Graduation and Other Country and Blues Music

"The secret history of minimalism continues to expand with the excavation of Henry Flynt's "Graduation and Other Country and Blues Music". Much minimal music has a trance-inducing effect; a composer like Riley, Reich or Young would borrow liberally from countries whose music had a tradition of using sound to induce trance states. Referencing Ghana, Morocco, or India gave those composers' music an exotic sheen. Henry Flynt instead delved deep into the music of possibly the most exotic country of all-- America -- to find his inspiration in truck driver culture and the commercial country radio of the sixties and seventies: George Jones, Merle Haggard, Del Reeves are his muses. Where Terry Riley evoked mescaline and psylocybin, Flynt's is all caffeine and amphetamines. He realized that there isn't anything more trance-inducing than the painted stripes of the highway from 80 mph, or any place more hallucinatory than a waffle house along I-75 at 3 a.m. This document reveals is nothing less than Flynt's vision of cosmic cowboy boogie. The first track is a 'hillbilly' response to Pandit Pran Nath that wouldn't sound out of place on Mayo Thompson's "Corky's Dept to His Father", The second track could be 'Poppy Nogood' transposed to guitar, fiddle and drum. Much of the music is country raga -- ringing steel guitars, electric fiddles, a beautiful 20-minute foray of pastoral oscillating guitar revery. Flynt even explores what I guess could be called avant-garde country disco, replete with breakbeats and a steady backbeat. Baffling; my vote for strangest record of the year."

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