It’s 1969, and Tony Conrad wants to take you Higher.

Celebrated for the thrilling roar of his amplified violin, Conrad is a

founding father of ‘minimalism’ and a giant in the American soundscape. Now Conrad’s own Audio ArtKive imprint presents the first
in a series of releases that reveal the wild breadth of his 40-year career, including field recordings, piano compositions, film
soundtracks and more.

Fantastic Glissando (1969) is a series of (d)evolving electronic compositions created with sine-wave oscilla-

tors. The instrumentation is different, but the effect is typical Conrad: soaring, aggressively textured and jet-engine massive. This
first-time CD release contains “Process Four of Fantastic Glissando”, a fifth track not included on the original LP version due to
space limitations.

“Massive slab of temporal disruption from one of the most consistently wowing figures to come out of the cultural

meltdown of the 1960s. Conrad was a key mover in the Lower East Side rock and avant underground in the early to
mid 60s, playing with Lou Reed, John Cale and Walter DeMaria in Reed’s frat-rock combo, The Primitives, and standing
in with early line-ups of The Velvet Underground. But it was his activities as part of The Dream Syndicate/Theatre Of
Eternal Music, a group dedicated to extending waves of single note bliss into whole new zones of psychoactive ecstasy,
that were to have the most far-reaching cultural impact. Alongside John Cale, Angus MacLise, LaMonte Young and
Marian Zazeela, Conrad founded a whole new approach to sound, working tiny pulsing intervals into long monotonal
drones generated by bowed strings and vocals and birthing a minimalism several cells more blasted than the saccha-
rine soundtracks associated with bigger hitting names like Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. Fantastic Glissando
dates from 1969 and features four tracks of degraded sine-wave oscillations that approximate the roar of a fleet of
V-2 bombers.”

VOLCANIC TONGUE

“Tony Conrad is a pioneer, as seminal in his way to American music as Johnny Cash or Captain Beefheart or Ornette

Coleman, one of those really savvy old guys whom all the kids want to emulate because their ideas, their style are
electric and new and somehow indivisible."

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

NEW RELEASE

ON

Pb

207.19

82

Lead

FORMAT: CD
RELEASE DATE: January 2006
FILE UNDER: Avant
CATALOG NO: TOE-CD-82
UPC: 600401082126

TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS

TRACKS:
1. FANTASTIC GLISSANDO.
2. PROCESS ONE OF FANTASTIC GLISSANDO.
3. PROCESS TWO OF FANTASTIC GLISSANDO.
4. PROCESS THREE OF FANTASTIC GLISSANDO.
5. PROCESS FOUR OF FANTASTIC GLISSANDO.