Lovely Music Special with David Gutkin & Eve Essex

Eve Essex hosts musicologist David Gutkin for a look into the scene and sounds affiliated with New York’s Lovely Music imprint, with music from Robert Ashley, Eliane Radigue, Leroy Jenkins and many more. Founded in 1978 by Mimi Johnson, Lovely Music’s released releases include many seminal documents of American experimentalism after 1970, cutting across several generations of artists whose practices are wide-ranging in genre and format. For many of the artists on the label, a common thread was the artists’ relationship to composer Robert Ashley– who served as a collaborator, professor, mentor, or friend to many of them. Conversation touches on the music of Ashley, as well some themes running through many releases on the label: radical approaches to the voice and to textual meaning, new approaches to improvisation including networked electronics, and a melding of pop, jazz and classical among other genres.