Product Description
(PRE ORDER Ships early July)
Edited by Lawrence Kumpf and Joe Bucciero, with contributions by
Marcus Boon, Joan Brigham, Amy Cimini, John Corbett, crys cole, Charles
Curtis, Limpe Fuchs, David Hopkins, Andrew Lampert, Klaus Lang, Alan
Licht, Annea Lockwood, Larry J. Nai, Matana Roberts, Dafne Vicente-
Sandoval, Olaf Stapledon, Akio Suzuki, and Tashi Wada.
Music from the World Tomorrow, the second issue of Blank Forms’ journal, brings together a combination of neverbefore
published, lost, and newly translated materials that supplement the non-profit’s live programs. It is envisioned as a
platform for critical reflection and extended dialogue between scholars, artists, and other figures working within the world
of experimental music and art.
Featuring Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arkestra on the cover, this issue also includes John Corbett’s writing on the
enigmatic annotations found on Sun Ra’s reel-to-reel tape archives, accompanied by full-color photos of the nearhieroglyphic
tapes themselves. Visionary avant-garde jazz vocalist Patty Waters speaks with Larry J. Nai about the art
and experiences that moved her from childhood to the then-now, touching upon her mysterious ‘70s and ‘80s period
of musical inactivity, in a rare 1997 Halana interview reprinted here. “I struggle,” a prose poem by alto saxophonist and
sound experimentalist Matana Roberts, explores the creative conundrum of making American music in a state of national
crisis under POTUS #45.
Maryanne Amacher remains a focal point of this second issue, with three pieces related to Blank Forms’ work with the
pioneering sound artist’s archive: scholar Amy Cimini contributes a text detailing the genesis, score, and theoretical
underpinnings of Amacher’s Adjacencies; Joan Brigham presents Scott Fisher’s account of his career working with
virtual reality and 3D stereoscopic imaging (photo examples included) and its intersections with Amacher, most notably
at MIT’s legendary Center for Advanced Visual Studies; and an excerpt from science-fiction writer Olaf Stapledon’s Last
and First Men is reproduced. A favorite of Amacher’s, Stapledon’s novel tells of a speculative race of sadistic humans
with highly developed ears who, forty million years in the future, grapple with an all-too-familiar narrative of music’s divine
nature reduced to profanity by power.
The late polymath avant-garde artist Tony Conrad is represented twice in the issue. Filmmaker Andrew Lampert
introduces a selection of Conrad’s OLD IDEAS—handwritten notes from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s that
illustrate the operation of Conrad’s brainiac intellect at play, many written as near Fluxus word scores—presented here in
full color. A new transcription of a 1989 phone interview by Alan Licht details Conrad’s Early Minimalism project, a
postmodern streak in his compositions, the Theater of Eternal Music’s involvement with the overtone series, and his
disparaging outlook on La Monte Young’s “Indian swami racket.” Conversely, in her rediscovered 2001 interview with
Marcus Boon, Swedish minimalist Catherine Christer Hennix praises La Monte’s revival of just intonation, recounting
her discipleship with Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Pran Nath and the limitless universe of his tuned tamburas.
This issue also features a transcription of a 2017 Annea Lockwood talk and conversation with send + receive festival
director crys cole, discussing Lockwood’s Tiger Balm (1970) and Ear-Walking Man/Woman (1996). Bassoonist Dafne
Vicente-Sandoval contributes a text, translated by Charles Curtis, that sheds light on the complex processes at work
behind the performance of Jakob Ullmann’s threshold compositions Muntzers stern (2015) and Solo II (1992), slated
for a forthcoming CD on Editions RZ. And Klaus Lang, another artist on the label, provides both an aphorism about cow
behavior and a manifesto for compositional strategies that respond to freedom, time, and politics under late capitalism.
Krautrock group Anima’s 1981 US tour diary has been newly translated from the German for inclusion here. Written in
ebullient, precocious prose by Paul and Limpe Fuchs’ 13-year-old son Zoro Babel, the text chronicles the Fuchs family’s
leisurely exploration of America by freighter ship and car, featuring encounters with Karl Berger and plenty of organic farm
food, accompanied by David Fuchs’ photo documentation. A chapter from David Hopkins’ recent translation of legendary
Japanese folk singer and PSF recording artist Kan Mikami’s autobiography is a lyrical account of the cultural and musical
violence of being 19 in 1969 Kodomari, Aomori.
Composer Tashi Wada contributes ‘visual levitation’ in the form of a print titled Double Vision. And Japanese sound art
pioneer Akio Suzuki’s self-published 2008 Aki-nyan, tora no maki, a comic zine depicting cats playing his many
instrumental inventions, finally gets its deserved circulation via a full reprint.
Blank Forms is a curatorial platform dedicated to the presentation and preservation of time-based performance practices.
Committed to long-term working relationships with emerging and established artists, Blank Forms offers residencies,
commissions new works, and creates online and print publications that document and supplement artists’ practices,
alongside a regular series of public performances and exhibitions. Blank Forms’ mission is to provide a comprehensive
support structure for emerging and underrepresented artists in the field of experimental performance and music, providing
them with much needed resources and outlets to perform, exhibit, and conserve their work.
