An original text-sound composition by Charles Amirkhanian, produced at the KPFA studios and incorporating the sounds of the voice of Lou Harrison, recorded in his home in Aptos, CA, by KPFA Chief Engineer George Craig. Amirkhanian composed a cut-up text in Esperanto, a favorite language of Harrison's. Many of the phrases were taken from a contemporary newspaper written in that international language. Also intruding from time to time are ambient sounds of Mr. Harrison's household. The original monaural field recordings were mixed into a four-track master that was premiered on the first-ever four-channel broadcast, produced by two stations simultaneously: KPFA (Berkeley) and KSAN (San Francisco). This is an early iteration of Amirkhanian's experiments with the spoken word as material for tape composition. |
