The Park (1977)

Ti­tel der Com­pi­la­ti­on/des Albums: Private Parts
Ti­tel: The Park (Track 01)
Her­aus­ge­ber: Lovely Music Ltd., New York
Da­tum: 1977
Me­di­um: re­cord 30 cm
Cover: Ariel Peeri
Performer: R.A., “Blue” Gene Tyranny, Kris

"A softly pedaling mood enhancer of exotically weird proportions, this suffers quite a bit from mis-appreciation in today's harsh reality scenario. Ashley's words hover just above your lips like a glowing lung, and it's easy to understand why all of Kyle Gann's friends in the 1970s were going around reciting phrases memorized from this album, as they emanate connectively to some false dream society like little else in the world of 1970s contemporary art. Not for everyone, I suppose, but the properly channeled will melt right into the couch.

Eventually he recognizes what he's created as the first and last episodes of his opera for television, Perfect Lives, the middle opera of a monumental trilogy tracing the history of the movement of consciousness across America (east to west).

This original recording with Ashley's voice, accompanied by 'Blue' Gene Tyranny on keyboards, and "Kris" on tablas, remains a classic. It is a masterpiece in its simplicity of form and in the purity and intensity of its effect on the listener. Everything in Ashley's creation makes metabolic connections; there's a transpersonal, time-exempt freedom in it; the feeling of the idea of silk scarves in the air. In other words, the effect of his engaging, lyrical expression is that the mind opens. Only a masterpiece does that." 

— Melody Sumner, Forced Exposure

_{(Quelle: www.robertashley.org, 08.08.2022)}