Angus MacLise "The Kathmandu Cycle" [Cassette]
Label: Counter Culture Chronicles - Counter Culture Chronicles 22
過去にも同作家のLP作品を出していた、カウンターカルチャー & アヴァンギャルドにフォーカスした記録を中心に手がけるオランダのアンダーグラウンド出版社Counter Culture Chronicles。今回はニューヨークにてAngus MacLiseが1976年披露した大変貴重なポエトリーリーディング・パフォーマンスをカセットフォーマットにて初の音源化。MacLise自身によって録音されたネパールの音風景/音楽を背景に驚くほど繊細なリーディングが続いていく約42分のノンストップ録音。
Artist : Angus MacLise
Publisher : Counter Culture Chronicles
Year : 2019
One-sided C-90 cassette
Recorded at The Millennium Poetry & Multimedia Performance, New York, 17 September 1976
The cassette comes with a laser printed J-card and insert
American poet, percussionist, calligrapher, actor, occultist and publisher Angus MacLise (1938-1979) counts as one of the central figures of the ‘counterculture’ of the 1960s and 1970s. MacLise was a member of La Monte Young’s The Theatre of Eternal Music, contributed to the early Fluxus newspaper VTre, founded the Dead Language Press together with his friend Piero Heliczer (in some of whose films he appeared), was the Velvet Underground’s first drummer, and co-founded the legendary Spirit Catcher bookstore in Kathmandu. MacLise produced scores for the underground classics Chumlum by Ron Rice and Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda by Ira Cohen and, together with his wife Hetty McGee, edited Aspen Magazine #9 in 1971. Maclise married Hetty soon after he had left (or some say had been kicked out of) an early incarnation of the Velvet Underground in 1965 and had moved to California, where Timothy Leary led their wedding ceremony in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. No sooner had the couple finished their work for Aspen Magazine in 1971 than they travelled to British Columbia, where they wanted to settle down but were refused visas. They eventually found a new home after having followed the hippie trail to Kathmandu, Nepal, where their son Ossian was recognised as a reincarnated Lama by the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu. Angus MacLise was a heavy drug user and his addiction to opium and heroin in combination with a relentlessly creative and fiercely uncompromising lifestyle proved fatal. MacLise, only 41 years old, died in Kathmandu in 1979 and was cremated there according to the traditions of Tibetan Buddhists.
During his stay in Kathmandu in the 1970s, MacLise occasionally made trips to the west. Together with his wife and son and in the company of Ira Cohen and Petra Vogt, he travelled to Paris in 1975. And one year later he read poems during the Millennium Poetry and Multimedia Performance in New York City. The recording of this reading, dubbed directly from the master tape, has now been released on cassette by Counter Culture Chronicles. Against a background of Nepalese music recorded by MacLise himself, the poet is heard reading seminal works in a surprisingly high and sensitive, at times even vulnerable voice. This cassette is in all respects a genuine and rare countercultural gem from René van der Voort’s amazing label.
ビート・ジェネレーションによるポエトリー・リーディングや、アヴァンギャルド・アーティストによるスポークン・ワード等アンダーグラウンドなアートに焦点を当てるオランダのコアなレーベルCounter Culture Chroniclesより、La Monte Youngをして「世界最高の詩人の一人」と言わしめ、The Velvet Undergroundやテープ実験、ミニマリズム、カウンターカルチャー、多くの分野でその名を残すAngus MacLise(1938-1979)の1976年未発表音源がカセットで登場！
50年代後半から70年代の間、ヒッピー達の三大聖地とも呼ばれていたカトマンズには、若者文化に大きな影響をあたえた詩人や小説家であるビートニクが集っていたとされ、このテープはカトマンズの雑踏や僧侶の読経等をバックにAngus MacLiseのポエトリーリーディングが42分に及んで収めた、カウンターカルチャー・アーカイブと言える内容なっています。写真はJimi Hendrix, Jack Smith, Pharaoh SandersそしてWilliam S. Burroughsという数々のアーティストを撮影した写真家Ira Cohen(1935-2011)によるもの。音質にも拘った作りで、インサート付属、完全限定100部。永久音楽劇場やVUファンのみならず、チベット仏教や神秘主義的な側面からも非常に貴重なサイケデリックな記録。（引用）
