[CP 093 CD] Karel Appel; Musique Barbare, The Reality of Karel Appel

2015 reédition of this C.P. all-timer, now including (as a fourth, "Bonus" track) the OST of Jan Vrijman's 1962 15-minute documentary "The Reality of Karel Appel"! This new(er) edition comes complete with two separate 6-panel booklets housed in two separate C.P.P. resealable sleeves (the second with a clear "slug" disc) offering reproductions of every single panel & print included in the original LP pressing!

In 1963, long before Art Brut, Free Jazz ... hell, even before most of the 60s-lineage musical movements we’re still talking about today took form, abstract-expressionist painter Karel Christiaan Appel logged time in the Instituut Voor Sonologie - then just recently relocated to the University of Utrecht from Eindhoven - to compose music for a documentary being made on ... himself by cinematographer Jan Vrijman.

Perhaps in an attempt to capture an analog of his roughly-hewn visual style, Appel absolutely went to town on the Instituut’s ... battery of percussion instruments, piano, electric organ, and of course his own shouted proclamations - famously, “I DO NOT PAINT I HIT !!!” - these were all used as raw material to build three Musique Concrète pieces, made in collaboration with the Insituut’s staff: Frits Weiland, Jaap Vink, and Will Eisma. The results run from Cecil Taylor-meets-Dick Raaijmakers dual-fisted piano klang to inept electric organ fumblings to full-on riots of distorted kettle drum and assorted percussion-room filigree, assembled into an extremely edit-heavy suite - much use of tape-speed manipulation; many of the timpani hits tuned so low as to only be felt - running at break-neck speed for pretty much the entire duration.

Aside from the overall sonic appeal of this one - visual artist dabbling in violent, scattershot tape-music; classic “Broken Music” material - Mr. P.C. C.P. has done a ridiculously thorough job reproducing every flat surface of the original WBV-label edition - by far the RAER-est record ever to be “Creel Pwned;" I’ve yet to see a copy show up on the black/open markets for less than €300 - across 10 full panels of this double-booklet edition. This one was MONTHS in the making; inarguably one of the highlights of the series thus far.