Phill Niblock
Four Full Flutes
Ambon, Indonesia: Blume Editions, 2022
2LP Box Set
Edition of 300
A little over a year ago, Phill Niblock’s third full length LP from 1990 received the deluxe reissue treatment from Blume Editions, who have also released recordings by Bruce Nauman, Mary Jane Leach, Alvin Lucier and others. Housed in a velvet-lined wooden box, the audiophile pressing double LP also includes a booklet and 60 x 90 cm. fold-out poster.
Niblock originally conceived of his compositions as works that could only be performed live (ironically, given his veracious record collecting). Consequently, his music appeared as recordings much later that those of his peers like Lucier, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and David Behrman.
Four Full Flutes comprises four works, each around 20 minutes long, composed for flute in the late '70s and early '80s. Each deploys the compositional system within which Niblock worked for most of his career - combining sustained tones of specific durations, rigorously produced at microtonal intervals.
Niblock died earlier this week, at the age of 90.
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