Resonance FM, the ever-interesting London online radio station, hosted a special broadcast in the Museum of Garden History in London in July of 2004 for Sonic Arts Network (SAN). This sound and radio art release is the documentation of that event, along with a 24 page book of text and graphics to accompany the performances on the CD and to detail the individual artists. Taxonomically, the artists presented are: Antonin Artaud, Vito Acconci, Eric Belgum, Niel Mills, Asa-Chang & Junray, Reese Williams, Caroline Bergball, Language Removal Services, Sue Tompkins, Takayuki Nakano, Ergo Phizmiz, Radboud Mens & Jaap Blonk, Dokaka, Todd Colby, and Sean Landers.
In his opening remarks in the book, Ubu.com founder Kenneth Goldsmith explains that the expansion of sound poetry has involved a great deal of splicing and placing of sound in relation to words. He proclaims that "this compilation is a celebration of impurity and guilty pleasures, as viewed through the lens of the historic avant-garde." That's shown from the start, with a very unusual work by post-asylum Antonin Artaud of an "exchange and beating" that's very unlike any of his other historical spoken word documents, with Artaud instead attempting to undermine the very language that had failed him earlier in his life.
Most of the pieces are modern works, but often rely on or subvert historic written word from such artists as Gertrude Stein or James Joyce. Many of the works are poetry based, using various devices like repetition, sound fragments, aural noise, etc. There's a repetetively foul languaged excerpt from a play by Eric Belgum, "Bad Marriage Mantra," that strikes a resonant chord, and the near-laughing extractions from the excerpt of "The Sonance Project" by Reese Williams. Niel Mills' "Seven Number Poems" takes on the word "seven" in ways quite dissimilar from a Sesame Street reading; Radboud Mens & Jaap Blonk, similar to their excellent Kontrans release, use vocal noise and electronics in highly unlikely and almost childish ways to create a surprising and amusing vocal groove. Language Removal Services deconstructs spoken word to the interstitial elements (breathing, clicking, lips sounds, etc). Takayuki Nakano's excerpt from "Comes Sabatog" has Nakano in an over-the-top reading of Joyce's "Finegan's Wake" over his own percussion, a series of pieces that he recorded on studio downtime for reasons unknown. Sean Landers closes the collection by (tongue-in-cheek) paradoxically defining himself as the greatest artist living or as a lunatic, "a man so in tune with his species that his every action is poetry," while a repeating section of Holst's Planets strokes his words.
This is a collection that is both essential and not to be taken too seriously. It positions itself in art history, challenging our concepts of sound and art, or simply amusing us with its irreverence to those forms. Guilty pleasure or high art, this is an excellent and sometimes startling collection, a concept similar to the previous "Big Ears" and "Pataphysics" compilations but focused on words, complete or in fragments.
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