Milan Knizak the musican.

Until recently only a small circle of the Czech public had much idea of the musical . activities of Milan Knizak, best known as controversial artist, bombastic personality and director of the National Gallery. Despite the large number of copies issued, his only double album ever to be released in Czechoslovakia passed without much notice at the beginning of the 1 1990s. Otherwise until recently his musical side was represented only in Petr Kofron and Martin Smolka's book "Graficke partitury a koncepty" [Graphic Scores and Concepts"] and on the attached CD produced by Agon. At the end of last year and beginning of this spring, however, the Anne Records company at last took on the task of releasing another album that had waited for ten years--Navrhuju krysy [I Propose Rats], and the recordings by the legendary group Aktual, previously only circulated in samizdat versions. The music that has earned Knizak some reputation (and recordings) abroad, i.e. his "destroyed music" still has to be ordered abroad.

Obviously the needles were destroyed...

Destroyed music was something Knizak started to work on as early as 1963-4 He acquired a gramophone and collection of records and experimented by playing them speeded up or slowed down, and later dam-aging them by burning them, gluing layers on, putting together bits of different records, scratching and so on, He first presented this kind of music as the 2nd Manifestation of Topical Art in 965, and has been giving occasional concerts with a set of gramophones and synthesizers ever since. But Knizak was not to be satisfied with the mere playing of destroyed records, and he immediately set off from this starting line in three directions, which he combines in every possible way.

First, he regards a vinyl record treated in this way as a certain kind of musical notation in itself. The short text Destruovana hudba [Destroyed Music] (in. Novy raj) ends with the words, "Although music created by playing destroyed gramophone records cannot be transcribed into notes or another language (or only with great difficulty), the records themselves can be considered to be notation"

Second, Knizak decided to treat traditional scores in the same way as the records. By striking out or adding notes, signatures and other signs, changing the order of bars or directly collaging different pages of notation, he produced a "more exact" equivalent of his work with the records. Why more exact? Because there is always inevitably and element of chance in the work with records, while in work with written (printed) scores all the consequences of changing the score can be identified, One example of this kind of work was Fantasia "by a collective of composers", i.e, W.A. Mozart, F. Suppe, H. Lemoine, V. Polivka, M. Knizak, or Ouartet + Piano.

Third, the records have a visual, decorative aspect. At the end of the 1970s Knizak was indirectly inspired by Gino di Maggio to work on the records as art objects as well as musical products -- art objects in which the music is only present "latently". Examples included Knizak's Lenin installation at the Venice Biennial in 1990 or on the wall of the Prague Rudolfinum at the exhibition Hnizda her [Nest of Games]. All the jackets of the books and recordings on which the destroyed records are depicted fail into the same category, for instance the jackets for the albums Broken Music and The Ceremony of Burning Mind (part of the run was issued with an inserted record drilled with holes and inscribed with the words Kill Yourself And Fly")

In 1991 Knizak produced a series of scores combining all three approaches. Records (and bits of compact disks) were inserted directly into scores between the note signs (Quasi trillo), and fragments of the scores were glued onto paper with the instruction "use any order" (Spiced symphony) and suchlike. This is already purely conceptual territory, since the gluing of the record fragments onto a surface makes them impossible to play (the broken up CD was likewise unplayable) but these pieces were nonetheless a pregnant summary of what Knizak called destroyed music.

One of the aims of this article is to offer at least a partial account of Knizak's discography It is impossible to give a complete list since examples of the destroyed music are often undisclosed and in the hands of foreign galleries which are not institutions linked to the music market net-work Let us at least mention a few albums, however. Knizak published his first destroyed music under the heading of the Aktual Community as a samizdat multiple in 1965 -- it cost 10 Kc and apparently nobody bought it.

It was probably from these records that the album Broken Music (Multhipla Records) was compiled in Italy in 1979 and later this was published without the author's knowledge on CD by the Chicago firm Amphere (undated). Both these albums contain the same five compositions (numbered 1-5) with tracks lasting from three to nineteen minutes. I do not have the original LP edition, and while the CD notes are handsomely presented, unfortunately they lack the sleeve-note and only contain the English translation of the text Destroyed Music, the score of Fantasia, photographs of the destroyed records and a picture of Knizaka in the Aktual gorup studio. In other words there is no information on the pieces themselves and we can only guess the kind of records and number of gramophones used. The longest track, Composition 1, seems to be put together from fragments of records arranged on top of a base record like pizza ingredients. The crackle where the needle hits the glued on transitions comes and goes in rhythm, and in pl aces individual grooves keep coming back (clearly because of a layer of glue), giving the composition a more tranquil, minimalistic character Around the sixth minute the transition from monotonous repetition to another passage is so abrupt that it is seems quite likely somebody moved the arm to prevent the motif repeating ad infinitum. Roughly between the eight and ninth minute the record is played at 45 rpm, and then goes back to a more tranquil 33. As the piece nears its end the beats speed up until they merge into noise. The other trio of pieces appears to use the same principle, although Composition 2, is put together so that the jumps of the connections between the records used do not form a rhythm, number 3 employs beat and pop records, and the fourth composition sounds as if more than one gramophone is being used. The concluding Composition 5 is not a patchwork but involves a record whose grooves have been ground down. The needle wanders around where it wants, and there is used of the spoken word.

I know nothing about the content of the cassette Destroyed Music (Edition Hundertmark, Koln, 1983), and my only information is that a small gold "destroyed disk" was sold with it. The collection of articles on destroyed music with jacket by Knizak and a CD recorded by the Arditti Quartet is even more of a mystery. I have not managed to discover the date of issue, publisher or contents, and am only aware of its existence thanks to an interview in a book of texts by the Aktual Band.

Cage & Kmoch

At the end of 1967 Knizak was asked by some younger musicians from Marianske Lazne to collaborate in a new beat group. The group lacked a drummer, vocalist and repertoire, since the musical skills of the beat fans were nothing to write home about Knizak got his friend the experienced drum mer Jan Maria Mach to come from Prague and over four years he wrote more than fifty songs for the band After several changes of name the band decided to call themselves Aktual; and a mere eight performances were enough to make them a byword.

Partly because the most members of the band had so little musical experience, and partly because Knizak became the dominating figure and had other ideas, the sound produced by Aktual in the first phase of its existence (1968) bore not the slightest resemblance to beat. All sorts of sound sources were used in the songs (metal drums, whistling of the amps, a motorcycle), the instruments were played in deliberately unprofessional style, the rhythm was unvaried, and the declaimed / sung text was based on the repetition of expressive phrases (Miluju tebe a Lenina [I love you and Lenin]). The rock instruments usually kept to simple accompanying figures, and were often quotes ("the dove flew from the rock in Gl gl gl, or the completely appropriated Przneni narodnich pisni [The Rape of National Songs]). The concerts were enlivened by elements of "happenings": the musicians would play in skirts, wood would be cut on stage, a motorcycle would ride through the hall and so forth.

When in 1969-70 Knizak (and later J. M. Mach with him) was staying in the USA he wrote some songs with a more complex structure and more of a rock sound, although they were still highly unconventional. At High None for example is composed of the repeated note C, while in Shoeshine For Free the vocal line has a rhythm different from that of the accompaniment etc. After Knizak's (and Mach's) return the band was revived. Aktual was reinforced by several skilful musicians (including the trumpet player Arnost Psajdl and the bass guitarist Josef Slavik "Penkava") and embarked on the most interesting phase of its life. It is at this point that there appear at least hints of Knizak's dream of a "wild, vivid, disharmonic" orchestra, with Psajdl's trumpet and the thickly employed traditional percussion music heading in the direction of brass band music (Pochod Aktualu [March of the Aktuals], Zivotje boj [Life is a Struggle], Milujte Jizni Cechy [Love South Bohemia]). On the other hand there were also shifts towards qui eter disciplined style, some pieces being less aggressive and revealing signs of grief and tenderness. The most striking examples of this quieter tendency are Jak by to bylo bozsky [How divine it would be] with recorder and bells and the choral utopian anthem Mesto Aktualu [City of the Aktuals] just with acoustic guitar.

Problems with rehearsal space, equipment and the onset of the political repression know as "normalisation" forced Aktual to give up most musical instruments. They rehearsed in the open air, and new pieces where collectively recited into paper mega-phones. The Skladba pro bici a mnoho jecicich dirigentu [Composition for percusion and a lot of shrieking conductors]', in which apart from a few beast and the final yelling the group just gesticulated, was a sort of culmination of this development . Two pieces could be seen as presaging this final phase. They were Vyslanci z kosmu [Envoys from the Cosmos] - a choral recital with drumming, and SOS, in which the whistling of the title signal is accompanied by the sound of water from a tap. Both these are quite intense in terms of sound, but are far from having the shattering resonance of the early reportoire.

Aktual concerts often never made it to the end of the programme and tended to meet with hostile reactions from the public, but today there can be no doubt about the role played by the band in the context of Czech alternative music. Thanks to two appearances with Plastic People (26th of Sept. 1970 in Sucha u Nejdku and 26th of Feb. 1971 in the Prague Music F Club) Knizak's group became known to the emergents Prague underground, which was fascinated. Under the influence of Aktual, Plastic People began to consider using Czech in their lyrics and Milan Hlavsa founded DG 307 together with Pavel Zajicek Knizak himself however, had a great many reservations about the life of the Czech underground and didn't take much part in it. His reasons are best illustrated by a couple of letters he wrote in 1975-one addressed to Ivan Jirous, and the second "to everyone who knows the circle around Jirous and me as well" (in: Bezd_vodu). A verse in one of his post-Aktual songs "Long live Adolf Jirous, President of the Underground " also gives a clear indication of his attitude.

Three sound recordings of Aktual remain, all from the band's last phase. The first is an hour-long recording of a Prague performance warming up for Plastic People (fourteen pieces), while the second, also from 1971, is a thirteen-minute recording from the rehearsal room (four pieces), and the third a fourteen-minute recording from 1972 (four pieces). A recording distributed by Petr Cibulka on the cassettes of his samizdat publishers S.T.C.V., under the title Atentat na kulturu [Assassination of Culture], contained four pieces from the first and the whole of the second recording. This Cibulka recording seems to be the final part of a longer tape which according to the sleeve note was wined when its owner recorded a Status Quo album over it. This might be a fragment of the tape that Knizak sent to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, whom he met during his time in America. He never had got any response from them, and according to an interview with Jaroslav Riedl (Pisne Kapely Aktual [Songs of the Aktual Band]), he believe s that the package never got past the Czechoslovak frontier.

This year's CD, prepared by Riedl, is once again called Atentat na kulturu [Assassination of Culture] and contains nineteen songs, i.e. the whole of the first and second recordings and only the song City of the Aktuals from the third recording, which otherwise contains songs available on the first and second recording with better sound quality. The rousing Prague recording starts with the stirring March of the Aktuals, while the following track. Vana rumu [Bath of Rum] is based on the scraping of the violin up beyond the bridge, with guitars and percussion simply providing a rolling rhythm to give underlying colour to the vocal line, which is three times repeated as the track acquires an atmosphere on the borders of minimalistic rock and chaotic noise. The mantric Krysytahnou do boje [The Rats are off to war] is based on a simple rhythm, unison shouting of the central slogan and off-key piping. Koks [Coke] has a similar structure, except that the recorder is replaced by a wild and wheezy harmonica. In both pi eces the basic rhythm instrument is Mach's vozembouch (kind of percussion instrument). Aktual's most famous song--Atentat na kulturu [Assassination of Culture] is a stirring rock opus, framed at beginning and end by general improvisation during the musicians are allowed to make any sort of noise on anything and for however long they want. In the recorded version, however, this finishes after five minutes with Kinzak's authoritative yells. "Dost! Dost! Dost!" ["Enough! Enough! Enough!]. The track Fuck 'em is based on long notes under individual verses and the shouted retrains is accompanied by just a few strikes in the rhythm of the title phrase. The final song of the Prague concert was Vyznani [Credo], a wall of sound with a tenderly erotic text.

Sensing music in a shoe...

In the 1970s and 80s Knizak turned to what was known as architectonic music, which was an attempt to translate spatial bodies into notes and vice versa. Knizak laid down a three-axis system in which one axis represented the pitch of a note, the second its length and the third loudness. Using this system it was possible to depict simple forms (two- or three-dimensional--in view of the subjectivity of the axis expressing loudness), and converserly to translate sound into geometry, at least in outline. On the basis of his calculations Knizak then created monotonously vibrating sound walls, spaces, barriers and so forth. Later he moved on to deriving individual pieces of music from mathematical formulae and, vice versa, to deriving mathematical formulae from the notation of pieces. Recordings of these experiments are not available, because the author's researches are said to be far from complete. One short text--Music as Architecture--can once again be found in the journal Novy raj. In the 1970s as Knizak's happe nings changed into what he called "processes for mind", his ideas on music took the same direction. In the later 70s he therefore started to work with sensed music [hudbou tusenou]. "Music can be sensed every where", he wrote in the text Sensed Music (1978, in: Novy raj). "We can think of anything as music. (...) An old shoe can be used as notes, a picture, an idea, a rainbow, the movement of a hand, the twinkling of stars (...)." What seems to be involved here is a touch of a game of associations, and a reminder of one of the most fundamental starting points of music, which is the realisation of intrinsic, intimate musicality from which all the rest unfolds.

In the 1970s and 80s, however, Knizak also produced pieces that in his own words were "traditional in basic form, using no surprising recordings, and not deviating from what we normally call music. Nonetheless I believe that they are not traditional. After one has known boundary possibilities it isn't possible to go back." (Traditional Composition, in: Novy raj).

Unfortunately, information and recordings relating to this chapter are thin on the ground. You can find information on the recording of two pieces--Traditional Suite and Bossa Nova Suite--in the discography. As far as I know, in the Czech Lands probably all that has been published is the recording of Kofron's realisation of the concept nl (the permutation of five notes: C - C sharp--D - D sharp--E) on the CD that went with the book Graficke partitury a koncepty [Graphic Scores and Concepts].

Neckar wanted to sing Love Burns...

In 1991 Knizak broke his public musical silence with the double album Obrad horicl mysli [The Ceremony of Burning Mind]. It was all the more surprising for being a collection of pop songs in conservative arrangements. Apparently Knizak wrote them with the idea of "more intelligent hits" for specific pop musicians (Petr Spaleny, Michal Tucny and others), who had no idea of the plan at first and then refused the offer. When he played his songs in piano version in the Viola Club he was approached by Zdenek Rytir, and then recorded the pieces in the latter's Condor studio and sang them himself.

A small Messiah but our own...

The album is nearly ninety minutes long, and so the CD has to omit four songs. The majority of the pieces are relatively calm, and so the unusual features and jokes stand out all the better. Live instruments and synthesizers are used in equal measure, and the rhythm is often created by piano chords. Among the solo instruments guitar is most often to the forefront. The rather short solos are in no way inventive, but the sof t, mainly veiled and slightly gurgling sound makes for a pleasant atmosphere. The opening track, A kde je Buh [And where is God?] is conceived without rhythm instruments, and its mood is sometimes disrupted by the tawdry wordless vocals. At zije prate/stvi [Long Live Friendship] (like Padam [I am Falling] left out of the CD) is not very successful rock and reminds one most of all of the Prazsky vyber band. The four songs Modrej svet [Blue World], Nezny trpaslik [Tender Dwarf], Vonis [You Smell Fragrant] and Bohuzel [Unfortunately] make up a kind of album inside the album. They all have the same melancholy mood, relaxed tempo and dominating piano part, and they are among the strongest places in the whole collection. The sarcastic Mozek stredne velky [Middling Large Brain] is surprising for the range of different arrangement tactics it uses--from the string introduction to the balladic middle section to the rock conclusion--without losing any of its consistency. The two tracks Jen tichem prezivam [Only by Silen ce I Survive] and Sedivej pes [Grey Dog] turn away from the album mainstream towards blues, the first in a light night-club form with saxophone, and the second--for me the peak of the whole album--almost Waitsian despite the use of synthesizer. The first part of the collection ends with a remake of the Aktual song. How Divine It Was, this time without recorders and with just voice and bells. The next song Deti bolsevizmu [Children of Bolshevism] a new arrangement of an Aktual text, is rousing brass band music with a determined communist-style male choir. The otherworldly lovesong Az budes stoleta [When You Area a Hundred] gets its terse atmosphere from the contrast between a vernal accompaniment with merry recorder, violin and piano and the doleful text. In the song Na namesti [On the Square] Knizak's voice is accompanied only by backing vocals balancing between classical harmonies and idiosyncratic voice band. After this the album seems to run out of fuel in its last quarter. The songs are often affectedly v aried--spasmodic, without very catchy melodies. Just a few songs are exceptions. The accordion-style piece Divna kytice [Strange Bouquet] which includes half-hearted applause at a fake end, the cabaret Kdo to precka [Who Can Wait It Out] and the dulcimer piece with accordion Jak sel zivot dal [How Life Went On]. The last track on the album, however, raises the standard again. Banality [Banalities] a freely flowing credo, its own possible banality parodied at the end when Knizak shouts "Adore me, I'm a genius". The shortened recording of Assassination on Culture from the Prague appearance by Aktual seems to be a rather needless reminder of a past, and quite different creative field.

So far I have avoided the subject of Knizak's singing and texts. The right time to look at them is probably now, before we consider the second of his song albums Navrhuju krysy [I Propose Rats].

In Aktual times Knizak was a rousing orator whose texts combined provocation the utopian dreams of the Sixties and imperatives calling for awareness of human dignity. Obviously there was no lack of black humour. The provocation often involved ironic treatment of the attributes of real socialism (Mesias Bolsevik [The Boshevik Messlah] Children of Bolshevism, I Love You and Lenin) or "the decent society of condemned themes" ("I'd like to have a bath of rum and and atom bomb..."--Bath of Rum, "The intelligentsia must be killed, wake up Father Konias..."--Assassination of Culture. We don't find provocative use of vulgarism for its own sake, but only in combination with another message ("Getting a smash in the face in the pub, finding your love sucking off someone else, committing suicide with triphenydol--that's all worse than war..."--Mrdej a nevalci [Fuck and Don't Make War]).

Knizak's utopia often appears in a longing for human community and the creation of ideal circumstances for mutual understanding ("There will be a city of Aktuals, we shall live there together, and every day at sunset polish up our hearts..."--City of the Aktuals) Interestingly, Knizak's texts for Aktual appeared in a propaganda programme made by Zechoslovak Television in the Seventies when the Plastic People were being tried. It presented Knizak's texts as the work of Hlavsa's band. And the title of the programme? "Assassination of Culture" Twenty years after the break-up of aktual, Knizak's texts have inevitably changed. His ringing rhetoric has not entirely disappeared but it has been supplemented by intimate lyrical, self-critical, fairytale and biblical motifs, Today Knizak brings us verses that would have sounded banal in the era of Marienbad agitprop, and does so in a softer more feeling voice, Nor is he afraid of wobbling on the edge of kitsch ("Wrapped up in my coat, l'm going to drink away my wages, and finally dissolve in a grey cloud."--Grey Dog). Knizak personifies his feelings in fairy-tele games (The Tender Dwarf), and plays light with rhyme and stylises himself into all kinds of characters (cabaret entertainer, member of the lumpenproletariat in How Life Went On). He uses biblical motifs mainly in the form of paraphrase (the cyberpunk Novy zakon [New Testament]) and exploits the associations of well-known sayings and pictures.

And what is Knizak like as a signer? His voice and its range are not specially impressive, and since he is well aware of the problem he tries to make up for it in terms of expression and sincerity. In most cases he is successful, since authenticity is often more valuable than faultless performance when a composer is singing his or her songs. Sometimes, however, he is tempted into exalted passages which reveal small logopaedic faults, and given that he gives precedence to content over rhythm, his phrasing is sometimes problematic as well. These faults were lost in the noisy roar of Aktual production, and on the Ceremony of Burning Mind album the rich accompaniment covered them, up less, but still adequately. The album I Propose Rats is the most acoustically economical, however, and therefore shows the faults the most.

Crucify crabs, you human chickenshit...

The album I Propose Rats was recorded a year after. The Ceremony of Burning Mind, but had to wait for its release until the winter of last year, when it was taken up by Anne Records and Jaroslav Riedel. It differs from the variegated double album both in texts--it is much less playful--and musically. Since there was not enough money for live musicians, the whole recording was made on two synthesizers manned by Knizak and Vasak. Apart from these two main protagonists the album also features the voices of Marie Knizakova and Vera Spinarova.

The synthesizer parts are more or less an unobtrusive accompaniment to the voice and sound completely modern. While in places they evoke strings, a harpsichord or choir, in most cases they from just a transparent web of droning little motifs. It all seems to be playable live, and there's no trace of empty effects. Independent instrumental passages appear only in the form of short preludes, and the songs themselves are short and entirely subordnate to the needs of the text. Balancing in this fragile net, Knizak's voice is much more "exposed" than before and many more lapses can be detected. On the other hand, given the gently gloomy atmosphere of the album this does not hurt too much.

The strongest places in the album are those where the text is completely (even monotonously) rhythmic and Knizak's voice meets the voice of one of the woman singers (Je skidoo spat [it's a Pity to Sleep] and Diva s vlasy smutnymi jak svet [The Girl with Hair as Sad as the World]). In the first of these, Spinarova sings the arched refrain, and in the second Knizak's wife half-whispers dreamily. One song that deviates from the overall mood of the album is the a capella track. The New Testament with choral refrain and Pokemonesque distorted recitation in verses, while the concluding song Do vika nekopat [Don't Kick the Cover] is wry, ironic piece reflecting on Knizak's social role in the Nineties (People will be relieved when they finally cover me with clay..."). Although on a first hearing this disk is less attractive than the preceding double album, it has a much more consistent atmosphere and in terms of texts it marks a return to a more serious level.

Conclusion

In my view at least two of Knizak's musical realisations are of international significance and pioneering in character. These are his destroyed music and the work of the Aktual Band. Manipulation of the gramophone is having a boom today both in consumer dance music (DJs) and in the more sophisticated work of experimental composers of progressive electronics, such as Christian Marclay and Philip Jeck. While in its use of non-musical sources Aktual was drawing on trends in New Music (already foreshadowed by the Futurists), the fusion of these expressive techniques with rock, resulting in Industrial, was not to occur until some years later in Britain-at the end of the seventh decade. At that point the pioneers were Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Test Department and many others.

Literature

Knizak, Milan: Novy raj--Selection of work 1952-1995 (Galerie Manes, Museum of Applied Arts Prague 1996)-Catalogue of retrospective exhibition containing texts about Aktual, destroyed, sensed, architectonic, traditional music, scores etc.

Knizak, Milan: Bez duvodu [No Reason] (Litera, Praha, 1996)-some texts and scores Knizak, Milan-Riedel, Jaroslav-Machovec, Martin: Pisne skupiny Aktual (Mata, Praha, 2003). Aktual Band Songs

Petr Kofron, Martin Smolka: Graficke partitury a koncepty [Graphic Scores and Concepts]Audio Ego, Miracle 7, votobia, Spolecnost pro novou hudbu, Olomouc 1996)--contains a CD including realisation of the piece nl

Discography

Broken Music (LP Multipla Records, 1979)

Obrad horici mysli (2LP, MC, CD, Condor, 1991)

Broken Music (CD, Amphere, nedatovano) Traditional Suite (SP, Museo Mudima Foundation, 1991)

Ars Acustica (contains compositions by M.K. Bossa Nova Suite, EBU Electronics, 1991)

Navrhuju krysy (CD, Anne Records, 2002) Aktual: Atentat na kulturu (CD, Anne Records, 2003)