Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux.
Side one was recorded at a private concert (on the date and time indicated by the title) and features Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone with Jon Hassell on trumpet and Garrett List on trombone. This work is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). The piece evolves with the oscillator changing pitch and dictating an ornate pattern over the course of the performance.
Side two is an example of one of the sets of frequencies sustained in the Dream House, the composite sound environments conceived by Young and Zazeela. The composer suggests listening while seated – to experience how the sound interacts with the room and other perceptions of its arrangement – as well as while walking. As Young states, "The frequency ratios are monitored continuously as lissajous patterns on the oscilloscopes and, in spite of the great stability of the oscillators, the phase relationships of the sine waves gradually drift which causes their amplitudes to add and subtract algebraically. Not only does the sound become a bit louder and softer, but at very loud levels, one actually begins to have a sensation that parts of the body are somehow locked in sync with the sine waves and slowly drifting with them in space and time.
La Monte Young (born 1935 in Bern, Idaho) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist. Recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers, best known for his exploration of sustained tones, close to the experimental music of
John Cage in the 1960s, he is a central figure in
Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music.
Marian Zazeela (1940-2024) was an American artist, painter and musician. She was a member of the 1960s lengendary experimental music collective Theatre of Eternal Music, founded with her husband
La Monte Young,
Angus MacLise, and Billy Name, and which has included John Cale,
Tony Conrad,
Terry Riley, Garrett List, Jon Gibson, Jon Hassell,
Rhys Chatham, Alex Dea, Terry Jennings...