VARIOUS – The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection Of Radical, Experimental and Irrelevant Music from 1970’s San Diego – 4CD Box Set

Description

4CD – Limited Edition Box Set:

4 CD boxset and booklet of unreleased work by Pauline Oliveros, Harry Partch, Diamanda Galas, Warren Burt, David Dunn, Robert Turman, Joji Yuasa, KIVA, Ernie Morgan, Peter Gordon, Kathy Acker, Alexina Louie, Kenneth Gaburo and more.

The 4 discs are separated into 4 categories: Drones and Tapes, Ensembles, Synthesizers and Vocals.

This wild and wonderful 4 cd set came about from a meeting between Nyahh Records boss Willie Stewart and Bill Perrine, author of Alien Territory: Radical, Experimental and Irrelevant Music From 1970’s San Diego. The two were chatting over email when Bill happened to mention that he had access to the archive at the University of California, San Diego which contained a large collection of unreleased work by many of the artists and musicians mentioned in his book. They decided to collaborate on a compilation album, which soon turned into a 4 disc set.

In the early 1970s San Diego was a sleepy Southern California Navy town on the Mexican border and a seemingly unlikely gathering point for some of the most
innovative, unclassifiable American artists of their era. Yet the presence of Harry Partch – hobo composer, iconoclast and inventor of instruments such as theHarmonic Canon and Quadrangularis Reversum – and a newly established and highly experimental music department at the University of California San Diego(UCSD) ushered in a revolution that was as much social as it was musical. Drawing from the occult, self-realization and radical political movements of 70sSouthern California, these artists sought to dismantle the established control systems of American life, looking to the future even as they sometimesreferenced a distant, idyllically imagined past. In their pursuit of Irrelevant Music – Kenneth Gaburos term for an untainted music free of constraint andcompromise – these disparate artists constitute a shadow history of American experimental music far removed from the European and East Coast models of
the time.

Sonic Meditations, compositional linguistics, microtonality, invented instruments, cutting edge electronics, underwater synthesizers, Tibetan throatsinging, environmental sound and pure noise were their tools. My 2023 book,Alien Territory: Radical, Experimental and Irrelevant Music in 1970s San Diego,presents the story. In this collection are the sounds. Its a lot of ground to cover and in an attempt to ever so slightly smooth out the listener experience andimpose a little structure on to a decade of far-reaching experimentation each disc from this set is devoted to a particular musical style, strategy or genre.

These are useful but admittedly porous distinctions that the artists themselves may or may not recognize. With the exception of Noyse by Kenneth Gaburo,which was released on a Musicworks compilation in 1999, as well as a couple Warren Burt tracks available for purchase directly from the artist, all tracks inthis set are previously unreleased. Thanks to all the artists who contributed their work, as well as Philip Blackburn, Gavin Bryars, Lia Gaburo, Pea Hix, Ione, AlMargolis, John McCaughey, Grace Bell Parsons, Pat Strange, Jon Szanto and the other fine people Ive forgotten to thank because I left this section to the lastminute. An extra round of applause to Warren Burt for his archival efforts on behalf of Ernie Morgan; likewise to David Dunn for his work on the KennethGaburo pieces.

Tracklist:

Disc 1 – Drones & Tape
1. Robert Turman Relay (circa 1977)
2. David Dunn Arroyo (1975)
3. Warren Burt for Charlemagne Palestine (1973)
4. Ernie Morgan Remains (undated)
5. Robert Turman Insecta (circa 1977)
6. David Dunn Oracles (paragraph 6) (1975)
7. Warren Burt French Fried Minds of Walruses and Caterpillars (1974)

Disc 2 – Ensembles
1. Harry Partch Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales (1968)
2. Harry Partch Two Duets from And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell inPetaluma (1968)
3. Allen Strange Switchcraft (1970)
4. Warren Burt, with Pauline Oliveros & Reinhard Berg Phrases Please,
Or My Name is Country and Western Oatmeal, Boys and Girls (1972)
5. Citizens Band Untitled Music from Citizens Band (1978)
6. Joseph Julian Windows and Clouds (1973) 7. KIVA Excerpt from Pure Intellect, Serpent Power, Inner Frames (1976)

Disc 3 – Synthesizers
1. Dary John Mizelle Polyphonies II (circa 1973)
2. Diamanda Gals Scalatron Music (1981)
3. Joji Yuasa My Blue Sky in Southern California (1976)
4. Ernie Morgan Mono-Melodies 1 (undated)
5. Ernie Morgan Buchla Bounce (undated)

Disc 4 – Vocals
1. Alexina Louie Molly (1972)
2. Kenneth Gaburo Ringings (1976)
3. Peter Gordon (featuring Kathy Acker) Greetings from the SLA (1974)
4. Dary John Mizelle, David Gamper, Robert MacDougall, Frank McCarty Winter Voices (1970)
5. Kenneth Gaburo Noyse (1975)