Cannibal
(Primary Information) LP $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
This disorienting tour de force of the lower forms of music. Guided by a collective deftness for derailment, Destroy All Monsters’ Cary Loren, Cameron Jamie, and the Belgian minister of exploitation Dennis Tyfus hallucinate fifteen tracks of erratic electronics, deranged and incantatory narration, harmonica, jaw harp, dollar-bin records, found poetry, vocal sound techniques, etc. Silkscreened jacket. Edition of 450. Have a listen to “Phantasm” here: https://soundcloud.com/primaryinformation/cannibal-phantasm/s-LEECR
Rêve Parisien
(Primary Information) Used LP $13.00
Four compositions performed live at Jacob Kassay’s 2010 exhibition at Art: Concept in Paris, loosely functioning as an audio catalogue and soundtrack to the exhibition. Chatham abandoned the trumpet style he developed in the ’90s for a non-distorted, less effects-driven sound that complements his minimalist compositions and free jazz training. Gatefold jacket with die-cut cover.
Hegemony of Delete
(Primary Information) LP $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
Electronic music in dialogue with the real rhythms of work and leisure by Baltimore-based Matt Papich, whose six songs here are structurally digressive, rhythmically protean, and littered with distorting spatial impressions and musical non-sequiturs (the interjection of anonymous voices, ambient noise, dryly evocative samples, etc.), all of which contribute to Hegemony of Delete’s sense of artifice. Yet the music never gets carried away with itself, mysteriously articulating its own obscure, fleeting circumstances, even as it shapes them — a delicately maintained feedback circuit, a relaxed conversation with a synthetic atmosphere. Edition of 500. Have a listen to “BB Burn” here: https://soundcloud.com/primaryinformation/co-la-bb-burn
Dan Graham & The Static at Riverside Studios London
(Primary Information) Split cassette $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Recorded live on February 24, 1979, and previously released that same year by Audio Arts, Dan Graham’s “Performer / Audience / Mirror” deconstructs the relationship between performer and audience by flanking the stage with a large mirror in back and delivering a monologue through four phases: (1) the artist facing the audience and describing himself and the attitudes his movements signify; (2) the artist facing the audience and describing their external behaviors; (3) the artist facing the mirror (back to the audience) and discussing his movements and their signification; and (4) the artist (still facing the mirror) describing the audience and their movements through a reverse perspective. With Glenn Branca on guitar, Barbara Ess on bass, and Christine Hahn on drums, The Static’s 41-minute live recording rips through “Inspirez Expirez” and “Don’t Let Me Stop You,” among others. Edition of 500. C80
Listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/primaryinformation/sets/dan-graham-the-static-live-at/s-QQJby
RICHARD HAMILTON / DIETER ROTH
Canciones de Cadaqués
(Primary Information - PI008) 2x7-inch $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
Roth and Hamilton alternately perform on vocals and guitar, with assistance from a Cadaqués dog, Chispas Luis, who periodically takes over vocal duties with a particularly sharp bark. The duo worked together from 1961 to 1998 and produced several projects across many mediums, including this double-seven inch originally release in 1976 by Hansjörg Mayer. Gatefold jacket. Edition of 500
Have a listen to Side B here: https://soundcloud.com/primaryinformation/dieter-roth-richard-hamilton-canciones-de-cadaques-side-b
How To Make A Happening
(Primary Information) CD $15.75 (Out-of-stock)
Allan Kaprow lays out eleven rules on how, and how not, to participate in the art movement he began in the late 1950s and which became known for its unpredictability, open scores, and constantly-evolving form. On Primary Information’s CD — reissued with the cooperation of the Estate of Allan Kaprow and the Getty Research Institute — he speaks plainly into a microphone, delivering private cut-to-the-chase style instruction on Happenings that is both informative and contradictory, both a practical and theoretical how-to with frequent dead-pan humor. He also reads the program and notes of three Happenings (“Soap,” “Calling,” and “Raining”), which serve as loose instruction, as they involve improvisation and forces beyond human control, such as acts of nature and other environmental forces. This spoken word recording, which reflects and informs on a movement that fifty years ago jump-started a seminal shift in postwar contemporary art and performance, was made without the advantage of hindsight and naturally lacks sentimentality and a sense of its relevance within this history. In fact, Kaprow shrugs off its place in the arts. As he declares in rule number one: “Forget all the standard art forms — don’t paint pictures, don’t make poetry, don’t build architecture, don’t arrange dances, don’t write plays, don’t compose music, don’t make movies, and above all don’t think you’ll get a happening by putting all these together.” Hand-silkscreened jewelcase that replicates the laminated 1968 edition by Alison Knowles and Something Else Press while preserving Mass Art’s original artwork from the 1966 edition. Listen to an excerpt here: https://soundcloud.com/primaryinformation/allan
Live From The Commodore Ballroom
(Primary Information - PI10) Used 2xLP $17.00 (Out-of-stock)
A legendary 1980 performance (opening for Gang Of Four) by this strongly visual Canadian post-punk / art-rock group with an affinity for Devo, Talking Heads, and the Vancouver School of photo conceptualism. Kitty Byrne (drums), Rodney Graham (guitar), Frank Crass (guitar), Danice MacLeod (violin), Frank Ramirez (vocals), Jeff Wall (vocals, keyboards), Ian Wallace (bass), and David Wisdom (vocals, keyboards). Pronounced “you jerk” (the five is silent), UJ3RK5 formed in Vancouver in 1978, originating from Ramirez and Graham’s guitar-and-bongo duo, The Gentlemen Two, with occasional participation by friends such as Merv Hutchinson and author William Gibson. In addition to appearing on Canadian compilations, in 1980 the band released a self-titled, four-song EP on Quintessence Records, reissued that same year by PolyGram. This sound board recording includes “Naum Gabo,” “The Anglican,” “Booty Dread,” the Dan Graham-inspired “Eisenhower and the Hippies,” and eight previously unreleased tracks. Edition of 600
Solo Voice I–X
(Primary Information) LP $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
Yeh’s first LP devoted entirely to the voice has its most obvious precedents in ’60s and ’70s sound poetry (the raw and a-verbal Four Horsemen, post-Lettrist France, Joan La Barbara). Having moved from virtuosic, intensely physical performances to more focused studies attached to performance situations and the body, he maintains a strict fidelity to the specific properties of his voice. Yeh has relied on amplification and various studio techniques; here the breaths have been edited out, letting the vocalizations run together in palpitating continua. The effect is an elision of phrasing as an element of both linguistic and musical convention, and an uncanny protraction of the voice into vast, hypnotic slurs. Solo Voice I–X progresses from shorter tracks, each honing in on a particular sound or technique, toward more open-ended territory in which the formal rigor begins to dissolve, with Yeh’s voice playing off both silence and itself. Check out a four-minute excerpt here: https://soundcloud.com/primaryinformation/solovoice-excerpts-vii-iii-v2