Description:	Superb LP on Honest Jon's with nice embossed sleeve
	Format:	LP (vinyl)
	Genre(s):	Experimental / Abstract
	Label:	Honest Jon's
	Price:	£10.29
	Availability:	Sold out / currently unavailable. Sorry!

5
...according to our Brett on 17 April 2009.

VINYL VERSIONS NOW AVAILABLE!!! Oh man, today's deliveries are so exciting. Perhaps pick of the bunch are the four early Moondog joints we've got with Moondog and His Honking Geese coming on 10" along with Moondog and His Friends, plus the LPs More Moondog and The Story of Moondog, originally issued on legendary jazz labels like Prestige back in the 50s. The depth and breadth of the pretend tramp's compositions is pretty astounding, with elements of jazz, classical, and musique concrete all in the mix as well as influences from just about every corner of the globe. Phil quite rightly points out that some of it is quite reminiscent of foley, that sound effect creating art. Much of it was played and recorded on the streets of New York, complete with the ambient sound of the city going about it's business around him. On the whole, this is some of the most purely listenable and accessible avant-garde music you're ever likely to hear so don't let that particular tag put you off.. You'd be missing out on a sound world of pure joy, not a chin-strokey challenge. I'd suggest doing a bit of reading up about this total one-off genius if your interest's been piqued, he's a well interesting fella and a very rare talent. All of these vinyls are timeless classics and get our highest possible recommendation! Brettski x

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What their label says...

Startlingly restored and remastered at Abbey Road, and sleeved in Richard Dumas’ amazing phographic portraits, this is Moondog at his most modern, direct, original, fresh, playful and let-it-be-said unpretentious — featuring the Honking Geese, Tony Schwartz’s brilliant outdoors recordings (particularly improved in Honest Jon’s new version), with interventions from a ship’s foghorn, a tapdancer and a cocker spaniel, and signature rhythms for trimba, oo, tuji, yukh, and ostrich feathers.
Andy Warhol’s mother got it straight, on the 1957 Prestige cover of Story — ‘Moondog is a poet who versifies in sound, a diarist overcome by love, curiosity and amusement by everything that reaches his ears, all of which he transposes into a symphony of himself. It may be the roar from the streets; it may be the casual chatter in a room or, best of all, it will be that secret music that seeps through imagination and memory. These experiences, so dull to the dull but so alive to him, he orchestrates into a record of those enchanting conversations everyone can hold with himself would he only listen for a bemused moment. They make up the script of that unique tragi-comedy, the story of anyone’s life. Pricking up our ears would be so easy, yet it is seldom done. But when Moondog compels us to do it, we are entranced and delivered willingly into new worlds of meaning.’

Tracklisting:

A Duet — Queen Elizabeth Whistle And Bamboo Pipe
Conversation And Music At 51st Street And 6th Avenue (New York City)
Hardshoe (7,4) Ray Malone
Tugboat Toccata
Autumn
Seven Beat Suite (3 Parts)
Oo Solo (6,4)
Rehearsal Of Violetta's 'Barefoot Dance'
Oo Solo (2,4)
Ostrich Feathers Played On Drums
Oboe Round
Chant
All Is Loneliness
Sextet (Oo)
Fiesta Piano Solo
Moondog Monologue
Up Broadway
Perpetual Motion
Gloving It
Improvisation
Ray Malone Softshoe
Two Quotations In Dialogue
5,8 In Two Shades
Moondog's Theme
In A Doorway
Duet
Trimbas In Quarters
Wildwood
Trimbas In Eighths
Organ Rounds