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Jungle (1945)

Isidore Isou

Isidore Isou

Ti­tle of the album: Poèmes Lettristes 1944-1999
Ti­tle: Jungle (Track 07)
Publisher: Alga Marghen, Milano
Da­te: 1944-99, publ. 1999
Me­di­um: re­cord 30 cm
Edition: 500
Cover: I. Isou

 

The album Poèmes Lettristes 1944-1999 is a compilation of works by the founder of Lettrism, Isidore Isou. The works are based on the Lettrist Manifesto, which Isou wrote in 1942 and in which he propagates the "destruction of words in favour of letters" (Gallimard, Paris 1947).

Lettrism breaks down language into individual sounds and letters and deprives the signs of language of their function and meaning. A new composition of sounds with the help of silence as "working material", the replacement of sound and image by signs and the transformation back into voice and sound leads to new phonetic and graphic events.

In Isou's work Jungle, despite all the lettric dissection and alienation, a reference to colloquial language cannot be ignored. The English word "jungle" can be heard several times, and at the same time, Isou seems to imitate the rhythm and sounds of the bush drum in the performance of the sound poem.

PS