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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > 20th Century > Henry Flynt
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Author Topic: Henry Flynt  (Read 221 times)
autoharp
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« on: 17:39:34, 05-01-2008 »
This may not be a post to which anyone will reply, but I'll give it a go.

A friend sent me some recordings of Henry Flynt - Raga Electric (1963-71) and New American Ethnic Music volume 3: Hillbilly tape music (1971-8) - as a result of which I've spent an afternoon attempting to find out more. The name Henry Flynt is immortalised in the title of a famous (or infamous) piece by La Monte Young, usually known as X for Henry Flynt (which bizarrely enough, received its British premiere by John Cale at Goldsmiths College in 1963). If anyone's interested in the rougher end of early American minimalism, he may be a familiar name. These recordings unsurprisingly inhabit an area suggested by the titles, laced with a dose of the minimal, weak or strong. He's mistakenly linked with the Fluxus movement, but there are some interest links to be found from the Wiki entry, including some amusing (or not?) attacks on Stockhausen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Flynt

and some clips.

http://www.cduniverse.com/sresult.asp?HT_Search=xartist&HT_Search_Info=Flynt%2C+Henry&cart=659373233

Interesting to note some of people he's played with. I don't wanna (1966), for instance, is performed by Flynt (vocals + guitar) with Arthur Murphy (keyboards), Paul Breslin (acoustic bass) and Walter de la Maria (drums). Purified by the fire (1981) features Flynt on electric violin with Catherine Christer Hennix on tambura. Tony Conrad and Angus MacLise get a mention too.
Unfortunately there are no clips from Hillbilly tape music which is by far the more interesting of the two especially the last 3 tracks - Leather high in A, Leather high in E and, especially, S & M Delirium. I wonder if the other volumes of New American Ethnic Music are similarly interesting. Anyone know?
« Last Edit: 18:18:58, 05-01-2008 by autoharp » Logged
C Dish
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« Reply #1 on: 17:48:22, 05-01-2008 »
I will comment on this!

Also a useful link here: http://www.henryflynt.org/

He's a bona-fide anti-establishment activist and deserves more attention. And I'm not even talking about his music, which as I say I will comment on later.

On the wiki site is a link to a nice brief interview which ends with the highly quotable:

Quote
I associate lucidity with belieflessness. I'm trying to assemble materials for a different mode of life, but it's a completely open question about how they might connect up. The whole drive of western culture, the part of it which is serious, is towards an extreme objectification. It's carried to the point where the human subject is treated almost as if it's dirt in the works of a watch. I'm trying to go to the source of this insane aberration, so that I can dissolve it. I want to do this by integrating subjectivity and objectivity, by making these two things intrinsically interdependent.
Emphasis mine.
« Last Edit: 17:58:00, 05-01-2008 by C Dish » Logged
inert fig here
C Dish
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« Reply #2 on: 18:27:07, 05-01-2008 »
Last little bit to add: Flynt's recordings are being released by him-self: over the past 2-3 years some 10 albums have come out.

He is an "outsider artist" by fact and not by volition, apparently:

Quote
It is tempting to think of Flynt as a kind of willfully obscure hermit, or “outsider artist,” so repulsed by the vulgar society around him that he would rather work in solitude than actually engage in a meaningful dialogue with the world at large, but this would be a mistake, for he was, and is, constantly straining to present his ideas to the public. After a January 1962 recording session with La Monte Young, Flynt sent tapes to Nesuhi Ertigun at Atlantic Records, who as Flynt recalls, “…wrote back to me and said, ‘This is the most original thing I have ever heard, and for that reason, we cannot possibly publish it.’” He also submitted demo recordings to Earle Brown at Time Records, and to Folkways and ESP, all of whom declined to publish his music.

Taken from http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/NewsletS05/Piekut.htm
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inert fig here
autoharp
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« Reply #3 on: 03:43:45, 06-01-2008 »
Thanks for all this, chafers! Do keep going - I'm paying attention . . .
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C Dish
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« Reply #4 on: 14:38:40, 06-01-2008 »
Raga Electric is, to me, uniformly dreadful, though the vocal stylings are so odd, they immediately put me off; perhaps I'm biased against wailing in a pseudo-South Asian idiom by a singer without real vocal control.
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inert fig here
autoharp
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Posts: 2778
« Reply #5 on: 18:31:24, 06-01-2008 »
Quote from: C Dish on 14:38:40, 06-01-2008
Raga Electric is, to me, uniformly dreadful, though the vocal stylings are so odd, they immediately put me off; perhaps I'm biased against wailing in a pseudo-South Asian idiom by a singer without real vocal control.

Pretty much in agreement with that. Free alto is appalling. Tolerated a bit of Marines hymn on the level of a piss-take of Pandit Pran Nath - almost certainly unintended. However, I have to confess to finding Raga electric (the track) quite funny (as did Mrs autoharp).
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