Blank Forms, an organization that hosts events supporting experimental artists in particular, has amassed a collection of writing for the second volume of its journal. Knighted as Black Forms Journal 2: Music From the World Tomorrow (no, it’s not “the world OF tomorrow”) and featuring a particularly crazed photo of Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen on the cover, the tome can be yours for just a Jackson.
Supporting the cover is a piece on the Sun Ra Arkestra by John Corbett, a writer who has penned several books on the jazz improvisation world. There are also two pieces on the late violin-noise artist/visual artist/all-around-polymath Tony Conrad. First, filmmaker Andrew Lampert takes us inside the mind of “the Bill Murray of the avant garde” with a collection of Conrad’s handwritten notes (in full color, because, why not?). The second is a phone interview transcription by Alan Licht where Conrad dishes on postmodernism, the Theater of Eternal Music, and of course, La Monte Young.
The issue also contains an Annea Lockwood lecture and a piece about several of composer Jakob Ullmann’s pieces. And good things come in threes: volume 2 includes a trio of pieces relating to legendary electroacoustic artist Maryanne Amacher.
At over 300 pages, the journal holds other goodies, like the tour diary (with photos) from krautrockers Anima, as well as “quester after sound and space” Akio Suzuki’s comic zine featuring…cats.
Music From the World Tomorrow will be a limited-edition run of only 750, and it’s already out now, which means some experimental head has probably already beaten you to the 1/750 printing. But if you hurry (and maybe try pretending like you’re Tony Conrad’s godchild or something) maybe you can still snatch a pre-triple-digit copy.