Product details

• Original Concept: Barrie Tullett

  & Chris McCabe

• Design & Production: Barrie Tullett

• Format: Pamphlet Stitched Book

• Size: 123×210

• Publisher: The Caseroom Press

• Publication Date: Summer 2020

• Price: N/A

Book Description

Only anecdotal evidence exists of Erdinger’s oeuvre. It suggests that Erdinger – a mononymous concrete poet – was obsessed by his own name to the exclusion of all else. Driven by a desire to communicate something that was ‘unsayable’, Erdinger’s life was blighted by the fact that no one understood him or his work – and he remains to this day – a sound poet who’s work is clouded in obscurity. It seems that although he is mentioned in key papers, he never committed his work to print. He even seems to have chosen his collaborators purely in order to remain obscure, working with the equally enigmatic Etaoin Shrdlu, who’s sound poems appear as early as 1894(!), but who – as with Erdinger – seems to have left no great record of her art. Their collaborative piece still remains one of the great lost works of the concrete/sound poetry movement. Recently discovered behind a radiator in the Lyrik Kabinett, Munich, the pamphlet that you are holding, is based on a ‘bootleg’ chap-book of a performance Erdinger gave in 1964. It was clearly produced by an unknown admirer without Erdinger’s permission as an exhaustive search of the catalogue has found no further printed matter. There is, however, one incomplete audio recording, in which we hear the interviewer refer to Erdinger ‘speaking with a charming Liverpool accent’, unfortunately the tape is corrupted before the man himself begins his performance. Those who attended the Klang Farben Text event in Munich may have been lucky enough to have heard Chris McCabe perform two of the pieces. The first time they have been heard in over 50 years. We hope the rediscovery of this small example of his singular voice brings you as much pleasure as it brings us.