1974 Directed by Robert Ashley, Philip Makanna
In 1975 the composer Robert Ashley embarked on an ambitious work titled Music With Roots in the Aether. He called it an Opera (or piece of theater depending on the case) for television. The work is comprised of seven, two hours sections. Each “episode” is dedicated to investigations, interviews, and performances of his one of his peers – David Behrman, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, and Terry Riley respectively, with the final reserved for himself.
USA
USA
Robert Ashley is among the most incredible musicians, his career somewhat mirroring the growth of his longtime admirer Peter Greenaway's. Remarkable for a visual piece constructed by someone clearly focused on the aural to be so potent, but again, maybe not - it's no secret that many of our best filmmakers were also mathematicians, and some of our recent pop culture hits ( specifically Whiplash and Twin Peaks: The Return) have been created by people with eyes&ears for rhythm derivative from classical jazz training. That is: some of our most interesting films that are 'pure films' i.e. derivative from the filmic artform rather than any other (no secret that many of our well-loved films are literary) are made by those…
david behrman episode: performance in the back half is so iconic, one of the most... reflective... performances u could ever hope to see. i never don't think of it. an eternity of chin stroking collapsed forever.
What to make of this - a lackadaisical and decidedly unhurried TV venture where, every episode, Robert Ashley interviews a significant figure in (as he says elsewhere) post-Cage American experimental music, be it the seminal figure Philip Glass (captured at a moment when he still talked about going on unemployment but had just finished his opera Einstein on the Beach) or the influential Terry Riley (contently milking a goat and talking about his discography of Indian musicians) Pauline Oliveros (who addresses her sexuality barely subtextually in the title of the performance piece she opens her episode with) or Ashley's friends and colleagues from the Sonic Arts Union: Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier and David Behrman - all significant in their own…
Tonight I watched the episode on David Behrman. I don’t know if it’s the first chronologically or whatever. An awkward, stilted blob of “experimentalism” forced down the tube. Experimental in that it’s impossible to know what’s put on and what’s undigested strangeness, Ashley throwing it at the wall (screen). The interview is so wonderfully poor, just two weirdos alone on an island. Gilded grant-funded public access, late minimalism’s Fishing With John. Behrman’s keyboardist looks very put upon.
