le forte four: bikini tennis shoes

The origins of Le Forte Four are those of the Los Angeles Free Music Society itself. Chip Chapman joined forces with Rick Potts (and shortly thereafter Tom and Joe Potts), taking up the LAFMS name in 1974. Ultimately baptizing themselves Le Forte Four, they began threading imagined lines between John Cage and The Residents, Cecil Taylor and Henry Cow -- generating sounds completely unlike any of these and anything since. The inaugural release on the eponymous LAFMS imprint with only 200 copies pressed originally, Bikini Tennis Shoes is a staggering piece of anti-music that remains as refreshingly ground-clearing today as it was when it first appeared in 1975. Its 40 minutes (parceled out across nearly as many tracks) chart forays into free improvisation, Buchla misuse, filtered noise, begrudging and damaged melodic sorties (from the Star-Spangled Banner to Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring') and healthy doses of basement pablum. Le Forte Four emerged out of the lethargic American '70s as a locus where, in their own words, 'gamelans and ragas merged with serial and chance compositions finally melting together with instructional records and Beatles bootlegs.' A wildly eclectic rummaging of postwar culture and 20th century sound, Le Forte Four's Bikini Tennis Shoes preempts punk's outsider ethos and DIY autodidactism. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl.