Isolated Field Recording Series: Lary 7

Thu 16 Apr, 2020, 8pm
Streaming on this webpage, Vimeo, and Facebook Live



Thursday, April 16th, ISSUE is pleased to stream a cassette recording from Lary 7, the first project in the Isolated Field Recording Series. The series commissions artists to produce field recordings to be streamed over the course of this challenging and isolated time. Lary has given ISSUE a cassette tape containing a room recording of his “droney tone” piece, an unrepeatable sound and light “rewind” work that hybridizes the worlds of film editing (rewinds) and repurposed light sensor tubes originally intended as synchronizers for photo studio flashbulbs.

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Originally set to be performed at ISSUE during March, on a program impacted by COVID-19, Lary 7’s tape recording captures the pulsing, hypnotic rewinds and perpetually shifting rhythms of his film equipment. The tape also offers a sonic view into Lary’s practice and his apartment, where he remains isolated during the pandemic. Filled wall-to-wall with arcane film and analog equipment, the apartment is notorious for being a kind of “museum” of overflowing vintage and forgotten instruments and technologies.

In the past, Lary 7 has taken the unique approach of modifying these household appliances and equipment from the worlds of film and industrial design in order to give them a musical voice. In this case, the audio source is derived solely from the mechanical vibrations of the film rewind units. The light source comes from two strobotac laboratory oscillator-driven neon tubes originally designed under contract of Harold Eugene Edgerton, known as “Papa Flash,” the inventor of the modern day strobe in the 1930s. The result is a highly technical unison of technologies to form something hypnotic, atmospheric, and in Lary’s words “pretty hard to describe without seeing-hearing.”

Giving further context, Lary describes: “The execution of the film rewind performance would have been more theatrical if performed live—perhaps a 5 minute intro in total darkness starting in total silence then bringing in just the mechanical vibration sounds of the rewinds as if someone were editing a film in a dark room all by their lonesome ... then the strobes come on & the moray patterns in sound would begin. What we have now is a more atmospheric version based more on its life as an installation, happening where it can be taken as just audio. One thing I discovered is that this one works best with any kind of headphones providing the lower register of frequencies or even decent speakers. The tiny / tinny speakers typically on laptops etc. will relinquish next to nothing.”

The stream of the recording will be featured alongside video documentation of Lary 7’s installation and performance of the piece at Audio Visual Arts gallery in 2014 in the Lower East Side. Special thanks to Justin Luke for providing documentation from these activities.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Lary 7 is a multimedia artist who coaxes profane, inscrutable sounds and images from various mysterious devices. Eschewing the digital, his work mainly features vintage and forgotten electronic instruments and technologies. In the past he has taken the unique approach of modifying household appliances in order to give them a musical voice. Lary is a co-founder of Plastickville Records and has been a major figure in the New York experimental underground music scene since 1970. He has worked on exceptional musical projects with diverse artists including Jimi Tenor, Jarboe, Foetus, Tony Conrad, Alexander Hacke, Larry Mullins, Dorit Chrysler, Bernhard Gal, Jacob Kirkegaard, Gen Ken Montgomery, and Gordon Monahan. In 2016, ISSUE commissioned Lary 7 to create Owl Movie, his first-ever fixed media film.

In response to COVID-19’s impact on public assembly and our subsequent suspension of public programming, ISSUE’s Isolated Field Recordings Series commissions artists to produce field recordings to be streamed over the course of this challenging and isolated time. The series will support artists directly in an unprecedented moment of uncertainty, struggle, and financial risk and emphasize the solidarity of artists working in a situation where everyday life is confined and separated. Focusing on recordings from artists’ current conditions, the series will broadly approach the field recording as an expanded form and open invitation to experiment with home audio recording during this period of social distancing. The series will include forthcoming presentations by Derek Baron, Bergsonist, Kim Brandt, Jules Gimbrone, Shelley Hirsch, Andrew Lampert, QUALIATIK, and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste.

ISSUE Project Room's Isolated Field Recording Series is supported, in part, by the Café Royal Cultural Foundation.

As a part of ISSUE Project Room’s ongoing 2020 Spring Season, this series is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. ISSUE gratefully acknowledges additional 2020 Spring Season support from NOKIA Bell Labs, The Golden Rule Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and TD Charitable Foundation.