VOGUE: The Radical Queerness of Julius Eastman
VOGUE: The Radical Queerness of Julius Eastman
BY ERIC MORSE
“After decades of silence, Eastman’s catalog has experienced an extraordinary resurgence in the past ten years through the interpretations of various musical collectives. Among the most ambitious of these is Los Angeles-based avant-garde group Wild Up’s years’ long, multivolume series of Eastman recordings released through contemporary classical label New Amsterdam Records. The collection’s first volume, out this month, consists of a seventy-minute rendition of his lesser-known, durational work Femenine (1974). Instantly recognizable by its ringing sleigh bells and repeating vibraphone phrase, Femenine is an immersive, jazz-inflected chamber piece, which slowly builds into a textured soundscape of interwoven strings, horns, piano, and synthesizer.”