Miguel Angel Coria - En rouge et noir (Cramps, 1976)

----------
Artist
Label
Discogs
last.fm
RYM












We've interrupted this regularly scheduled broadcast for a re-blog from the fantastic and unjustly esoteric Twice Zonked!.

With releases from, among others, Cage, Bailey, Lucier, and Ashley, I suppose it is easy for Coria's breathtaking solo prepared piano work, En rouge et noir, to get lost among the Cramps shuffle. In addition to a continuous, approximately twenty minute long rendition, this release is also broken down into twelve discrete vignettes.

Coria violently commences in Materiali A, where the piano "almost sounds as though a rake head was laid inside." This approach, carried over through a few parts, resembles Derek Bailey at his most aggressive. As the Materiali progress from A to N, Coria's playing dissipates into sparser territory, with seemingly electro-acoustic elements in the middle sections. By happenstance, in my most recent playing, Martin Siewert & Martin Brandlmayr's Too Beautiful to Burn succeeded En rouge et noir. Siewert and Brandlmayr's first track, "Form", provided an excellent counterpoint, resembling Coria in sound, but obviously not in execution.

Although this LP was initially released in 1976 by Cramps, it has since been re-released by the aforementioned label in 2004, then by Strange Days in 2007 -- both in CD format. Seeing as neither label's site is in English, I feel it safe to provide a download link, from what I believe to be the 2004 issue. However, I linked to Strange Days, in hopes that our Japanese readers can find an in-print copy.

Download.