PULSE FIELD Playlist

Date: Tuesday January 21, 2003

Title: Antonin Artaud, The Futurists, and Other Great Beasts

Description: A selection of early recordings representing some of

the first experiments in sound using newly discovered recording technology in the environment and through the human mechanism. This is where media truly converged and began to shape the path that the 20^th Century took. These are the seeds of Futurism, DADA, Surrealism and Sound Poetry.

***please use linked websites for further details of recordings. ubu.com is especially extensive.

10:00

· ‘Musica Futurista’ (Disc One). Featuring recordings from

1913-1935, featuring: Filippo Marinetti, Luigi Russolo,Aldo

Giuntini, Luigi Grandi, et al. (41:13)

http://www.futurism.org.uk/futurism.htm

· Aleister Crowley, ‘The Great Beast Speaks’, c.1920, (23:00)

Tracks marked "Enochian version" are recited in the magical

language discovered and used by "John Dee", magician to the court

of queen Elizabeth. Enochian is not mere gibberish; it is a real

language with a grammar and syntax of its own. Perhaps it is, as

more than one occultist has claimed, a degenerate from of drowned

Atlantis.

Although this recording has previously been avaliable as a "bootleg"

this is the first official release and to the label's knowledge, contains

the only known recording of Crowley. We believe the original

recording was made circa 1920 on a wax cylinder.

11:00

· Antonin Artaud, ‘pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu’, 1947 (40:03)

These represent some of the most powerful outpourings ever recorded, a torrent of speech from the other side of sanity and the occult.

11:40

· Kurt Schwitters, ‘URSONATE’, 1922-1932 (41:29)

The Sonata consists of four movements, of an overture and a finale, and seventhly, of a cadenza in the fourth movement. The first movement is a rondo with four main themes, designated as such in the text of the Sonata. You yourself will certainly feel the rhythm, slack or strong, high or low, taut or loose. To explain in detail the variations and compositions of the themes would be tiresome in the end and detrimental to the pleasure of reading and listening, and after all I'm not a professor."

"In the first movement I draw your attention to the word for word repeats of the themes before each variation, to the explosive beginning of the first movement, to the pure lyricism of the sung "Jüü-Kaa," to the military severity of the rhythm of the quite masculine third theme next to the fourth theme which is tremulous and mild as a lamb, and lastly to the accusing finale of the first movement, with the question "tää?"..."

The fourth movement, long-running and quick, comes as a good exercise for the reader's lungs, in particular because the endless repeats, if they are not to seem too uniform, require the voice to be seriously raised most of the time. In the finale I draw your attention to the deliberate return of the alphabet up to a. You feel it coming and expect the a impatiently. But twice over it stops painfully on the b..."

"I do no more than offer a possibility for a solo voice with maybe not much imagination. I myself give a different cadenza each time and, since I recite it entirely by heart, I thereby get the cadenza to produce a very lively effect, forming a sharp contrast with the rest of the Sonata which is quite rigid. There."

"The letters applied are to be pronounced as in German. A single vowel sound is short... Letters, of course, give only a rather incomplete score of the spoken sonata. As with any printed music, many interpretations are possible. As with any other reading, correct reading requires the use of imagination. The reader himself has to work seriously to becomew a genuine reader. Thus, it is work rather than questions or mindless criticism which will improve the reader's receptive capacities. The right of criticism is reserved to those who have achieved a full understanding. Listening to the sonata is better than reading it. This is why I like to perform my sonata in public."

12:20

· Raoul Hausmann, ‘Poemes Phonetiques’1918, 1924, 1946, 1947 (50:51)

http://www.ubu.com/sound/hausmann.html

1:10

· ‘Futurism/DADA Reviewed’ Total Time: (62:57)

o Luigi Russolo ‘Risveglio di una Citta’(3:45)

o Antonio Russolo ‘Chorale’(1:57)

o Filippo Marinetti’Sintesi Musicali Futuristiche’ (6:56)

o Antionio Russolo ‘Serenata’(2:34)

o Filippo Marinetti ‘La Battaglia di Adrianopoli’ (3:05)

o Filippo Marinetti ‘Definizione di Futurismo’ (3:08)

o Luigi Grandi’Cavalli + Acciaio’ (2:45)