Tuesday, January 12, 2016

NVP 06. Eric Lunde: The fear of appearing monotonous prevents us from recording expressions which, upon such occasions, are all very apt to resemble one another

I am extremely pleased to present this reissue of a 1988 cassette withdrawn (not for audio related reasons…) almost immediately upon release at Eric’s request, a decision Eric has often said was extremely frustrating as he considers this a seminal example of both his process- and language-driven works: I am hard pressed to disagree.

As noted in his original liner notes, Eric initiated the recording process using his preferred taped reduplication process with voice but "In the middle of the engagement, I discovered at the local Radio Shack a simple biofeedback monitor…" He then used said biofeedback monitor to document responses to various readings of de Sade’s work. Although he acknowledged that the device was "rarely sensitive enough to register the slightest reaction of the mind through the body to highly aggressive sexual and violent words,” Eric still says he was satisfied with the outcome, having "always been interested in a direct form of expression: the body directly creating sound and image without interference."

With that framework in mind, I hope you can see why I am so excited to bring this release back into the world. This edition, housed in a small 6" x 9" booklet, contains both the original liner notes and contemporary supplemental texts by Lunde.

One extremely special component of this edition is that each copy includes a unique, original signed and numbered 4" x 6" collage by Matt Taggart (known to many as PCRV). Both Eric and I have been fans of Matt’s collage work over the past few years, so we decided to commission these collages. To make things a bit more challenging / interesting for Matt, and to cement the collage’s connection to the audio, we placed some OULIPO-inspired constraints on the visual elements (outlined the booklet) to reflect the source material. Unsurprisingly, Matt delivered beautifully.



This is in an edition of 78 copies (signed and numbered by Eric, with the collage signed and numbered by Matt). The cost will be $32 ppd in the United States; for rest of world orders, please contact so I can calculate postage.

Thank you for your interest,

Blake