Henry Flynt – “Raga Electric” – [Locust Music]

Henry Flynt (1940- ) performed these works in the 1960′s and 1971. He developed a concept called cognitive nihilism and campaigned for an anti-art approach to the avant garde.

Side 1 features detuned guitar on the first and last tracks and mostly unintelligible vocals except for some barely perceptible words from the Marines Hymn. The “vocals” include hums, barks, howls, yodels, muffled yells, etc. The guitar in Raga Electric sort of sounds like sitar.

Side 2 has saxophone (alto implied by the track name) playing that is squeaky, shrill, low and high. There are no “vocals” on Free Alto.

I’m not quite sure why I enjoyed these ultimate outsider sounds so much.