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WILLIAM EGGLESTON

William Eggleston

512

    William Eggleston is a famed photographer and musician credited for iconic album covers such as Spoon’s Transference and Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American. 512 was inspired and recorded at the Parkview Apartments in Memphis, Tennessee where Eggleston lived for almost ten years. The apartment was full of art and inspiration: cameras, naturally, but also high-end stereo tube amplifiers and objects that you’d rush towards money in hand at your local flea market. But also a gigantic nine foot Bosendorfer grand piano and a massive grand vintage JBL theater speaker console. His home was overwhelmed by music.

    By recording there the album captures not just his performances, but also the vibe of the place; it often felt as though there were artists lurking in the aether listening along. His visitors over the years were no small change: Lee Friedlander, Carl Sagan, Dennis Hopper , Paul McCartney and many others came to see him and listen to his hypnotic “Musik”. You can hear local traffic, a dog barking, weather; reality, in other words. But there was another space layered on top, a kind of surreality echoing his music, as you can imagine a gathering of musicians listening in, eager to join him. Thus came along 512 which features the legendary Brian Eno on bells and production from Leo Abrahams (Regina Spektor, Paul Simon, Jon Hopkins).”

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Improvisation
    2. Ol’ Man River
    3. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
    4. Over The Rainbow
    5. That’s Some Robert Burn
    6. Onward Christian Soldiers

    William Eggleston

    Musik

      Native Memphian William Eggleston, 77, is widely regarded to be the most important photographer of the late 20th Century but there is another side to him that took root in his Sumner, Mississippi childhood, where he discovered the piano in the parlour that ignited in him a lifelong passion for music.

      In the 1980’s, Eggleston, who disdained digital cameras and modernity in general, became surprisingly fascinated with a synthesizer, the Korg O1/W FD, which had 88 piano-like keys and in addition to being able to emulate the sound of any instrument, also contained a four-track sequencer that allowed him to expand the palette of his music, letting him create improvised symphonic pieces, stored on 49 floppy discs, encompassing some 60 hours of music from which this 13 track recording was assembled.

      The music, which he refers to as ‘Musik’, adopting the German spelling of his hero, JS Bach, is highly emotional, whether he’s improvising a Bach-like organ fanfare out of whole cloth, using a Korg patch titled ‘Guitar Feedback’ to create a dirge, or playing Lerner and Lowe’s ‘On The Street Where You Live’ as a dramatic overture.

      Release available in a beautiful gatefold double LP with photography by Alex Soth.


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