Tony Conrad With Faust / Outside The Dream Syndicate (Vinyl LP)

Description

2016 reissue – Standard black vinyl pressing. Tip-on jacket with silver-foil-stamped text on front cover. Includes double-sided insert with liner notes.

Recorded at Wümme, October 1972. &℗ 1973 Tony Conrad.

1973-USA/Germany

Format: Vinyl LP

#Ref: SV048

Release date: 2016

Release notes

Tony Conrad and Faust’s classic minimalist totem drones on in a new edition presented by the brilliant Superior Viaduct reissue label. A masterpiece for dreams.

Violinist, composer and filmmaker Tony Conrad started his career in New York in the early 1960s. As a member of the Theatre of Eternal Music (a.k.a. the Dream Syndicate) alongside John Cale, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Angus MacLise, he participated in now-legendary and often legendarily loud drone performances with many pieces having no beginning and no end. During a fateful trip to Germany in 1972, Conrad met with avant-rock visionaries Faust and made the very first record to bear his name.

Outside The Dream Syndicate, originally released in Europe only in 1973, is a stunning debut. Two side-long tracks – “The Side Of Man And Womankind” and “The Side Of The Machine” – show just how far Conrad had moved beyond his minimalist peers. Werner Diermaier’s repetitive drum beat and Jean-Hervé Peron’s stripped-down bassline conjure a tense, ascetic groove, while Conrad’s seamless violin, initially so controlled, reveals a surprising adaptability. The music shifts almost on a subliminal level, pushing and pulling to the drone’s internal pulse.

It is hard to imagine Conrad’s trajectory from downtown Manhattan to a farmhouse in the German countryside that ultimately resulted in Outside The Dream Syndicate, yet no other record captures – so completely and instantly – the intersection of avant-garde and rock forms. Outside The Dream Syndicate remains ahead of and bracingly outside of its time.

This first-time vinyl reissue has been carefully mastered from the original master tapes and includes liner notes by musician Jim O’Rourke and author Branden W. Joseph.

Tracklisting

A. The Side Of Man And Womankind B. The Side Of The Machine