Julius Eastman – The Nigger Series

ok so first things first the music on this? INCREDIBLE!!! both records are just spectacular. "Evil N***er" has to be one of the most powerful pieces of music i've heard and now own. I've now played it all the way multiple times and every time i hear the "1..2..3" the intensity just pounds itself right into the sound. Totally vital and visceral sounding. Just stunning.

the packaging of this 2LP 'box' is indeed bonkers LOL!!! but there is an easy solution, i separate both records and put them into their own poly sleeve and keep them on the shelf as separate records. The main foldover cover (with his photo) i put in my storage box with other non-used weird covers and bits. So basically i keep the 2 records as standalone records, as they were originally issued.

I found this box cheaper than buying the 2 records separately so it was a no brainer to get the box!
This is REAL music though and his story is tragic, but REAL too.

I'm really not one to complain as each record's artistic vision can be different, but I didn't buy the two single editions of these LPs because I love a nice box set. Boxes are great, they usually have extra information and a nice presentation. Usually.

First of all, the records sound fantastic, especially considering the nature of this music, a noisy pressing would be fairly irritating. However the packaging is like 10 different folded pieces of thick card stock in different colors that all don't fit together nicely. Each LP is housed in a plastic inner, card stock outer, another card stock sleeve, and finally a folded over insert kind of thing with liner notes that covers the mouth of the sleeve. To get one of these LPs out takes a minute and to put them back requires an intimate knowledge of the ancient Japanese art of Origami.

Second, there's a great write up about Mr. Eastman on the jacket, considering not that long ago a good biography of the man was not easy to find, I appreciate that they included these. The write up is so nice, in fact, that I think you could benefit from reading it three times. Thankfully the art director of this package has included it in triplicate. The exact same write up, word for word. Three different times on three different inserts.

In the end this "box set" is really just the two single releases with an extra, larger wrap around card stock cover that doesn't quite fit snugly when you try and put it all together. I'm very glad I have these pieces on vinyl because they sound amazing and are important works, but the packaging was very obviously an after thought and that's too bad.

Cheers
DC

Music is fantastic, recordings itself pretty good, but whoever came up with the packaging hates life and human beings.

I read this comment section and now I have cancer. For Christ's sake lighten the fuck up.

The irony isn't lost on me that plenty of y'all would rather a black queer artist be just as maligned in death as he was in life just because he used "no no words" in the titles of his works. He titled his works the way he did on purpose. He wanted to make you uncomfortable. Respect the artist enough to respect this decision.

This is powerful work. And if you can't appreciate that just because you're itching to be OnE oF tHe GoOd OnEs, then it's well and truly hopeless.

Julius Eastman deserves to be heard, god damn it, so how's about letting his work speak for itself.

the packaging and inserts on this release are a total mess

All “controversies” aside, this is exhilarating stuff. Several pianists banging out dense swirls of melodic runs and tone clusters, which wash over churning tectonic bar chords. This would appeal as much to those who love Lubomyr Melnyk, Conlon Nancarrow, or Philip Glass as to it might to fans of black metal (plenty of the lead lines on ‘Evil N****r’ could easily be reimagined as tremolo picking). Hugely fun to listen to.

jeez i hate to see the day you pearlclutchers listen to your first rap record

*eyes roll back into oblivion*
Eastman was a self-acknowledged provocateur and inscrutably lucid intersectional identity that actively sought for the public's awareness to the racial and sexual connotations of his art through the most radical incitations of language. His titles weren't a fucking accident, and when the stuffy, almost entirely white gatekeeping old guard to the institutions facilitating the exhibition of his work tried to censor their full printing before performances and on programs, Eastman deliberately made sure to unapologetically present them in-person anyway. This is the man that felt that John Cage didn't push himself far enough, and chose to reinterpret chance operation and his sexuality (as well as Cage's privateness regarding his own queer identity) live, as a socially-conscious gay manifesto directly in front of the legend himself. Eastman shied away from nothing.
If for no other reason, the larger title of these releases works because it is exactly what the artist referred to them as, and that fact is undoubtedly reflected in a deliberate decision to print them that way. There's no gold rush in post-modern minimalist composer reissue vinyl, and these pressings are obviously done with great reverence for a certain selection of underrepresented and important artists, especially one with such a pivotal and glaringly absent voice within canon such as Eastman's. In turn, the packaging here does what its supposed to: to be incendiary to the structures the artist fought directly against, to the homophobia and racism that made his very presence in a world of classical composition an anomaly, and to force a mirror into the face of the impossibly deep ignorances of average white America, some of the most disheartening and heinous unresolved ignorances still (literally) violently alive in Trump's America today.
So before positing toward something else, regardless of a certain label's approach, consider a very certain intention to these releases as they were originally conceptualized and presented by the artist himself, and truly ask yourself if it's possible Eastman could be talking directly to you with the confrontation inherent to their titles...if it offends a type of sensibility, does it say more about that sensibility than itself?

Blume label owner made this re-release together with NewWorld to whom they paid the copyrights however they don't know who will benefit from it directly anyway there's an Eastman trust who is taking care of the Eastman estate. I have this information directly from the label owner & founder. Trust this matter is cleared now so consider this as end of thread.

I put money on the fact that the people uncomfortable with this are white men. The cynicism it takes to think that the wording was used to sell records and not to reflect the vocabulary that Eastman used over and over is a product of our current political climate. Take 30 seconds and look at the majority of Eastmans song titles. Come on y'all. One of the few celebrated gay black men in a sea of whiteness that was the 70's avante grade and y'all have to find a problem with it?