The United States Of america

yeah... it's pretty much acknowledged that one of things that binded broadcast early on was a huge love for US of A and that whole scene. it's not like us of a is the only band or set of musicians to sound like that in that time period.

i've had the original LP for a while... great stuff. got this for the bonus stuff and was equally pleased, even tho some of it is just reworkings.

m.

The second side of the Field Hippies record is absolutely fucking DIRE

i thought i'd gone unnoticed. i swear it wasn't me who stole off with the microwave, however

I'd like to get my hands on the extended reissue by means fair or foul and would love to hear the Byrd album and some Silver Apples - I'm on a massive psych tip this summer and I'm fiending.

Fuckers.

Isn't it also supposed to be a concept album about some dystopian future?

The first album is such a wonderful record to throw on during an overcast day.

Never heard the s/t album until right now -- holy crap, this stuff is amazing.

It is! And this thread just learned me there's a reissue with 10 new songs o_O

Some of them are alternate versions of songs on the original album. The 20-song reissue is on Spotify.

'The Garden Of Earthly Delights' = wonderful. I love this record.

Long time USA fan here.

My fave by them (which is a different style from most of their stuff) is this Beatle-esque track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L11Mh5kSOnc

Great album, sometimes 60s psych doesn't translate well to the LP format but this is strong pretty much all of the way through

Very short lived band, you can see how long the recording line-up lasted from looking at the dates of the bonus material on the Sundazed cd.

That Sundazed cd comes with better sound than the older Edsel version. Plus the bonus tracks. Doesn't have the lyrics printed as earlier versions did, but does have an interview with Byrd.

I'm not as familiar with the Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies recording but I think the s/t USA is pretty essential in its Sundazed version.

Oh & I kept getting tracks from the White Noise lp an Electrical Storm popping up on random on my walkman, not knowing who it was and thinking it sounded a lot like them so that might be a close parallel if you're looking for similar music.

Fifty Foot Hose from San Francisco were kind of similar, too.

45 years old today and still sounding psychedelic.

Album of early Joseph Byrd compositions was reviewed in the last issue of Wire, anyone mentioned it on ILM?

was listening to early 70's country joe album yesterday and i never noticed that dorothy is on it. great record. paris sessions.

Teriffic record here.

yes. especially love "Love Song For The Dead Che"

Yah that song almost feels like it was written for the stage or something...

Where's the rest of it though?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdJyyJmLTns

Today on @aquadrunkard Transmissions: psychedelic pioneer Dorothy Moskowitz of United States of America joins me to discuss her apocalyptic @tsq2 LP Under An Endless Sky, counter culture history, thoughts on Broadcast’s Trish Keenan, and more.

Listen: https://t.co/11KJoW9T42 pic.twitter.com/lZdrXMBBNc

— Jason P. Woodbury (@jasonpwoodbury) March 8, 2023

Just started this listening to this interview with Dorothy Moskowitz and surprised to hear she was a big fan of Broadcast.

From Tompkins Square Records thread---I should have thought to post it on this 'un as well:

Dorothy Moskowitz & The United States of Alchemy - Under an Endless Sky - Available via Tompkins Square - March 17, 2023
Under An Endless Sky represents the interchange that took place between electronic composer Francesco Paolo Paladino, composer and writer Luca Chino Ferrari, and the legendary Dorothy Moskowitz, an icon of underground culture who broke all kinds of new ground as a member of The United States of America. Led by the charismatic composer Joseph Byrd, the band released their lone eponymous album on Columbia Records in 1968. It has taken on a mythic status that has grown through the years, sampled by Diplo and Mac Miller and widely acknowledged as a visionary psychedelic classic.
Francesco Paolo Paladino, an avant-garde Italian composer contacted Dorothy, inviting her to sing on some of his compositions. When she heard his 2021 CD release of Barene & Other Works, she recognized that they shared a similarly experimental point of view and she accepted his invitation. Paladino is known for his collaborations with Martyn Bates, Allison O'Donnell, Simon Fisher Turner, and other world-renowned contemporary composers, as well as his own sought-after 1985 debut LP Doublings and Silences Volume 1.

Francesco has long collaborated with Italian writer Luca Chino Ferrari, author of biographies of Nick Drake, Third Ear Band, Captain Beefheart, Tim Buckley and Syd Barrett. He submitted lyrics to Dorothy and together they began a profound and unique collaboration on the adaptation of lyrics to music, delving into words and meanings, phonetic properties and their singability. “Lyrics that have the audacity to deal with complex themes of human existence, real philosophical cutaways that look at reality and question it, often without offering answers,” says Ferrari.

Moskowitz's extraordinary voice and modal melodies float over Paladino's magical musical textures. There are no guitars, bass, drums or other technological devilry, but only virtual sounds (sometimes without even keyboards) upon which are grafted some acoustic interventions: violins and violas, woodwinds and percussion entrusted to excellent musicians such as Italians Riccardo Sinigaglia, Angelo Contini, Stefano Scala, Trio Cavallazzi and Gino Ape, and English folker Sean Breadin.

Recommended If You Like : Late-stage Marianne Faithfull, Mercury Rev, Terry Riley, Flaming Lips, Italian electronic music, The United States of America.

Also RIYL:Laser Pace - Granfalloon (Takoma - 1974) Wow!

https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/under-an-endless-sky

anyone else listen to this? i was pretty impressed by the 22-minute title track, with moskowitz doing some marianne faithfull-style singing over a gorgeous orchestral drone. but after that i didn't have the energy to check out the rest of the album (yet)

Dorothy Moskowitz & The United States of Alchemy is hailed via WIRE, MOJO, UNCUT, The New Yorker and many more.

** Bay Area & Friends of Bay Area ! Dorothy will be signing copies of her new album, and your vintage copies of The United States of America's 1968 Columbia Records debut LP : Saturday April 8, 1-3pm, Mars Record Shop, Oakland

"Moskowitz breaks the celestial-ocean surface in the 22-minute title
piece with warm, melodic logic, in corkscrew-lullaby arcs. Six shorter pieces evoke her haunted caroling and moonwalk balladry in the original USA – and make you hope she has phone messages waiting from Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips."
★ ★ ★ ★ - David Fricke, MOJO

Damn I'd like to go to that signing! Never did get Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies or his Yankee Transcendoodle or Country Joe's Paris album incl. Dorothy, but still have my high school copy of The United States of America---I may have read a review, but prob the cover, with her looking awesomely poised and the guys like A-V geeks/me, tipped the scales.

high school copy of orig. LP, that is, don't have the CD w bonus tracks.

I had previously heard the two Northern Picture Library covers of "Love Song for the Dead Che" but today while searching on YouTube, I learned that there was a contemporaneous (1969) jazz cover of it by Phil Woods - according to the credits, Herbie Hancock plays piano on the Woods album ("Round Trip") with that track (but I'm not sure if Hancock specifically is on that track).

Thanks, had never heard of that version!
Aquarium Drunkard interviews Dorothy Moskowitz (and Tompkins Square says she'll chat w fans via TS Bandcamp on July 15)

o quote album art master and AD visual guru D. Norsen: “Dorothy Moskowitz might not be a household name but was a musician on two of the headiest albums I know: 1967’s Vocal And Instrumental Ragas From South India on Folkways and 1968’s United States of America on CBS.”
Moskowitz is our guest this week on Transmissions. She joins us to discuss not only the pioneering psychedelia she made in the past with collaborators like Joe Byrd and Country Joe, but also her brand new album, coming out soon from Tompkins Square. It’s called Under the Endless Sky, and it’s credited to Dorothy Moskowitz & The United States of Alchemy. Working with Italian electronic composer Francesco Paolo Paladino and composer and writer Luca Chino Ferrari, it represents a new vision from the 83 year old artist, at once apocalyptic, vivid, and transcendent.

Aquarium Drunkard interviews Dorothy Moskowitz (and Tompkins Square says she'll chat w fans via TS Bandcamp on July 15)

oh tompkins square, gotcha. i misread acronyms sometimes.

Wow!

Most unexpected return of 2023?

Italian electronic composer Francesco Paolo Paladino

omg omg omg so psyched

Haven’t listened to the original album since Mrs. Redd hid it on me long ago, sounding great now. Hearing a kinship with Hair OBC or however you acronym it.

whoa, this is what i hoped would happen every time i've clicked on the thread with all the maps

Lol

nice

1967’s Vocal And Instrumental Ragas From South India on Folkways

listen carefully and you'll hear joe byrd sampling a short piece from that on the field hippies album

https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/interviews/dorothy-moskowitz-i-wanted-to-be-in-the-mainstream-but-it-couldnt-happen-142024/

Seems to already be available for streaming? Listening to it right now.

this is great

Yeah, Na posted link upthread, here tis again: https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/under-an-endless-sky
Tompkins Square is vary generous with many of their releases!

This is so cool, reminds me a lot of Battiato's Sulle Corde Di Aries. It's such a treat to hear her voice again.

I haven't followed Paladino very much since his Doubling Riders days, I need to catch up

wait a second it was MOSKOWITZ who did the voiceover on "Cracks"? that's kind of a legendary sesame street bit, one of those things that people only had hazy, terrifying childhood memories of for a long time

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2592522591_10.jpg

Tompkins Square is pleased to release “Rising to Eternity,” written and produced by singer/songwriter Dorothy Moskowitz. The album follows her acclaimed April 2023 release,' Under An Endless Sky."

Moskowitz is an icon of underground culture who broke all kinds of new ground as a member of The United States of America. Led by the charismatic composer Joseph Byrd, the band released their lone eponymous album on Columbia Records in 1968. It has taken on a mythic status that has grown through the years, sampled by Diplo and Mac Miller and widely acknowledged as a visionary psychedelic classic.

"Rising To Eternity" is a musical reverie about the WEBB Telescope, launched on Christmas Day of 2021. The telescope enables a more detailed exploration of the early universe than has ever been feasible before. The album will be released on Christmas Day of 2023 to commemorate the event.

When asked what impelled her to consider a telescope as the subject of an album, Dorothy said:

“I felt the Webb launch to be like the “moonwalk” of this century, only with our hopelessly ravaged society, no one has the heart or stomach to celebrate anything at all. It began with an instrumental tribute, but the more I wrote, the more free-form fantasy took hold. I included a life form that emerges without light or water, I explored unnamed dimensions inhabiting dark matter, and scored unlikely dialogues between forces of creation and destruction. I think that an event of this magnitude sparks peoples’ imagination if they know about it and I’d like people to know about it."

It’s her first solo album, but also features work by artists with whom she’s recently collaborated such as composer Peter Olof Fransson, and writers Tim Lucas and Luca Chino Ferrari. Her daughter, vocalist Melissa Falarski, contributes back up on several cuts and there is also a track by sound sculptor Larnie Fox. To her pastiche of electronica, Dorothy has added live recordings of her live piano and viola and has incorporated drone washes from NASA archival recordings.

credits
releases December 25, 2023

Advance track, pre-order info:
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/rising-to-eternity

bump. Posted late, dunno how many people have seen this.

new record from Moskowitz:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2938539149_10.jpg

Following the instantly sold out Afterlife 7" EP at the end of 2023, we are pleased to present the full Afterlife album by influential vocalist, musician & songwriter Dorothy Moskowitz (United States Of America / United States Of Alchemy) & producer Retep Folo a.k.a. Peter Olof Fransson (Reportage / The Owl Report).

Fans of 1960's psychedelia, early 1970's experimental rock &
eco-conceptual electronics will find plenty to savour amongst the 14 tracks on this finely crafted album. Utilising an array of vintage instruments, Peter conjures avant-garde chorales & strange mantras bound in slabs of fuzz guitar, whimsical keyboards, jagged synths & menacing percussion. With Dorothy contributing voices, words & additional music together they have produced an album layered in arcane sound, mystical wisdom & urgent prophecy.

Dorothy explored some of these themes on the legendary United States of America album back in 1967, an enduring psych classic & major influence on artists such as Broadcast, Stereolab & Portishead. With Peter's meticulous production bringing these far-reaching sounds and ideas full circle, The Afterlife is a heady mix that manages to acknowledge the past whilst contemplating humanity's uncertain future.

Comparable to the sonic worlds of Mort Garson, Bruce Haack, Alessandro Alessandroni, Alain Goraguer, David Axelrod, Franco Battiato, Maria Monti, Brigitte Fontaine & Areski, The Afterlife is a heartfelt paean to nature's self-regulating cycles & our fragile planet.

https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/the-afterlife