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[CP 046 CD] Jon Appleton, Don Cherry; Appleton Syntonic Menagerie, Human Music

Creel Pone

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2015 reédition featuring not just "Human Music," but Appleton's preceding Flying Dutchman outing "Syntonic Menagerie" set as well on the same disc, plus reproductions of each Gatefold sleeve via detail on a gatefold booklet - excellent news as said has only ever been issued in excerpted / compilation / re-ordered form across a litany of confusing regional editions over the years - now complete and in one place.

Somewhat inexplicably, this Creel Pone showed up just now with a new foil-seal design reading “CREEL PONE - 100 LIMITED EDITION Unheralded Classics of Electronic Music 1947 - 1983” - very odd slight shift in the date-spectrum, plus no word whether that’s “100 limited edition titles” or “limited edition of 100” - i assume the former as that’s been Mr. P.C. C.P.’s plan all along. Dear Lord - I’ve been looking for this record since - well, since I read about it about 10 years ago. I’ve never seen a copy. In fact, I wondered if it was something that was recorded, then shelved & never released - much like the recorded Don Cherry / Terry Riley session which I confirmed exists when I ran into Terry in Brisbane - leave it up to Mr. P.C. C.P. to prove me wrong!

Recorded in 1970 at the Dartmouth College Electronic Music Studio in Hanover, New Hampshire, “Human music” can be placed alongside Wolfgang Dauner’s “Output” as one of the classics of a fledgling genre known then / now as “Ring-Mod Jazz.” there’s Ring Modulation on everything - Don’s Cornet, his Voice, Flute, all kinds of weird Percussion, Piano, and of course all of the omnipresent zonked Analog Modular-Synth Grankle from Mr. Appleton. Don’s in fine Freak-Flag form throughout - he ends at least one of the pieces herein by whispering “Peace;” through a Ring Modulator of course - his winds blowing this way and that, occasionally scat singing through his Horn / Flute.. Elements of each completely improvised piece are ruthlessly panned left / right, blasts of Appleton’s white-hot filtered White-Noise and VCLFO’ed Oscillator squiggle float on high above Don’s demonic / possessed Sound-Poetry / chanting and “Earthquake Drum” pounding.

There’s just so much to love here, words cannot express.