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Jean-Paul Curtay at Ultimatum Festival 1985-05-05
The following is a transcription of the Jean-Paul Curtay set at Ultimatum I , Sunday, May 5th, 1985 at the Foufounes Electriques. The Ultimatum festival program lists the performance as "Sound Super Writing." Curtay was a member of the French avant-garde Lettrist movement and provided vital sonic and written contributions to its exegesis (see: Body Music and Hypegraphic Music). In his memoir High Friends in Low Places (2022), Alan Lord describes how, in this performance, Curtay wraps his mouth around the microphone "like a cock" to produce the sounds of his Sound Super Writing (127). The recording ends with an audio excerpt of the film "Framed" by Montreal filmmaker Napoleon Moffat, the go-between Curtay’s set and the John Giorno band.
Annotations
00:00 - 00:01
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
00:04 - 03:07
Performs sound piece [mixture of live and recorded sounds: slamming, off-beat clapping, barking, laughter, human voices, stomping, mouth sounds, tapping, crackling].
Jean-Paul Curtay
03:07 - 03:17
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
03:17 - 03:19
Microphone feedback.
Tech
03:19 - 04:36
Performs sound piece [vocalizes][microphone feedback throughout].
Jean-Paul Curtay
04:36 - 04:43
Performs sound piece [trickling sound].
Jean-Paul Curtay
04:43 - 04:45
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
04:45 - 05:43
Resumes sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
05:43 - 05:44
Microphone feedback.
Tech
05:44 - 05:55
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
05:55 - 06:54
Resumes sound piece [tapping and clapping sounds].
Jean-Paul Curtay
05:55 - 08:10
Resumes sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
06:54 - 07:09
Murmuring [soft laughter].
Audience
08:10 - 08:17
Speakers popping.
Tech
08:17 - 08:21
Resumes sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
08:21 - 08:22
Speakers popping.
Tech
08:22 - 10:17
Continues sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
10:17 - 10:23
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
10:23 - 10:40
Applause.
Audience
10:23 - 15:38
Performs sound piece [accompanied by recorded sounds: computer noises, baby crying, humming, gurgling, horn, high pitched gibberish].
Jean-Paul Curtay
15:38 - 15:40
Silence [cuts out].
Recording
15:40 - 21:12
Continues sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
21:12 - 21:24
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
21:24 - 27:04
Performs sound piece [accompanied by recorded sounds: whispering, gurgling, metallic grinding, bird calls, human voices].
Jean-Paul Curtay
27:04 - 27:08
Microphone feedback.
Tech
27:08 - 27:09
Continues sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
27:09 - 27:12
Chatter and whistling.
Audience
27:12 - 27:14
Continues sound piece
Jean-Paul Curtay
27:14 - 27:16
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
27:16 - 27:23
Shouting [unintelligible] and laughter.
Audience
27:23 - 27:29
Performs sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
27:29 - 27:30
Coughing.
Audience Member
27:30 - 27:43
Continues sound piece [accompanied by recorded sounds:chugging, lasers].
Jean-Paul Curtay
27:43 - 27:48
Applause.
Audience
27:48 - 28:00
continues sound piece.
Jean-Paul Curtay
28:00 - 28:05
Applause.
Audience
28:05 - 28:18
Room noise.
Foufounes Electriques
28:18 - 28:19
Microphone crackle.
Tech
28:19 - 28:32
Bon, Bon soooooooooooir [modulation], bon soir! En attendan the John Giorno baaaaaaaand [echo: baaaand].
Alan Lord
28:32 - 28:34
Applause.
Audience
28:32 - 29:02
Pendent que les techniciens vont defiler le renfilage et vice versa [echo], on va visioner le film de Napoleon Moffat qui s’appelle Framed-d. Qui est originalement un super huite qui a ete transfer a trois–three quarter inch, trois quarts video. C’est un film excellent pis un des meilleures… Pour cinq minutes vous avez le poesie visuel plein de geule, okay?
Alan Lord
29:02 - 29:57
Chatter.
Audience
29:57 - 30:51
Napoleon Moffat’s "Framed" starts [piano music].
Tech
30:51 - 31:15
Film continues [speech: There are spaces that live between us. The transparency of their names. A terrible tragedy that haunts their walls. A revelation of their fiction. Of something which might of happened but that never really occurred].
Tech
31:15 - 31:46
Film continues [piano music].
Tech
31:46 - 31:46
[End of recording].
END