Clark Coolidge "Preface" Cassette Tape

Clark Coolidge “Preface” Wry Press N.21 (Cassette)

“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
— John Cage

“Well, I have this idea too, somewhat from Cage, that… would it be possible to immerse an audience in such length, such density of development, that then something else begins to happen? Your defenses… I mean, you either have to split or you have to submit to this. And if you do, then something’s going to happen because it’s going to be a long time. You can’t put it in your pocket in any way. It’s like one of Cage’s “Variations”: everything’s going on in the room ; somebody’s cooking, some incredible sounds, and someone’s walking around. That’s what it is. You can’t escape it. You can leave, sure, there’s always a door, but…”
— Clark Coolidge

“Preface” is a tape work in which poet/drummer Clark Coolidge samples and then manipulates the spoken introduction to composer John Cage’s 1966 lp, “Variations IV”, with David Tudor (Everest 3132). Produced by Charles Amirkhanian, it originally appeared on Coolidge’s KPFA radio program, Words, on September, 29, 1969. A roughly five and a half minute version of the piece was edited by Amirkhanian and included on the seminal 1975 compilation lp, “10+2: 12 American Text Sound Pieces” (1750 Arch Records). This cassette release presents the entire sixty-three minute performance in its entirety.

Over the piece’s sixty-three minutes, Coolidge uses only the roughly two minute and forty-five second long introduction to the John Cage album, which was spoken by an anonymous male presenter (which intriguingly sounds as if it could have been created by an early text-to-speech program). At first you hear this male presenter’s voice as you would hear it on the source album; delivering a “preface” comprised of highly informational or descriptive language of what you are about to hear. As his own piece progress, Coolidge then introduces various cuts, splices, & repetitions to this brief passage. Meaning begins to devolve, parts of speech are broken down, word sounds become cellular. In both intention and result, it is remarkably similar to Coolidge’s groundbreaking book of minimal poetry of the previous year, “Ing” (Angel Hair Books / 1968), where we find parts of speech similarly cut up, e.g.; tradict/theless/it gether/tastic/for/gin tion/and sarily/and/sests.

Ultimately, speech here is rendered into pure sound. But, the longer or more closely you listen, you may begin to experience strange perceptual tricks where the mind attempts to fill in gaps of meaning in a tug-of-war between sound and sense. It’s a strangely hypnotic effect to experience the entire piece, with Coolidge’s lifelong interest in rhythm informing another aspect of the work.

Edition of 100 copies / Letterpress J-Cards printed in Colorado on card stock from Middle Press, (Brooklyn) / Thirty-two minutes per side / Real time duplication

Design x SEEN

Audio courtesy from original studio audio by KPFA Radio / Berkeley

Wry Press thanks Charles Amirkhanian, Jason Morris, Brandon Hocura, Pete Prezzano, Rob Carmichael, and Clark Coolidge for their help with this project.