Hallock Hill

International Harvester, “The Runcorn Report on Western Progress,” Sov Gott Rose-Marie (Sleep Tight Rose-Marie) (Love Records 1969)

Simple chance meetings or coincidences often yield illuminating results. As in the musical flowering that resulted from Terry Riley’s 1967 trip to Sweden. The performance of his seminal miminalist piece “In C” at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm had wide-ranging influence in Sweden’s music scene. One of the students who perfomed with him was Bo Anders Persson, a former experimental tape composer. Though he was studying at the academy, he was not enamored with the academic rigor and restriction. Out of this formal training and the burgeoning interest in pyschedelic culture came Pärson Sound, the first flowering of his ideas. They changed the name within a year to International Harvester, and finally to Harvester. The idea was openness: open society, open culture, open art, open vision. Open. This album is a real montage of sounds and ideas, some complete, some still seeking resolution. It is a fine and glorious assemblage.