Teletopa Tokyo 1972

Geoffroy Collins, flute, percussion, electronics. Peter Evans, percussion and electronics. David Ahern, violin, percussion and electronics. Roger Frampton, percussion, electronics and saxophone.
Splitrec is honoured to release a legendary recording from 1972. In 1968 the young Sydney composer David Ahern studied in Germany with Stockhausen where he met Cornelius Cardew. The next year he travelled onto London attending Cardew's classes in Experimental Music' at Morley College and in a mammoth seven-hour concert at the Roundhouse on 4 May - participated (with Cardew) in performances of La Monte Young's String Trio and also took part in the realisation of Paragraph 2 of Cardew's The Great Learning which proved to be the catalyst for the formation of the Scratch Orchestra. These were revolutionary and defining moments in C20th music. Returning to Sydney in 1970, one of his aims was to set up an electro-acoustic improvisation group - Teletopa was founded in Sydney in late 1970 by Ahern, Peter Evans and Roger Frampton.
Tokyo 1972 - 3LP or 2CD release - features two 50min improvisations from a radio session at NHK studios Tokyo. The group was Ahern, Frampton, Evans and Geoffrey Collins and they were completing a 1972 world tour. The group broke up on their return to Sydney. Only a small example of their work has ever been released before. The Liner notes will be a manifesto by David Ahern from a 1971 pamphlet, and there is an insert, a newly penned Potted History of Teletopa by Geoffrey Barnard, who had been a member of the group from September 1971 until July 1972. The tapes have sat in boxes for 42 years. With this release we can hear that Sydney in the early 1970's had a group at the forefront of musical experimentation with a unique take on free improvisation. This document is not just important for Australian music it should establish them posthumously as one of the most interesting developments in experimental music anywhere in the world at this time.