Charlemagne Palestine, the Golden Sound 2011 70

If there had been, on the mid 70s American musical scene, a musician who liked to hammer on all kinds of strings, his name could have been Charlemagne Palestine. Of Ukrainian origin, he would have lived in Manhattan first, the homeland of “Live Art”, and would have met avant-garde artists (Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, John Cale, Taylor Mead, Terry Riley, Gerard Malanga…). Then he would have moved to Los Angeles, the land of electroacoustic experiments (Morton Subotnick, Ingram Marshall), video art (Nam June Paik) and experimental film (Stan Brakhage), where he would have created his famous Strumming Music while attending CalArts. He would have ended up in Brussels, where he would eventually have gained his contemporaries’ recognition. Today, after forty years of momentums and depressions, departures and unwanted returns, Charlemagne Palestine would give us – thanks to a series of past records (videos, photos and unheard music) – his ultimate private confession: the quest for the “Golden Sound”.