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Thursday, December 21, 2017

Julius Eastman (1940-1990): Creation (1973)




"Eastman's experimentalism shared some tropes with Cage's, particularly the juxtaposition of disparate sonic materials, amplification, electronics, and tape music. 'Creation' (ca. 1973) is exemplary in this regard. Eastman composed it for the S.E.M. Ensemble, and it was played by Kotik, Eastman, and Williams on their European tour in the summer of 1973. The piece is, like 'Tripod' and 'Thruway', bifurcated into a prerecorded sound collage and a live acoustic component. Eastman's tape collage brings together wildly divergent sounds—vocal drones on an open fifth, sounds of screaming, laughing, crying, and electronic feedback. On the recording Eastman, Williams, and Kotik quote popular songs ('Danny Boy' and 'The Girl from Ipanema' stand out). Gay signifiers emerge periodically as well on the tape. Eastman and his fellow performers affect a lisping comic tone of voice while discussing subjects more expected in a John Waters film than in a classical music concert. This tape accompanies live sounds of percussion, flute, and piano that blend repetition, improvisation, and virtuosic displays from the performers. Eastman's inclusion of queerly surreal material is in line with a long tradition of avant-garde shock techniques in which abject subject matter is joined to an equally disruptive musical surface or formal conceit." - Ryan Dohoney, "John Cage, Julius Eastman, and the Homosexual Ego", in: Benjamin Piekut (ed.), "Tomorrow is the Question. New Directions in Experimental Music Studies", Ann Arbor MI 2014, pp. 39-62, here p. 43

"Creation" for flute, piano, percussion, and recorded sounds (1973)

played by Petr Kotík, Julius Eastman & Jan Williams (S.E.M. Ensemble)

photo (by R. Nemo Hill): Julius Eastman with a charming lady named Bill Paradise

An interview and vocal recital from 1984 by Julian Eastman can be heard here.

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