Irida Associates U.S.A., an obscure and short-lived record label formed by composer-performer Jerry Hunt, offers a glimpse into the revelatory world of new music and composition in the artist's native Third Coast. Based first in Dallas and later in Hunt's home outside the rural town of Canton, Texas, Irida presented the innovative and daring experiments-into aleatoric methods, environmental acoustics, improvisation, homemade technologies, and more-pursued by Hunt and his select collaborators, primarily working in or near Texas between 1979 and 1986. Irida's brief and compact output-seven non-sequentially numbered LPs released in unknown quantities-shared work by artists whose practices often challenged the limitations of vinyl recording. Hunt called the label a "vanity project" and frequently talked of a tax loophole he could claim if it all went belly up, but in it's short lifespan Irida captured a tremendous period of creative experimentation by the artist and his friends and collaborators.
This boxed set gathers Irida's complete discography for the first time. These records include early attempts by Hunt to record his generative and highly permutable scores and performances on vinyl in Cantegral Segment(s) 16.17.18.19. / Transform (Stream) / Transphalba / Volta (Kernel), as well as his only composition for piano, "Lattice," on Texas Music (both records 1979). The label distributed solo and group recordings by those in Hunt's circle as well, including Larry Austin's electroacoustic, syncretic compositions in Hybrid Musics; James Fulkerson's unique, extended techniques for the trombone on Works; a fusion of three overlaid compositions in Dary John Mizelle's Music of Dary John Mizelle; spontaneous pieces and riff-based "character improvisations" in Music of BL Lacerta by the four piece "orchestra in miniature" BL Lacerta Improvisation Quartet; and experiments in compositional "mapping" by external structures in Cartography, featuring Austin, Gene de Lisa, Robert Michael Keefe, and Rodney Waschka II. Accompanying the boxed set is a richly-illustrated reader with a detailed essay on on the label by Lawrence Kumpf and Tyler Maxin; never-before-published archival materials; newly commissioned reflections by Fulkerson and the composer Jerry Willingham; as well as an interview with Hunt and ephemera including album and concert reviews, artworks, posters and flyers, and correspondences from the musicians and composers involved.
Details
Title:
Irida Records - Hybrid Musics From Texas & Beyond 1979-1986
9 Suite for Solo 'Cello LP4: Quadrants: Event/Complex No. 1
10 Second Fantasy on Ives' Universe Symphony - the Heavens
11 Catalogo Voce
12 Maroon Bells LP5: Polyphonies I
13 Spectra for Bass and Computer Tapes
14 Primavera-Heterophony for 24 Celli LP6: High Energy
15 Starts Same But Beautiful
16 Flutes and Tuba
17 Powerful
18 Estampie
19 My Mother Is Here
20 Stravinsky
21 Third
22 Monkey Chant LP7: Sanctus
23 Concertal
24 Fractalis Balinesus
25 Euwe Suite: 1. Euwe-Colle
26 Euwe Suite: 2. Euwe-Alekhine
27 Euwe Suite: 3. Alekhine-Euwe
28 Euwe Suite: 4. Euwe-Najdorf
29 Euwe Suite: 5. Moonen-Euwe
30 Runes
Irida Associates U.S.A., an obscure and short-lived record label formed by composer-performer Jerry Hunt, offers a glimpse into the revelatory world of new music and composition in the artist's native Third Coast. Based first in Dallas and later in Hunt's home outside the rural town of Canton, Texas, Irida presented the innovative and daring experiments-into aleatoric methods, environmental acoustics, improvisation, homemade technologies, and more-pursued by Hunt and his select collaborators, primarily working in or near Texas between 1979 and 1986. Irida's brief and compact output-seven non-sequentially numbered LPs released in unknown quantities-shared work by artists whose practices often challenged the limitations of vinyl recording. Hunt called the label a "vanity project" and frequently talked of a tax loophole he could claim if it all went belly up, but in it's short lifespan Irida captured a tremendous period of creative experimentation by the artist and his friends and collaborators.
This boxed set gathers Irida's complete discography for the first time. These records include early attempts by Hunt to record his generative and highly permutable scores and performances on vinyl in Cantegral Segment(s) 16.17.18.19. / Transform (Stream) / Transphalba / Volta (Kernel), as well as his only composition for piano, "Lattice," on Texas Music (both records 1979). The label distributed solo and group recordings by those in Hunt's circle as well, including Larry Austin's electroacoustic, syncretic compositions in Hybrid Musics; James Fulkerson's unique, extended techniques for the trombone on Works; a fusion of three overlaid compositions in Dary John Mizelle's Music of Dary John Mizelle; spontaneous pieces and riff-based "character improvisations" in Music of BL Lacerta by the four piece "orchestra in miniature" BL Lacerta Improvisation Quartet; and experiments in compositional "mapping" by external structures in Cartography, featuring Austin, Gene de Lisa, Robert Michael Keefe, and Rodney Waschka II. Accompanying the boxed set is a richly-illustrated reader with a detailed essay on on the label by Lawrence Kumpf and Tyler Maxin; never-before-published archival materials; newly commissioned reflections by Fulkerson and the composer Jerry Willingham; as well as an interview with Hunt and ephemera including album and concert reviews, artworks, posters and flyers, and correspondences from the musicians and composers involved.
