Jerry Hunt - Lattice (1996 compi, recordings from late '70s)

A collection of fascinating music and utterly bizarre sounds, even by the standards of the more outer limits of this blog.  Texan avant-gardist, teenage occultist (he'd remain influenced by John Dee's "Enochian alphabet" for structuring his music), instrument builder, electronic manipulator, video artist and compellingly physical performer Jerry Hunt (1943-1993) just becomes an increasingly fascinating figure the more you read about him.  There's a tribute website here with plenty of reading material - for now, here's an introduction to what he sounded like.

This CD collects an LP from 1979 and one side of a three-artist release from the same year, both released on Hunt's independent label Irida.  First up is his piano piece Lattice, from the "Texas Music" compilation.  It's about the only thing here that really qualifies as music in the traditional sense; a jittery, spidery exploration of dynamics and resonance of piano tones that Hunt recorded with bells attached to his wrists.  Brought to mind Charlemagne Palestine's early piano work at points.

The remaining four tracks, all derivations of his Cantegral Segments series, are the real introduction to Hunt's weird, frequently discomforting soundworld.  Transform (Stream) is based around manipulations of vocal sounds (I'm simplifying Hunt's sui-generis, ultra-technical to the point of near-incomprehnsible liner notes as best I can): whistling, groaning, gurgling and odd clattering noises and faint electronics make up its nine minutes.  

 

Cantegral Segement 18.17 again takes vocal input as its basis, sounding like a lo-fi, homebrew version of a John Cage/David Tudor/Gordon Mumma experiment.  Transphalba is the longest track and possibly the highlight of the collection, performed on "lip-vibrated aerophone", "solo mechanical instrument" and electronic manipulations of same.  The closing Volta (Kernel) returns to vocal sounds.  Utterly unique, weird and compelling stuff.

Jerry Hunt's "Four Video Transformations" - ends with Transform (Stream)

link

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