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Hereditary Language (1986)

Les Levine

Artsound Collection Les Levine

Ti­tle of the com­pi­la­ti­on: Art­s­ounds Coll­ec­tion
Ti­tle: Les Levine: Hereditary Language (Track 10)
Edi­tors: Jeff & Jua­ni­ta Gor­don
La­bel: Po­ly­gram Re­cor­ds Inc., New York
Da­te: 1986
Me­di­um: re­cord 30 cm

 

For his audio piece, Hereditary Language, Les Levine excessively uses the possibilities of technical audio sampling, alienation and mixing.

He strings together children's voices that express positive statements about close people, utopian and dreamy wishes for the future of their personal lives, naming principles of life, positive experiences and events in the personal past and an optimistic attitude towards life. In connection with the title of the work, Hereditary Language, Levine thus ascribes to human beings fundamentally positive, optimistic, emphatic and forward-looking qualities that are expressed undisguised in childhood, verbalized through the unbiased statements of the protagonists.

The narrations are underpinned with distorted voices that are reminiscent of the Mickey Mouse cartoons and thus also convey a positive mood.

PS