The Wind In Kirtipur is a piece in two parts using normal and treated location recordings, pitched Tibetan thigh bone horn and singing bowls. Recordings were made at the Bagh Bhairab Temple in Kirtipur, at the Swayambhunath Stupa in Kathmandu and inside the walls of the Kumari Ghar where the 'Kumari Devi' (Living Goddess) lives in Kathmandu, Nepal.
The title is inspired by a text written by poet Ira Cohen as a foreword to a book of early texts/poems by Angus MacLise entitled 'The Map of Dusk': “I remember when we [Cohen and MacLise] went together to Kirtipur in Nepal to
listen to the wind.”
Thanks to a thoughtful gift by my wife along with several friends, I received a plane ticket destined to Nepal from them for my birthday in 2016. I didn’t have any intention of composing or creating any kind of art or music on this presumably, enjoyable trip, but as I read the written words quoted above by Cohen at Thamel’s ‘Hotel Moonlight’ and again at the ‘Himalayan Café’ in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, I became inspired; compelled to dedicate a work to these two great friends and poets.
I never had the opportunity of meeting Angus MacLise in person, yet I know that any layman can obtain a wealth of referential material based on his body of work. I have a great appreciation for his sincere relationship to his role and life as an artist as well as remembering his untimely passing in a Kathmandu hospital in 1979. I also can acknowledge the fact that he, alongside LaMonte Young, Marian Zazeela, John Cale and Tony Conrad, laid the foundation for what is now termed 'minimal drone' music as well as his brief stint as the first percussionist in the infamous rock group known as 'The Velvet Underground'.
Together with photographer and collaborator, Ulrich Hillebrand, we met and visited with Ira Cohen in his New York City home in July of 1989. Apart from saluting and dedicating his life to poetry, photography, film and publishing, I could also appreciate Cohen’s generous ways of supporting, promoting, loving and even quoting literary works by his fellow colleagues of the ‘Beat Generation.’ Yet I also noticed at this time that he was giving way to and working with newer, contemporary, sometimes even younger poets, visual artists, film makers, musicians and magicians.
THE WIND IN KIRTIPUR is dedicated to Ira Cohen and Angus MacLise.
credits
released October 1, 2021
My deepest gratitude goes to my wife Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten and to composer and dear friend Chandra Shukla. My thanks also extends out to the friends who contributed to funding my Nepal trip: Maria Bergström, Richard Walton, Erik Pauser, Marianne Lindberg von Baumgarten, Graham Lewis, Liv Elvander Lewis, Jean-Louis Huhta, Ulf Bilting, Johan Söderberg, Camilla Sivam , Anders and Yvonne Anselius, Graham Ward, Eva Ward Svenstedt, Peter Geschwind and Gunilla Klingberg. A special thanks goes to Shyam Giri, my guide in Kathmandu.
Recorded in Kathmandu and Kirtipur, Nepal 2018 by Carl Michael von Hausswolff and 2019 by CMvH and Chandra Shukla. Cover photograph by CM von Hausswolff, rear photograph and graphic design by Chandra Shukla.
Additional recordings made at the Castle in Stockholm. Composed and produced in Stockholm in 2020.
The biography of CM von Hausswolff is one that reads like a jack of all trades biography, not only of his musical works and sound art, but also of fine art, installations, conceptual works, exhibits and live performances.
supported by 10 fans who also own “The Wind In Kirtipur”
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supported by 6 fans who also own “The Wind In Kirtipur”
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