THE MORNING LIST
This week, we bring you a selection of recently published music books. From a series of interviews with the musician, but also playwright, filmmaker, choreographer Meredith Monk, to a book devoted to the current of psychedelic rock, from the memories of Laurent Bayle within numerous institutions to those of Pierre de Chocqueuse in his first years of rock criticism then of press attaché in a record company, passing by a dive into the immense work of Pierre Henry or a comic strip about Malcolm McLaren, famous for having staged the beginnings of the Sex Pistols. As a bonus, the March issue of the monthly Jazz magazine.
“Meredith Monk, a mystical voice”, interviews with Jean-Louis Tallon
Although related to the minimalist current (La Monte Young or Terry Riley trend) whose taste for repetition she shares, Meredith Monk has developed over sixty years (she will be 80 in 2022) a style that belongs only ‘to her. From the voice (incantatory, instinctive, inextinguishable) and a form of spectacle nourished by the versatility of the artist (singer, musician, playwright, choreographer, filmmaker).
As he had done for the English Gavin Bryars, just as extraordinary as her, Jean-Louis Tallon restores with relevance and meticulousness the course of the American through interviews intelligently provoked and reported. The first four date from 2014 and have already been published; the last four are new and were made by videoconference during confinement.
The conversation unfolds in a natural mode starting from subjects, musical or not, with sometimes unexpected developments. Thus, when asked about Greta Thunberg (spearhead of ecological activism), Meredith Monk stigmatizes a “so-called “patriarchal” energy that betrays a fear” linked to “a complete disconnection with the Earth and its organic process” before recommending a rebalancing with the “feminine principle”, synonym of ” change “, from birth until death. Applied to the creative field, this thesis enabled Meredith Monk to produce, in 2017, a striking work, Cellular Songswhich benefits from an in-depth treatment in the book. Pierre Gervasoni
“Meredith Monk, a mystical voice”, Le Mot et le reste editions, 240 p., €20.
“Pierre Henry, the work”, by Cyrille Delhaye, Isabelle Warnier, Bernadette Mangin and Agnès Alidières
By its torrential nature as by its spiritual motivations, the work of Pierre Henry (1927-2017) calls for diving. To indulge in it, occasionally or professionally, it is better to be equipped.
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