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DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz!!!!!!! In the newest record by the iconoclasticBrooklyn-born composer Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947), find two mesmerizing works for carillon,the keyboard-controlled bell tower derived in the 16th century. On side A, a new piece recorded atthe artist's studio in Belgium_a high-ceiling, stuffed-animal-packed paradise he callsCharleworld_among friends and "divinities," his name for the thousands of plush toys he's amassedsince the '60s. On the flip side, Blank Forms Editions' very first and long out-of-print releaseappears on vinyl for the first time: a cathartic street recording of the minimalist composer's 2018musical eulogy for his late friend Tony Conrad, performed on the bells of St. Thomas EpiscopalChurch where the two first met. Two mesmerizing "klanggdedangggebannggg" sessions in theQuasimodo of 53rd Street's unmistakable improvisatory style.Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries in the bustling, cross-disciplinary downtownNew York arts scene of the '60s and '70s, Charlemagne Palestine has embodied the notion of theartist as playful polymath, testing and transcending nearly every creative form imaginable in his morethan six-decade career. Originally trained in Jewish sacred singing to be a cantor, he began his artisticlife as a musician, studying piano and accordion, accompanying figures like Tiny Tim and AllenGinsburg on percussion, using early synthesizers as an assistant to Alwin Nikolais, and eventuallylanding a long-running gig as the carillonneur at Midtown's St. Thomas Episocal. This libertine spiritof experimentation soon led to adventures in other aesthetic arenas: making kinetic light sculptureswith Len Lye, devising choreographed performances with Simone Forti, and producing over a dozenvisceral videotapes with the Castelli Gallery. In the '70s, he was particularly prominent on theburgeoning loft movement, becoming well-known for his sparse, intense, and exacting long-formpiano concerts, that seemed to bend the very natu...