Three Tapes by Angus MacLise

Tape One Tape Two Tape Three Pleasure Editions’ first music release, and what a rare honor it is: a 3-cassette compilation of unheard music from MacLise’s vast and wide-ranging reel-to-reel back catalogue containing everything from tape experiments to folk jams, spoken word to synth noise insanity—all animated by the remarkable spirits of MacLise and his cohorts.

Some of the inner thoughts of Angus MacLise come to light in a group of 16 letters recently sold online, sent to Piero Heliczer between 1958 - 1960:

In one long, discursive letter MacLise expands further on his negative feelings towards America: "About the U.S. - it seems as if a dehumanized garden has been made of it - my wonderful huge U.S…. And so, I see, the States has not, by a long sight, been tailor made for me… we were never really suited to the land, it was never our legacy - only a vast spoil awaiting exploitation; our spirits and presences never arose with this soil, and our old lands remain, in essence, virgin - while the U.S. and all the W. Hemisphere has been raped until bloody and mauled into sullen subjection… Well, piero I've worked myself up into a conclusion about the U.S. and I'm satisfied with it, at least for the present."

The same letter, written in a Frankfurt hospital during his spell in the army, describes in some detail what MacLise refers to in another as "a kind of 'crack-up' or minor nervous breakdown". He begins: "I suppose I should unravel for you the twisted silence I consciously kept since I've been in the army… The first big flare-up was in Alabama after I had written the first of my only two compositions since I've been in the black hole of military puppets - At that time I went Awol and remained in Memphis, with a brain fever, in an obscure hotel… when I had recovered I returned and not long afterwards came overseas - and in november I began writing a musical score - then, suddenly, I cracked when they continually interrupted the work in progress… I was now charged with outright and flagrant aggression and balking, so I was sent to the nut ward - and I hope to be kicked out; I only trust they'll do this when I hit the U.S. - here's one of the narrations from the musical score" (lengthy exposition follows).

Elsewhere he relates how "the actual facts of my 'tragic incident' were incurred on my guard post in les bois (d'ennui) when I fired the ammunition off in my weapon, indiscriminately and impartially in the spirit of their best democratics. When I arrive in States I plan to go to 'Frisco to get an opera of mine produced - it isn't actually an opera but an encyclical with a double entendre like: pas savant. Percussion accompaniment, narration dance sequences, improvisation by a chamber group."

The letters are peppered with references to friends and relatives: "om is with child in ny and speaks to me of lonely wilderness + awaits her husband… I think she visits now with aldous uncle in long island… + also I have seen yr brother who now works at 2 or 3 jobs - 1 as waiter at a village ice cream parlor + I think he plans to study insects in the caribbean";

encounters missed: "Am on Rue des Ecoles having journeyed Mme Loyer has said that you had fled and penetrated the Forêt" (Madame Loyer, Heliczer's landlady at the Contrescarpe'); and the strength of his friendship with Heliczer, strained by separation: "I miss your presence, but our stride is different - although we are both friars. I fear now from things which Olivia has said - the thing is that GREAT things are expected - but they happen just by being there and not in things like expatriate manifestos I cannot be depended on for anything except words of love and poems Perhaps we are not good companions for long stretches…".