(2023) VA - Allen Ginsberg's The Fall of America II      


Review:
In 2021, a whole lot of musicians paid tribute to Allen Ginsberg, a towering figure in the history of American poetry, on the album Allen Ginsberg​’​s The Fall of America: A 50th Anniversary Musical Tribute. The album was intended to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ginsberg’s book The Fall Of America: Poems Of These States 1965-1971, and it featured people like Yo La Tengo, Andrew Bird, Devendra Banhart, and Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo setting Ginsberg’s poems to music. Given that Ginsberg’s book was actually published in 1973, it only seems right that we’re getting a sequel on its real 50th anniversary. The forthcoming compilation Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall Of America Volume II features more musical translations of more Allen Ginsberg poems. Devendra Banhart and Thurston Moore once again contribute, but this time, Moore is teaming up with spoken-word great Saul Williams. Other contributors include Fennesz, Dave Harrington, Why?, Miho Hatori, and Philip Glass. — Stereogum

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Fall of America Poems published by City Lights Books in San Francisco, covers the years 1965-1971 when Allen is crisscrossing the country, exploring a system of composition by narrating into the portable reel to reel Uher that Bob Dylan had gifted him. In 1965, Ginsberg began planning an ambitious project, a book of thematically connected poems, a collection that “discovered” America in poetry similar to the way Kerouac’s On the Road had explored the country in prose. The Vietnam War would be a constant presence overhanging Ginsberg’s travel writings like a darkening shadow affecting daily life in the country. It would be a study of contrasts: natural beauty slammed up against an ugliness that rose out of the tensions of violence. The public’s polarized dialogue over Vietnam and, earlier in the decade, the civil rights movement, convinced Ginsberg that America was teetering on the precipice of a fall. — bandcamp



   


Track List:
01. Ai Weiwei - Hum Bom!
02. Anne Waldman - Pentagon Exorcism
03. Thurston Moore - A Prophecy
04. Kai Campos - Bixby Canyon
05. Devendra Banhart - Dear Queer Bar
06. Jack Dangers - Holy Ghost On the Nod Over the Body of Bliss
07. System 7 - Sonora Desert Edge (The Abyss)
08. WHY - Death On All Fronts
09. Seb Taylor - Over Denver Again
10. Fennesz - Guru
11. Ashes - September On Jessore Road
12. Oliver Ray - Cremation Piece (On Neal's Ashes)
13. Will Epstein - Pertussin
14. Miho Hatori - Iron Horse (The Universe Is Empty)
15. Philip Glass - Have You Seen This Movie


Media Report:
Genre: electronic, folk, jazz
Country: New York, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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