S t u d i o F i v e B e e k m a n

sound and intermedia gallery

Alan Licht

Today I Am A Fountain Pen

My Bar Mitzvah re-configured as a sound environment

Saturdays

2 - 9 PM

October 3 - 24, 1998

photographer unknown

Today I Am A Fountain Pen is the first full-fledged sound installation by improviser and guitarist Alan Licht. The sound source is a tape of Licht chanting haftorah Naso at his Bar Mitzvah, June 6, 1981, Congregation B’nai Israel, Millburn, NJ. Licht has selected twelve consonant melodic fragments that are looped and layered in various combinations and permutations. This echoes the trope, or cantillation system of Torah reading, which employs a fixed set of melodic accents, and pays homage to the processes and techniques of contemporary minimalist composition. By using this unusual personal document as source material, Licht allows an autobiographical insight normally absent from musique concrete, and more in keeping with his background as an egocentric rock guitar hero.

Alan Licht was guitarist, songwriter, and singer for Matador recording artists Run On and Homestead recording artists Love Child. He was also a member of Rudolph Grey’s improvising group the Blue Humans. Licht has also recorded and/or performed with Rashied Ali, Jim O’Rourke, Fred Lonberg-Holm, William Hooker, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Loren Mazzacane-Connors, Keiji Haino, Arthur Lee and Love, David Linton, DJ Spooky, Tamio Shiraishi, Ken Vandermark, Jim Sauter, Mark Cunningham, The Styrenes, Dean Roberts, No Neck Blues Band, John Corbett, Jojo Hiroshige, and others. He also performs and records as a solo electric guitarist. His music criticism and surveys have appeared in Forced Exposure, Halana, and various other publications.

"...A young, angelic Licht smiles down from a portrait mounted on the wall, above it the room's only source of light. It could be a peaceful, meditative environment, but Licht has chosen sound fragments of no more than five or six seconds apiece, transforming the chants into riffs that your mind attaches to, following them like guitar licks that are slightly out of whack. You can't help following them wherever they go - they grow louder and softer, mingle with the other chants, get spooky and ominous, then retreat into the background, reminding you that what you're hearing is the soft and unsure voice of a 13-year-old boy surrounded by his entire family..."

Ben Sisario, NY Press

For more information:

e-mail address: alanlicht@hotmail.com