State Laughter

Not sure if it was conscious or not, but each of these new Etat Unis releases are the artist's debut Lps. For some maybe their most well known, but also interesting to see the beginnings of some heavy hitters that went on to be renowned for their work. Duncan has been known for his extremity. From performance art including intercourse with a corpse or pieces like "Scare" where he fired pistols (filled with blanks) at point blank range at 2 (unknowing) close friends, many of these events are held in private and not meant for the world at large to experience. According to new liner notes with this issue, before he had even sold 20 copies of the record he began seeing them turn up in 10 cent bins at a local record store. Through connections with the LAFMS, a copy made it into the hands of Takuya Sakaguchi. Tak got in touch with John which started a lifelong correspondence and motivated John to move to Tokyo in 1982. The genesis of small and even private things often lead to ripples that affect life long change. This unpolished work sounds like a dying high school band on Mars or maybe Peter Brotzman and Han Bennik's album mad in the Black Forest, only the 2 have been huffing and drinking glue for weeks and their bodies have grown into the root systems of the forest.