A view from the west

Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) is renowned as a teacher, pioneer of electronics in music, jazz pianist, writer, ecologist, publisher, and proponent of compositional linguistics. Over the course of a dedicated career, his uncompromising work carved out its own patch in the territory of American experimentalism.

Lingua Press, 1976

James Kirtland Randall (1929 - ) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1934 to 1947, and subsequently attended Columbia University (B.A., 1955), Harvard (M.A., 1956) and Princeton (M.F.A., 1958). He studied piano with Leonard Shure and composition with Herbert Elwell, Thad Jones, Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. From 1958 to 1991 he taught at Princeton, where he was professor of music. He was a founding member of the American Society of University Composers and has written articles on composing and music theory for several journals, notably Perspectives of New Music (some of these were collected in the monograph Compose Yourself: A Manual for the Young (Open Space, 1995)). He also collaborated with Benjamin Boretz on the book Being About Music: Textworks 1960-2003 (Open Space, 2003).

From the early 1960s into the 1970s, Randall engaged principally in computer synthesis of sound and, with Godfrey Winham, developed facilities for this at Princeton University. His tape compositions were generated by the MUSIC IV B program, a version of MUSIC IV introduced at Princeton. He designed his own software "instruments," which enabled him to specify every aspect of every sound and structure developments within single notes in ways that reflect principles of development used in whole compositions as, for example in Lyric Variations for Violin and Computer (1966-1968).

In 1980 he turned his attention to improvised musical performance and began a series of explorations of spontaneous group performance, or "real-time co-creation," involving many kinds of musicians and other artists (painters, dancers) as well. The ongoing efforts, preserved on hundreds of sound recordings and videotapes (under the project name Inter/Play), document the emergence of idiosyncratic group styles and performing conventions. Randall is himself a regular participant in these performances. In 1990, Randall, along with Elaine Barkin and Benjamin Boretz, started the publications series Open Space.

Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) is renowned as a teacher, pioneer of electronics in music, jazz pianist, writer, ecologist, publisher, and proponent of compositional linguistics. Over the course of a dedicated career, his uncompromising work carved out its own patch in the territory of American experimentalism.

Lingua Press, 1976

Special issue of this US magazine dedicated in its entirety to the late Australian artist/compositional linguist/raconteur Chris Mann, who died in 2018. The magazine contains tributes from Mann associates and admirers, including Warren Burt, Amanda Stewart, Pi-0, Ronald Robboy, Linda Kouvaras, Alvin Lucier, Ruark Lewis, Annea Lockwood, as well as Mann’s own writing and an interview with him by Philip Blackburn.

88 pages bound in soft-cover glossy colour cover by Brigid Burke.

A collection collecting of generative grammars.

A composition for one actor and tape, or two actors. Score. 1970

This book follows the first exhibition of Robilliard’s notebooks, ‘Disorganised Writings and Sketches’ with Rob Tufnell in Cologne in April 2019. It was made with support from the Elephant Trust and the book’s designers, A Practice for Everyday Life and with assistance from James Birch, one of David’s gallerists, and Chris Hall, custodian of the estate of Andrew Heard. The book is dedicated to Andrew Heard.

Rob Tufnell presents a new publication of extracts from the notebooks of the poet and artist David Robilliard (b.1952 – d.1988). After his premature death from an AIDS-related illness in 1988, Robilliard left a large number of notebooks in the care of his close friend and fellow artist Andrew Heard. These were obsessively filled with drafts of poems, diary entries, addresses and telephone numbers, blunt observations, quiet reflections, short stories, ideas for paintings, portraits and crude drawings. Robilliard’s superficially simple, pithy prose and verse is riddled with the dichotomies of an era that was both exuberant and miserable. His notebooks reveal his creative process, his interests, ideas, ambitions and then his illness but always embody his often repeated belief that ‘Life’s not good it’s excellent.’ 

Many of the books contain the inscription: ‘If found please return to 12 Fournier Street, London E1. Thank you’ – the home and studio of his patrons, Gilbert & George. In their lament ‘Our David’ (1990) they describe their protégé as: 

“...the sweetest, kindest, most infuriating, artistic, foul-mouthed, witty, sexy, charming, handsome, thoughtful, unhappy, loving and friendly person we ever met... Starting with pockets filled with disorganised writings and sketches, he went on to produce highly original poetry, drawings and paintings.”

The publication exists in two editions: yellow and pink.

Featuring Zoe Leonard, Eileen Myles, Jimmy DeSana, Princess Julia, Olivia Laing, Simon Costin, Timothy Thornton, Mary Manning and many more. Published 2020.