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The Poetics



Remixes of Recordings (1977-1983)

  1. Listen Carefully 1:09
  2. Pratfall 0:56
  3. The Loner 2:40
  4. Waiting 2:05
  5. Searing Gum 3:21
  6. Silver Oranges Of The Moon 3:11
  7. The New Girl 1:07
  8. Rocket #9 4:17
  9. Something Big Is Coming 2:08
  10. Cream Of Kentucky 1:56
  11. The Carnal Plane 2:58
  12. Old Hoger 1:44
  13. Death Dates Intro 3:08
  14. Jim's Song 2:12
  15. Lude Out 3:16
  16. Son Of Sam 2:36
  17. Floater 2:13
  18. By The Book 1:17
  19. Science Fiction 2:51
  20. Dream Lover 1:43
  21. The Dummy 2:18
  22. Voyage To The Bottom 2:09
  23. Silent Night 1:30
  24. Echo Park 6:42
  25. Mr. Orgatron 2:42
  26. Gamelan Douche 2:20
  27. Endless Revenge 1:28
  28. The Little Horn 3:30
  29. Blue Brains 1:43
  30. Birds In The Morning 1:35
  31. Copy Cats 1:33
  32. Call/Response 2:09
  33. Wilde Child 1:31
  34. Procession 3:27
  35. Early America 1:32
  36. The Beats Of The Traps 2:28
  37. Broken 1:20
  38. Tiperillo? 1:10
  39. Pillow Talk 5:07
  40. International Style 1:05
  41. Swarm 2:54
  42. Son Of Oil 3:02
  43. When I'm Fucking 2:21
  44. Vasquez Rocks 3:07
  45. Catholic Damage 1:41
  46. Urgent 3:22
  47. Shake Shake 3:48
  48. Rut 1:02
  49. Came Too Soon 0:41
  50. BBQ 1:12
  51. Cow Catcher 2:35
  52. Cotton Mouth 4:03
  53. Grand Mal 2:19
  54. Blew It 2:33
  55. Heathens In Limbo 3:12
  56. Lower 2:40
  57. Hard On 1:23
  58. Planet Song 1:24
  59. Psycho Drama 1:22
  60. Black And Green Aura 1:48
  61. Beyond The Realm Of Speech 1:00


The Poetics, Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler
The Poetics : Remixes of Recordings 1977-1983
Los Angeles, CA: Compound Annex. 1996


Synopsis: A three CD box set with booklet chronicling the music and sound experiments of Kelley and Oursler in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Includes pieces composed for video soundtracks, dance performances, etc. Moody, twisted, soundtracks of the mind. Over 90 tracks. If you like the early noise version of Destroy All Monsters, you'll like this. Features musicians: John Miller, Bill Stobaugh, and John Arnheim.

These three CDs offer aural evidence of all that: garbage versions of electronic music (linked to Kelley's involvement with DAM), noise, prototrance, instrumentals, both aggressive and sad stints with a singer-songwriter style, music as a dysfunctional standup routine (half lounge, half rock). In other words, punk rock deconstructed. The result is hours and hours of a monster being created and released. Oursler is the main vocalist delivering the half-sung, half-spoken lyrics (Kelley and Jim Shaw are also heard on some tracks), and band members include (on various cuts) John Miller, Mark Madel, Tim Silverlake, and Bill Stobough. Each of the ninety-one pieces are quite short (only one is longer than six minutes), and all are remixes of work that seems here like raw material compiled from even rawer material, most of it taken from the cassettes that had been the Poetics' way of recording. "Setting it right" didn't mean cleaning up the mess in a high-tech way, but retrieving it from the dustbin while keeping it dusty, creating enough tension to make one listen and listen and listen. What's heard is a torturous and beautiful monotony, incredibly self-contained yet incorporating a vast set of recognizable styles, like some condensed version of world music. The experience throws its listener for a loop for the longest stretch, but then . . .

""It only masquerades as period music for its true reception is in the present. And the critical analyses which accompany it, though reflective of period issues, are colored by hindsight. It is . . . a fiction. The very mode of the music's presentation is of the present - CD box sets did not exist in the seventies; the packaging itself tears the music from its historical frame. Thus the music is revealed as not being 'popular,' that is - designed to produce instant gratification, since it gratifies fifteen years too late. Instead it is art, it is facade." (MK). Well, it is a kind of etching in stone, and perhaps it's intentional on the part of the Poetics that treating history this way might be a good idea when so many others are busy securing their place before the turn of the calendar. This one's no administrative job, but an ugly labor of love. Jutta Koether is a painter and critic who lives in New York.


Critical Inquiry In Green (1997)

  1. The Poetics (Initial Inquiry) 0:24
  2. Let's Play 2:40
  3. Factor A 3:10
  4. Balls 5:49
  5. Flower, Flower, Flower 6:55
  6. Save Me 4:10
  7. Pedestrian Bliss 4:11
  8. Pre-Universal 1:48
  9. Cool Off 4:49
  10. A Pecker And A Bush 3:08
  11. Relax 4:19
  12. Critical Inquiry 2:15
  13. Gods Music 2:52
  14. Green 4:43
  15. Dirge 4:44
  16. Nothing From Nothing 2:28
  17. The Concert At Ardmore 3:20
  18. Another Drone 7:04
  19. Of Winged Bird 3:11


(Kelley and Oursler reunited in 1997 to make this recording to coincide with the opening of the Poetics Project installation at Document X. All new material; 19 tracks. Dreary background music for the era of the personal computer. Features musicians: Art Byington, Dave Muller, Steven Vitiello, etc.)

Credits
Bass, Electronics - Dave Muller
Drums, Percussion, Electronics, Producer - Mike Kelley
Engineer - Alex Noyes , Bill Seery
Guitar - Stephen Vitiello (tracks: 7)
Guitar, Bass, Electronics [Samples] - Art Byington
Keyboards, Electronics, Guitar, Bass, Producer - Tony Oursler
Mastered By - Gary Todd
Vocals - Bad News (6) (tracks: 2, 12) , Bill Wintersole (tracks: 1, 6, 13, 17, 19) , Cathy (5) (tracks: 9) , Dave Muller (tracks: 10) , Linda Post (tracks: 3) , Mike Kelley (tracks: 10) , Princess (tracks: 5, 16) , Tony Oursler (tracks: 3, 5) , Zoe Pettijohn (tracks: 4)
Written-By - Art Byington (tracks: 8, 11, 14, 15, 18) , Bill Wintersole (tracks: 17) , Dave Muller (tracks: 8, 11, 15, 18) , Mike Kelley (tracks: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10 to 13, 15, 16, 18, 19) , Tony Oursler (tracks: 1 to 5, 7 to 9, 11,12, 14, 15, 18)


RELATED RESOURCES:
Tony Oursler in UbuWeb Film
Tony Oursler in UbuWeb Sound
Mike Kelley in UbuWeb Film
Mike Kelley in UbuWeb Sound




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