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Blank Forms

HUNT, JERRY - Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams

“The final album released by the composer-performer Jerry Hunt before his death, Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams is a rare and foundational audio document of Hunt’s compositional process. The record collects five pieces from the artist’s “Ground” series, translating his characteristically variable and spatial scores into “recorded fixtures of activity using mechanic musical instrument arrays,” to eerie and mesmerizing results. Originally released by experimental label OODiscs in 1992, it is now available on vinyl for the first time from Blank Forms Editions. Its tracks are dense and unpredictable, a miscellany of arrhythmic bursts, fragments of spoken and whispered words, soft then fevered rattles and shaking, and a rare return to pianoforte for the virtuoso player. On “Talk (slice): double” a nervous, warped dialogue unfolds between Hunt and composer Rod Stasick, their voices alternately measured and monstrous. In “Transform (stream): monopole,” breathy whistles build against a shimmering stream of bells, rattles, and shakers in a fantastical cascade of percussion. Hunt revisits the piano in “Lattice (stream): ordinal” and “Bitom (stream): link,” oscillating between gentle, almost classical phrases and frantic, seemingly random play. His collaboration with violinist Jane Henry, “Chimanazzi (Olun): core,” extends similarly unorthodox playing techniques to the violin, involving the scraping, plucking, and playing of its strings. The unstable quality of these tracks belies the rigor of Hunt’s procedures; each of Ground’s five pieces, their “common ground core,” is derived from the angelic tables of sixteenth century English philosopher and occultist John Dee, adapted by Hunt as frameworks to layer, adapt, and renew in his compositions. With a complex arrangement of sensors and equipment, which the artist called “interrelated electronic, mechanic, and social sound-sight interactive transactional systems,” Hunt realized these derivative systems in the techno-shamanic performances for which he is best known. Ground distills these procedures into fixed songs, producing a vital and critical record of Hunt’s singular approach to composition.

Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams is released as part of Blank Forms’s extensive program dedicated to Jerry Hunt. This program includes the first institutional exhibition of the artist’s videos and sculptures, Jerry Hunt: Transmissions from the Pleroma, presented at Blank Forms from February 16th to June 11th, 2022; the publication of Partners, a memoir-cum-biography by the artist’s long-time romantic partner Stephen Housewright; the forthcoming anthology Blank Forms 08: Transmissions from the Pleroma; and Irida Records: Hybrid Musics from Texas and Beyond, 1979–1986, a deluxe LP boxed set and reader on Hunt’s briefly-lived independent label.” - Blank Forms

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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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