la monte young

Lol yeah I know it's a silly question (obviously Young predates Prince) but seriously why is he aesthetically fixated on purple/magenta? Has he ever explained why his installations are lit with deep purple/magenta light (which extends to his album art, website, and beyond)? I would assume it has something to do with the frequency of the light as it relates to the frequencies of sounds he produces...

some context in this Alan Licht interview:

“The Dream House {is} a sound and a light environment… It's a time installation measured by a series of frequencies in sound and light. The idea was that the frequencies are continuous… We can think of the Dream House as a way in which we can find another environment that can influence our lives. Imagine generations being born in the Dream House. Children born there knowing almost nothing else… But the fact that they were born in the dream house, that they lived there for lifetimes and their parents lived there and their grandparents lived there, it would allow a new way of thought processing and it would allow people to transcend beyond the kind of life that we live.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4xqn33/ragas-and-ratios-6-things-we-learned-from-legendary-avant-garde-artist-la-monte-young

Marian Zazeela deserves most of the credit for the purple, imho

walking into the la monte young exhibit ‘dream house’ in nyc and the only other person in there was Larry David https://t.co/ZQnBygSFiq

— Jeffrey Silverstein (@futuremyth) January 26, 2022

Absurdly priced 4LP box set now up for preorder:

https://www.soundohm.com/product/trio-for-strings-4lp-box-1

Yeah, I’m torn on pulling the trigger. Would much rather have on 2 CDs

We've been putting on the Well-Tuned Piano when going to bed. Amazing how great it still sounds.

slightly cheaper direct from the DIA bookshop, but still $$$.

Really liked his look in the VU documentary.

xxxp it's 3 hours long! so 3 CDs, but yeah agreed

a lossless continuous single file is also available on Bandcamp but it's like $50

link?

WTF I coulda sworn it was here:
https://diaart.bandcamp.com/releases

maybe I'm confusing it with the download that came with the box (yes I bought it from Dia) which is continuous, but I swear it was up there before

How is the box?

pretty lavish and well pressed, huge booklet of a lot of stuff that I guess has appeared in other places but was new to me

lots of LONG pauses between "movements" or whatever they are, up into the 2-3 minute range

definitely a better listen as a whole piece but the individual sides also work well as standalones, generally keeping the pauses within the beginning/end of the side

maddeningly, the 8 sides are auto-coupled (sides 1&3 on LP1, 2&4 on LP2, etc, which is even more annoying in practice than it may sound here)

I'm a big fan of Charles Curtis so I was all over this, but the piece definitely has more in common with "The Second Dream Of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer From The Four Dreams Of China" than it does with "The Well Tuned Piano" - it's very minimal, for real

keep misreading this thread as "is la monte young" and thinking "no, he's even older than me"

maddeningly, the 8 sides are auto-coupled (sides 1&3 on LP1, 2&4 on LP2, etc

lol whaaaaat? do they seriously think there are still ppl using those stacking record players?

haha exactly

even tho this is pretty austere as far as composition/variation, the tones of the instruments sound really great and vary considerably between the various parts or movements or whatever they are, someday when I am bored I will count the number of sections in the whole piece but a creative person could probably track them out into something that treated the individual movements as individual tracks

do they seriously think there are still ppl using those stacking record players?

Maybe they expect you to play continuously over two turntables?

keep misreading this thread as "is la monte young" and thinking "no, he's even older than me"

The Devil is keeping him young.

Maybe they expect you to play continuously over two turntables?

that makes more sense than anything else I've thought of!

https://media.sandiegoreader.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2011/Jun/01/cue_mark_locket.jpg

I’m a big Charles Curtis and La Monte fan but I have to draw the line at $50+ per LP for a 4LP box set. I’ve never used the words vinyl and bubble in the same sentence before but I can’t help but think that something is going to pop.

This is standard LMY pricing though, nothing to do with the "vinyl revival".

Ha, was just posting the same thing. The Well-Tuned Piano in the Magenta Lights DVD sells for $89 on his Bandcamp, $307 for a signed copy.

V true and solid points, that’s the exact reason I’ve never bought any of that stuff.

never thought I would see a reissue of The Black Album in my lifetime, let alone on CD. sweet mastering by Dubplates & Mastering (Basic Channel), sounds fantastic.

(I have the LP which is flawless, I assume the CD is as well)

I think of this La Monte Young quote pretty often. pic.twitter.com/furVRoaXMV

— Liam Cagney (@LiamCagney) April 4, 2023

Can confirm that the The Black Album CD also sounds fantastic - or at least, a significant upgrade on my CDR of an old vinyl rip. Can hear lots more detail in the second side especially, which now sounds pleasingly evil and none more black.

yeah it was side 2 that really stuck out to me as well, the texture is so rich

i'm pretty excited to check it out

yeah I got the LP over the weekend and agree it sounds DEEEEP. I don’t know how often I will be in the mood to listen to this (c/f drift study on 78:17) but I was so excited to see official La Monte and I always like supporting Superior Viaduct

it sounds WAY better than the 2015 (bootleg?) version. Night and day!

I have an OG and it sounds better than that!!

Is this release downloadable?

no, but checking Bandcamp I realize that a few more released are available there now:

https://lamonteyoung.bandcamp.com/music

*releases*

LMY and the Theatre of Eternal Music playing shows at the Dream House, May 19 and 21:

MELA is pleased to present two live concert performances of La Monte Young’s Akash Devi Blues for Marian in celebration of Marian’s 83rd birthday and the 180-degree half cycle of La Monte’s 88th birthday. The Theatre of Eternal Music Ensemble will perform this historic and extraordinary piece, one of Young’s earliest works in a new configuration, which will include only the unmetered alap.

The legendary composer and vocalist La Monte Young and the foremost performers of his music—Jung Hee Choi, voice; Jon Catler, just intonation guitar; Hansford Rowe, fretless bass; Ben Neill, trumpet—will improvise in just intonation in the style of Young’s Dorian Blues but without a fixed rhythmic cycle.

Hahn Rowe!!!! man jealous

xp I am not seeing that on the MELA website, can you share your source for this?

MELA sent out an email this afternoon. Tickets here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-monte-young-youngs-dorian-blues-by-the-theatre-of-eternal-music-tickets-617988388907

thank you!

No Zazeela thread, so will post here for now... but maybe we should have one for her?

https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/marian-zazeela-artists-space-review-1234699983/

RIP Marian Zazeela.

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/marian-zazeela-artist-dead-1234701465/

discussion here: RIP Marian Zazeela

maybe we should have one for her

maybe we could rename this thread "la monte young and marian zazeela" ?