Great news! hot news! – the new Ginsberg Recordings release! – Wichita Vortex Sutra! – This is a fully digitalized re-issued masterpiece (recognized at the time as, “one of Ginsberg’s finest moments as a poet and certainly his finest and most compelling recording”). The poem itself dates from 1966 (an epic chronicle of the Imagination and of American consciousness at the height of the Vietnam War). This particular production of the work was recorded, significantly, later, at the St Marks Poetry Project in New York, with a stellar group of musical collaborators including Philip Glass, Elliott Sharp, Lenny Kaye, Marc Ribot, Arto Lindsay, Steve Shelley, Christian Marclay and Hal Willner (amongst others).
Of the 2004 Artemis CD recording, Allmusic.com wrote – “Of all of Ginsberg’s recordings this one works especially well, partly because the performance of this work is complete and the musicians understand their role in painting the poet’s words, and partly because of Ginsberg’s willingness to serve the language. This works in spades, it flows, it has drama and humor and pathos and poignancy, and it is drenched in a terrible kind of beauty”.
Ginsberg Recordings remarkable project, digitalizing and releasing (as well as re-releasing) the extraordinary range of Allen’s recorded work continues.