Am 8. September erscheint auf Room40 eine neu gemasterte Reissue des Albums “Glass World” (Tangent Records 1970) der neuseeländisch-amerikanischen Komponistin und Musikpädagogin Annea Lockwood. Auf dieser frühen Arbeit geht die Musikerin ihrer Faszination für singuläre Klänge nach und erforscht ihre zum Teil komplexe Materialität. Wie schon der Titel andeutet, dreht sich in den mehr als zwanzig meist kurzen Stücken das meiste um Objekte aus Glas, genaueres efährt man dann aus den Titeln der einzelnen Tracks. Das Album erscheint auf CD zusammen mit einem Buch, in welchem eine ausführliche Korrespondenz zwischen Lockwood und Lawrence English dokumentiert ist, der das neue Mastering übernahm. Ebenfalls enthalten ist Bildmaterial, das verschiedene Arbeiten der Künstlerin dokumentiert. “Glass World” ist auch digital erhältlich.

“To attempt to summarise the journey of Annea Lockwood’s life, as a composer and performer, is difficult if not impossible. For six decades now, she has carved out a multifarious and fluid existence that has orbited various musical movements and approaches. Hers is a life led by intuition, curiosity and listening, one in which passion is paramount and wonderment abounds.If you were to reflect upon one aspect of her way of being that holds the greatest gravity in her day to day, it is perhaps listening that resonates most vibrantly. It is a practice that she has sought to deepen, with an unwavering dedication across her life, and a it is practice that has sustained her in the absolute. It’s here that Glass World comes into focus for it documents some of her first significant studies into sound, object and listening. It is a recording that captures her in a moment of profound fascination with a rather familiar material, glass. This recording celebrates many things, amongst them Lockwood’s willingness to allow single sounds to resonate, fully. Across each of the twenty three vignettes captured here, Annea Lockwood invites us to lean into the material nature of sound with her.

Glass World shimmers with an almost fanatical incandescence. It radiates a vibrational intensity that holds as strongly today as it did upon its original release in 1970 on Tangent Records. I had the privilege to re-master these recordings, under the guidance of Annea, and sitting with them so intensely was nothing but a delight. In tandem with this project, Annea and I have undertaken a long-form in conversation, which is collected in the book which sits alongside this edition. The conversation splays outward from Annea’s work on Glass World and it deliberately seeks to visit upon her interests and passions, and through doing so revel a certain perspective that has guided her ways of being, and ways of making. It’s an honour to have the opportunity to share this edition with you. I hope you too can catch Annea’s resonate curiosity and be as captivated by these sounds as I (and many others) have been”. (Lawrence English)