Charles Amirkhanian: Just (1972)

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Charles Amirkhanian: Just (1972)

Unless he was blessed with some weird insight, it's a fair guess that American sound-poet and composer Amirkhanian could not know how this text-sound piece would be heard in the wake of what happened in Auckland's harbour in 1985.

One night in July as the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was moored at a central wharf in downtown it was bombed -- one crew member killed -- and sunk by two explosives placed below the waterline.

It was an act of sabotage designed to stop Greenpeace protesting the on-going French testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific, about as far away from Paris as they could get.

Subsequently French agents were caught and stood trial -- and this bombing was conclusively proven to be an act of international terrorism perpetrated by the highest levels of the French security services and government on New Zealand soil.

amirkhanian_chBut back in '72 when Amirkhanian was making his sound poems using just a few words of text he could never have guessd how his four chosen words might resonate much later.

This is taken from the album 10+2: 12 American Text Sound Pieces (Arch Records, 1974) which is a collection of music composed from speaking, not singing. 

For more one-offs, oddities or songs with an interesting backstory see From the Vaults

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