,in the book ''Wreckers of Civilization'' by Simon Ford about COUM and TG there is no mentioning of Albrecht D making music for the COUM Performance in Kiel,so i don't think so as well...