Catherine Christer Hennix Further Selections From The Electric Harpsichord

Rediscovered and compiled for release shortly before her death in November 2023, Further Selections from the Electric Harpsichordpresents a never-before-heard recording of composer and artist Catherine Christer Hennix's early magnum opus. Originallydebuted in 1976 at the festival Brouwer's Lattice at Stockholm's Moderna Museet, The Electric Harpsichord has steadily mystifiedfans and students of Western minimalist music for its implacable, transformative qualities, and the long-held, relativeobscurity of its creator. Like the work of Hennix's close friend La Monte Young, the piece is set in just intonation and focuseson the transcendental potentials of precise tuning, inspired by their studies with Pandit Pran Nath. Composed of bursts ofoscillating, synthetic tones using a carefully retuned synthesizer and a tape-based system for feedback delay, the sounds swirl,twinkle, and appear to bend time, space, and perception. Additional, sustained chords on the sheng, most likely played by herDeontic Miracle bandmate Hans Isgren, are present at the opening of the piece and reemerge towards the end of therecording.The release of Further Selections constitutes the most comprehensive original recording of this foundational work to date.Originally billed as The Well-Tuned Organ during its debut in Sweden, The Electric Harpsichord has developed a legendaryreputation, predicated on a twenty-six minute fragment salvaged and circulated by Hennix's friend Henry Flynt. Promoting itsimportance on multiple occasions, Flynt aired the work on WBAI radio, organized a pair of tape concerts at New Yorkalternative arts spaces in 1970s, and later penned a 1998 essay which served as the liner notes to its eventual CD release in2010. For him, this work not only represented a sterling milestone in minimal sonic aesthetics, but also spawned a new genrethat he dubbed "hallucinogenic/ecstatic sound environments (HESE)," which in turn inspired his own drone-likecompositions. Gradually, interest in the recording...