Curated by Neil P. Quigley
An A5, 50 page book which documents the history and origins of each composer, and for the first time the full score to Packie Bolger's "Piece for Recorder Quartet and Two Synchronised Delay Lines...." written for the opening of the 1989 Teletext Conference in Kilkenny.This edition also comes with a pull-out A3 poster of a Kilkenny Tribune front page on one side and Kenny Phelan's Psychogeographic map/score for 'the Nore' on the other.Printed in the UK. Very Limited. Also comes with a special thank you letter from the Label Director.Includes unlimited streaming of Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory Anthology Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
"The Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory was informally set up in late 1965 by Jacinta Delaney (1937 -) and Eoghan Comerford (1935 -). They were inspired by Groupe de Recherches Musicales after Comerford visited the RTF in Paris in ’64.They also found encouragement for the project from the San Francisco Tape Music Center and Manhattan Research, both of whom Delaney had correspondences with. The initial idea of the lab was to create a regional centre for sound studies, focusing on early years studies, linguistic research, and sound technologies.The lab was more formally set up with the introduction of Helga Hölzel (1940 -) in ‘67 and with a county council premises grant, which was approved after word spread about Comerford repairing Phil Coulter’s Tape Echo Machine. Through the late 60’s and early 70’s most of the Lab’s money was generated through local and national grants, and an electronic instrument repair service which they ran. They quickly gained a reputation for high quality electronic instrument repair, which included repairing Phil Lynott's flanger, Big Tom’s Echoplex and Ronnie Drew’s homebrew Ondes-Martenot.T.V. Delaney (1939 - 1999) and Oisín Creegan (1928 -) joined in ‘73 and ‘74, respectively. Delaney was primarily a composer of acoustic chamber music but, inspired by Stockhausen's recent work, joined the lab as a full-time member to avail of the Lab’s equipment. He was well known locally as the man who only ever wore O’Neills’ shorts, even in the depths of winter. He left K.E.R.L. after an intensive year of involvement, during which he developed a crippling paranoia about the singularity.Creegan, on the other hand, worked both in real estate and as an advisor for the regional council. When I interviewed him for this anthology, he suggested that he only joined the lab to benefit from artist tax exemption status.Despite him disavowing his musical work during this period, I have included two of his tracks in Vol. 1 as they are the most commercially successful works to come out of K.E.R.L. and are a historically important part of the development of the organisation.Soon after the introduction of these new members, Hölzel moved back to mainland Europe and joined the RAF due to issues which arose between her and Creegan, who she described when I interviewed her at Stammheim prison in Stuttgart, as “blueshirt scum” and suggested that he undermined the integrity of the research done at the Lab while also commodifying and capitalising on actual composer’s work.Packie Bolger (1939 -) joined in ‘80 after returning from New York where he worked in construction.15 years prior to joining K.E.R.L., while completing his inter cert at the C.B.S. secondary school, he first met Comerford. He spent the next fourteen years in the US without a proper visa and was then deported after being arrested for “urinating on a Robert Indiana sculpture whilst inebriated.” He describes himself as being “adjacent” to the minimalist scene in New York while living there and he suggested that this is where he gained an interest in Eastern and “Native” Spiritualism. In my research for this anthology, I could find no reference to him in any music scene in New York during this period.The track tuvahompi, included on this anthology, was the first use of the newly acquired PPG Wave 2 at K.E.R.L. At the time of composition Bolger believed the title came from the Hopi for unity/togetherness, but later discovered that it translates to washing machine.Kenny Phelan (1951 - 2014) Joined in ‘84. He was the premier youth Elvis impersonator in the Southeast throughout the 60’s. Later in life he would routinely fly a confederate flag at half-mast above his house when Kilkenny would lose at the hurling. During the 80’s and 90’s, Phelan became fanatical about water dowsing and what he described as “the philosophy of regional spiritualism”.The James Stephens String Trio, who appear here on the track Meascán, were plagued by controversies throughout the ensemble’s history. The most widely spread of the controversies is the story about the ensemble’s original cellist. In the late 80’s the cellist was pictured with his daughter in the local paper, cutting a birthday cake with a picture of Adolf Hitler printed on it. While interviewed about the cake on KCR, the cellist said he “is not a Nazi, but, to be fair, the other European superpowers were trying to destabilise the Deutsch mark.” This garnered widespread media coverage and drew unwanted attention to both the ensemble and K.E.R.L. and resulted in significant public funding cuts and the eventual demise of the organisation.The purpose of this collection is an introduction to a selection of works by key characters in the development of K.E.R.L. The structure of the collection gives a general outline of the development of the works throughout the history of the Lab, but it is no way comprehensive."----- Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.------A5, 50pp, contains poster
Miúin, Kilkenny, 2025
