Kerry Leimer A Period Of Review 2LP electronic ambient experimental SEALED MINT

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Kerry Leimer A Period Of Review 2LP electronic classical ambient experimental SEALED

Original US pressing on RVNG

Experimental artist Kerry Leimer self-released his and others' work on his Palace of Lights imprint, and the erudite RVNG imprint has put together this collection of unreleased tracks that position Leimer as one of the few American artists who worked in the field of kosmiche at the time of the sub-genre's original peak.

From the Pitchfork review:  “A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975-1983) posits K. Leimer as the American Eno, and while there are sonic ties back to the likes of Cluster, Faust, and Jon Hassell, Eno is the only predecessor that Leimer admits to, telling writer Dave Segal in the liner notes: “None gave me more of a push than Eno, specifically…No Pussyfooting. The attractor was the loops: the loop provided an instant structure.” The Eno fandom is obvious on one of the set’s rare vocal pieces, “Lonely Boy,” where Leimer laments being a composer watching tiny lights blinking at him. “I don’t know what to do/ With instruments and all these wires,” he intones, even nailing Eno’s dry British deadpan. Another song title is perhaps too on the nose: “Eno’s Aviary.”

Despite that namecheck, there is something distinctly punk coursing through this compilation of thirty previously unreleased tracks. The sleeve art of other Palace of Lights releases (which RVNG also plans on compiling later this year) are odd pencil drawings: heads morphing into home stereos, diagrams where fingers become entangled with bass strings. It suggests that strange time period after the Sex Pistols exploded overseas but before punk crossed the Atlantic and crystallized into hardcore. Much like other punks of that era who didn’t really want to shove a pin through their nose, Leimer was more than a trained musician who simply wanted to vent frustration and make some noise with tape loops.

One of the set's pleasures is that although Leimer doesn’t quite know what to do with the  instruments on hand—primarily a Rickenbacker bass, a Mini Moog, Revox tape decks, and a handful of effects pedals—the results are entrancing. The drum machine beats feel primitive yet intuitive on pieces like “Entr’acte” and “Archie’s Dub”, which possess a strange layering of dub effects that bring to mind Eno’s collaboration with David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Leimer’s band Savant would explore that polyrhythmic sound even further). For an album featuring so many dreamlike, drifting passages, it’s startling to look at the runtimes and realize that only four pieces ever top the 4:30 mark; beautiful ambient tracks like “Almost Chinese”, “At Daybreak”, and “Two Voices” take you much further afield than their concise runtimes suggest.

These pieces most closely evoke the work of Roedelius and Moebius in Cluster: meditative, wistful, lovely, giving off gentle glimmers of light. In trying to think of the closest American corollary for this set, the possibility emerges that Kerry Leimer is one of the lone examples of American kosmische music, that elegant hybrid that falls somewhere between the Velvets-styled mesmerism of Can in the early '70s and the placid tones of new age music that arose in the next decade. It’s a sound that applies to mid-70s Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, the second side of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, and others. Yet while import copies of such records no doubt made their way back to the States, it’s rare to find the American version of such a sound. There’s cosmic overtones to be found in jazz from that era (Miles Davis’ “He Loved Him Madly” in particular) as well as from more academic composers like Terry Riley and Laurie Spiegel, but for most bands and musicians of that decade, kosmische seems to have not been emulated. In experiencing this evocative set some three decades later, Leimer’s music sounds like the road not taken.”

A1         Ceylon                2:52

A2         My Timid Desires       3:56

A3         From A Common Center        2:20

A4         The Difficult Crossing              1:56

A5         Explanation Of Terms             0:17

A6         From One To Ten        1:58

A7         Entr'acte          3:08

A8         Bump In The Night     0:16

A9         (Aka Accident)             2:18

B1         Facing East     2:10

B2         At Daybreak   1:31

B3         A Spiritual Life             3:16

B4         Honey To Ashes          3:04

B5         Stop It!              3:30

B6         Two Voices     2:00

B7         Lonely Boy      3:48

B8         Practical Demonstration        0:52

C1          Commercial    0:08

C2          Gisella                3:15

C3          Archie's Dub   3:32

C4          Ikumi 2:12

C5          Reassurances                1:00

C6          Assemble And Diffuse             4:30

C7          Eno's Aviary   2:00

C8          Almost Chinese            2:04

C9          Agfa / Lupa     0:52

D1         The Phonic Chasm (Excerpt) Featuring – Dawn Seago      4:31

D2         Acquiescence                5:06

D3         Malaise              6:26

D4         All Sad Days    2:34

D5         Porcelain     Featuring – Nancy Estle              2:11

CONDITION: MINT—SEALED