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Gastr Del Sol / Tony Conrad
The Japanese Room At La Pagode / May

Single US 1995 on Table Of The Elements label
Electronic and Rock (Post Rock, Avant-garde, Minimal)

I went to the Japanese room at La Pagode to see an autobiographical film by a French director. It opened with footage of Cairo during the Gulf War. The director was represented by a milddle-aged Egyptian writer: same glasses. I was still weighing the merits of the Arabic voiceover when, unexpectedly, the film about Cairo ended and a film about the French Director began in earnest. Why May Day? In honor of Maia, Roman 'Good Goddess' of fertility & women's chastity, worshiped only by women. Love is not a suitable topic for music made by those whose history stinks of their habitual suppression of women. Why May Day? An International Workers' Day in celebration of women and men together not as lovers but at labor. The high and low voices in polyphony signify women's & men's equity in a society unsoiled by the stain of love. Why "May Day!" as men in distress face death? Love in music is only to yoke woman in opposition to man. I had a dream that I shared a space with every living thing. Huge and waiting in the even light there stood a wall covered with windows and doors variously labeled with animal spoors and marked with names. As soon as I focused it clearly, each ancient door mysteriously became open, and a sound current flowed out all over the infinite plain. Other doors opened from time to time, reverberating the sound everywhere, but differently. And then suddenly there was nothing alive -- but nothing had changed, and when I had returned, the sound was still there. These studio recordings were released in conjunction with our third and final series of concerts for 1995. The first 500 copies contain an additional disc featuring an excerpt from "Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain," a composition by Tony Conrad, performed by Tony Conrad with David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. The copyrights for text and sound are held by the respective artists; the design is for Table of the Elements. The cover folds out into a 4-panel poster.

Musicians

	Gastr Del Sol , album by
	Tony Conrad vn, perc, *1940 US album by

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