On the vinyl consumer kicksometer it's off the scale. This morning I read Bob Stanley's piece in The Guardian about the vinyl revival, came home and found this waiting for me...
...oooh, what could be inside, kids?
I'm the right age to be a '50-quid man', but not the type. I don't have the money they do for starters. Plus they've gone full circle from vinyl to CDs, MP3s and back again whilst I've always bought vinyl, intermittently, mostly old second-hand albums. This is a luxury purchase (I suppose it would be to most) because rather than being able to casually spend loads on vinyl I'm impulsive and, yes, the burn holes in all my trouser pockets tell the tale of what money does to them.
Well wrapped, isn't it?
Bubble wrap peep show...
...I splashed out for two good reasons; one being the fact that I haven't heard some of the material, the other being the focus I know vinyl brings as opposed to files which, due to their abundance and ease of play, frequently get played and not listened to properly.
Look...tasty photos on the sleeves...
...you handsome bastard!
Better unwrap the albums. I haven't been so excited since Chelsea won the Champion League. Perhaps I'll write it on the calendar...'Pierre Henry's Choix D'oeuvres: 1950 - 1985 arrived'. Nah, that would be stupid. Hold on, I'm distracted by Microphone Bien Tempéré...Dimanche Noir...are those church bells? What are those sounds? Yes, the beautiful mystery of musique concrète....now Bach's being wound fast-forward - brilliant! It's the early-50s and Pierre Henry is playing with the Classical tradition like a true iconoclast, like a crazy man, like someone enthralled with what new machines can do to old sounds.
So I'm unwrapping the first disc...
...shiny vinyl thrill...feel the resistance of vinyl against paper the first time it's liberated...
...the ceremonial placing of album on a turntable that it hasn't met before. "Turntable, this is Pierre Henry. Pierre, this is my turntable. I'm sure you'll get on fine."
My hand is shaking...perhaps it's my age, but I suspect it's excitement...it must be, I'm not that old...
...lift off! No, not lift off, touch down...
...doesn't it sound great coming out of this? Robby The Robot likes it, I can tell...the tape future concrète meets the electronic (Forbidden) planet of sound...
...I wonder if J.G.Ballard ever listened to Pierre Henry? Something about the way Henry and Schaeffer crashed sounds together might have appealed. Hold on, distracted by horse whinnying and dog barking on Astrologie (1953)...or Ballard's literary hero, William Burroughs...cut words, cut music...music as cut-up...
Running 'round the room in excitement? No, just an accidental snap...ha-ha.
Sound of needle lifting off the vinyl...though I'm not a purist that very sound seems right for this music...and yes I've enjoyed most Pierre Henry tracks on files up until now...but now, that sound, it makes an instant connection with the times the early pieces were made, reuniting them across time. Old technology as a medium for what were once new ways of composing, which sound totally alive today; impervious to the ageing process. In these pieces we hear not just predictions of things to come, but parallel events, as valid now as they ever were, proving their worth as contemporaries rather than ancient precedents. For all their efforts it feels as if modern music makers in awe of Pierre Henry are still only trying to catch up. I suspect they'll only ever be looking at his heels...
Ouch! that tonearm..if you can even call it that.
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! Yes, I really should get a new deck but...spent all my money on the box set.
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