Music Arcades: John Cage, Kenneth Patchen: The City Wears a Slouch Hat

I got this at the Barbican, during the three-day Cage festival they ran at the start of 2004. An astonishingly good event that did full justice to the range of Cage's work and to the diverse capabilities of the Barbican's spaces, such as performing the full 16 hours of Satie's Vexations in the conservatory (I listened to about an hour and a half spread over twelve hours) and using every nook and cranny of the foyer space (and there are many) for a riotous performance of Musicircus.

I'd never heard of this piece before, but I bought it because my instinct told me that it was rare, and best to get the rare recordings at an event such as this, since the more common ones can be bought later, and cheaper, on Amazon. (I say instinct told me, but perhaps I noticed the note on the back that says, "Limited Edition 1,000 copies".)

Kenneth Patchen's contribution is a kind of radio play that starts off sounding something like a Nelson Algren story, but quickly heads off into more surreal realms, hinting at telepathy, telekinesis and other irruptions into the world of everyday Newtonian physics. Cage's contribution is a percussion-based soundtrack that anticipates, illustrates and reflects on the narrative.

Googling the piece just now I came across this remarkable account account of the composition of the piece, which argues that it is pivotal in Cage's career — as much for what he failed to do (his original 250-page score was rejected as impossible) as for what he did achieve by making virtues out of necessity.

Another remarkable thing about the piece is the way it shows how radio was a very different medium 65 years ago, when it was younger than interactive multimedia is now. As the sleevenotes have it, "One can imagine how strange it must have been to tune into this broadcast in the night in 1942. It is still strange! Listen to this broadcast and you'll tune into another time."

Yet it seems that, in the early days of mainstream media, experimentalists and eccentrics like John Cage could still get a look in. Here he is on a Saturday-Night-at-the-Palladium-style variety show on TV (again making a virtue of a necessity when he can't play his radios due to a technicians' strike).

Where the title track has Cage making music for radio, another track, Credo in Us, has him making music from radio, with Genevieve Blons credited for her performance on Shortwave Radio.

MusicBrainz entry for this album