"Edition of 400 copies. Includes original photos from the recording sessions. High up in a tower, accessible only by a spiral staircase that led to a concrete platform above the whole city, Charlemagne Palestines "HellsBells" became the sonic mainstay of 53rd Street and 5th Avenue, NYC, from 1963 to 1970. In 1963, while attending The High School of Music & Art in New York, the 15-year-old Palestine was asked if hed be interested in playing a 26-bell carillon at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church. He decided that he loved the voluptuous Taylor bells, and played them every day from 1963 to 1970, when he left New York to study and teach at CalArts. During his time above 53rd and 5th, Palestine became known as the Quasimodo of midtown NYC, and his dissonant and "klanggdedangggebannggg" style of playing attracted a diverse group of fans, from Moondog to John Cage to Tony Conrad, among others. Palestine was able to continue playing his clanging-bell soap operas for seven years, dinggdonggingggg every late afternoon and Sunday mornings. This LP collects some of the most relevant recordings from those early days. Side A presents the complete reel-tape "Bells Studies," an intense, pulsating work in five movements. It begins with slow, hypnotic, large sonorities and accelerates into more dense and maximal explosions. Side B collects some shorter studies: "Bells," the two parts of "Confiscated Bell Tape," and an excerpt from "Dumb Bell Tape." Each track was recorded by the composer in single takes around 1965 and unheard since, until now." - Alga Marghen.
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.
