Enter The Dream House of La Monte Young: the avant-garde pioneer who inspired The Velvet Underground

“Walk along Church Street, just south of New York’s Tribeca Grand Hotel, and you’ll notice an iridescent pink glow emanating from the third floor of number 275, an apartment known to those who care to ask as The Dream House. With its pink walls and tin-foil floors, this trip-inducing sound and light installation was created by one of the most pioneering artists of the 1960s, La Monte Young, a man who sat in the centre of the avant-garde scene that flourished in the city during those years, and who’s incredible work in sound and visual art influenced everyone from Biran Eno and Yoko Ono to Lou Reed and John Cale. Young was always sensitive to the world of sound. From an early age, he was struck by the droning sound of the wind sweeping along the vast Idaho plains, a natural force that, although invisible, seemed to have as much presence as any human being. It’s no wonder then that his first instrument was one that utilised the power of breath, the saxophone. A prodigious talent from a young age, Young eventually abandoned jazz for the enigmatic world of the avant-garde in 1960, going on to establish himself as one of the leading figures of the new york avant-garde, at which time he began curating experimental art performances with his friend Yoko Ono. These loft-bound concerts served as a meeting place for some of New York’s most experimental young musicians and artists, including Terry Riley, one of the founding fathers of classical minimalism alongside Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. … Young’s pioneering explorations of drones eventually led him to form the Theatre of Eternal Music in 1962, a group which consisted of La Monte Young (voice and saxophone) Tony Conrad (violin), Marian Zazeela (voice, lighting,) and John Cale (viola). Their musical aesthetic centred on a set of improvisational and mathematical rules laid down by Young himself and which were designed to guide the musicians as they tuned their instruments to non-western tunings and went about creating a mesmeric series of sustained microtones. These early compositions were greatly inspired by Hindustani classical music and, like that ancient musical style, were intended to induce a state of trance. …”
FAR OUT (Video) The Well-Tuned Piano 5:01:46
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Discogs (Video)
on the reissue of la monte young and marian zazeela’s the well-tuned piano in the magenta lights dvd, by just dreams