KUNTZ, HENRY - Speed Of Culture Light

an insight in the light of a free spirit. in the 70s, Henry was the editor and publisher of the internationally acclaimed newletter BELLS. his first musical output dates from 1977, when he played tenor saxophone on HENRY KAISERs album Ice Death. since the early 80s, Henry started to focus on solo music, using instruments like saxophone, flutes, musette, violins, gamelan, rhaita, etc. in 1986, he formed the free jazz troupe OPEYE. Henry ran the beautiful HUMMING BIRDS recordlabel, on which he produced several lps, cassettes and cd releases of solo and group improvisations. Speed Of Culture Light is a retrospective boxset (with material ranging from 1980 until present day) and shows a wide and varied collection of free jazz jams, solo improvisations and beautiful 6-track meditations. in 2008, we will release a compilation album of the HUMMING BIRD EARTH SERIES cassettes, wich was a series of 5 ethnographic tapes recorded by Henry in Bali, Mexico, Bolivia, and Guatemala between 1985 and 1991.Any old school Bay Area improvisor/spirit music freak can tell you that Henry Kuntz has, since the late 70s, been one of the most audacious and interesting free improvisers on the scene non-stop. His documentation has been typically subterranean starting from his initial recorded sounds on Henry Kaisers 1977 Ice Death LP, a flashpoint record for many a guitar experimentalist (Jim ORourke e.g.). For most of the 70s Kuntz edited and published a great newsletter called Bells (available to read online at www.metropolis.com/bels). Throughout the 80s Kuntz released LPs, cassettes and CDs on his own Hummingbird imprint of solo and group free-playing, all of which have amazing moments of deep spontaneous thought-love-composition. A fantastic compilation of this material, plus recordings from Kuntz Opeye project self described as -¢??avant-shamanic trance jazz,-¢?¬ù can be had on the beautiful four cassette boxset, Speed Of Culture Light, from Belgium label Bread & Animals. The label plans on systematically re-releasing the Hummingbird cassettes throughout this year. Essential music for the ancient/modern axis alive in any sentient brain. And each package comes with complimentary plastic dinosaur. So no excuses." - Thurston Moore, Bull Tongue