Double LP on red vinyl
There are few things the world truly needs more of. Julius Eastman's music is one of those rare exceptions. Thanks to the work of a few noble labels - notably Blume, New World and Frozen Reeds - Eastman's story is now a little more familiar, though it certainly bears repeating. A student of the same New York avant garde that belonged to Cage, Wolff and Feldman and one of the only African-American artists present within that rarefied milieu, Eastman wrote endless scores informed by the political dimensions of his queer and black identity, an entirely radical approach that still moves and confounds now. Addiction issues stunted his development, though i'm sure institutional prejudices also had something to do with that, and after being evicted from his flat in the early 80s spent nearly a decade homeless before being found dead on the streets of Buffalo in 1990. An unspeakable tragedy in its own right, and one made even more shocking when you consider the unique power of the music he created - how was this life and music neglected for so long? These new performances of two Eastman staples, recorded in Strasbourg in 2019 by Nicolas Horvath, Melaine Dalibert, Stephane Ginsburgh, and Wilhelm Latchoumi, are breathtakingly intense, seesawing with dramatic gesture and inescapably tied to their political roots - unmistakably this is protest music, regardless of who now performs it. About as heavy as such things can get. The hits hurt, though they also continue to burn with an eternal vitality. Forever ever music.
