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Tony Conrad Collection nos. 11) 12)

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Tony Conrad
Fantastic Glissando (1969)
2003/2005

Table of the Elements
[Lead] TOE-LP/CD-82
Phono LP/compact disc, enclosure

It’s 1969, and Tony Conrad wants to take you Higher.

Celebrated for the thrilling roar of his amplified violin, Conrad is a founding father of ‘minimalism’ and a giant in the American soundscape. Now Conrad’s own Audio ArtKive imprint presents the first in a series of releases that reveal the wild breadth of his 40-year career, including field recordings, piano compositions, film soundtracks and more. 

Fantastic Glissando (1969) is a series of [d]evolving electronic compositions created with sine-wave oscillators. The instrumentation is different, but the effect is typical Conrad: soaring, aggressively textured and jet-engine massive. This first-time CD release contains “Process Four of Fantastic Glissando,” a fifth track not included on the original LP version due to space limitations.

“Massive slab of temporal disruption from one of the most consistently wowing figures to come out of the cultural meltdown of the 1960s. Conrad was a key mover in the Lower East Side rock and avant underground in the early to mid 60s, playing with Lou Reed, John Cale and Walter DeMaria in Reed’s frat-rock combo, The Primitives, and standing in with early line-ups of The Velvet Underground. But it was his activities as part of The Dream Syndicate/Theatre Of Eternal Music, a group dedicated to extending waves of single note bliss into whole new zones of psychoactive ecstasy, that were to have the most far-reaching cultural impact. Alongside John Cale, Angus MacLise, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Conrad founded a whole new approach to sound, working tiny pulsing intervals into long monotonal drones generated by bowed strings and vocals and birthing a minimalism several cells more blasted than the saccharine soundtracks associated with bigger hitting names like Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. Fantastic Glissando dates from 1969 and features four tracks of degraded sine-wave oscillations that approximate the roar of a fleet of V-2 bombers.”

Volcanic Tongue