RVNG Intl dig through the K. Leimer archives

The tape is wound back to 1970s Seattle for the label’s next archival release.  

Some two years in the making, A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 – 1983) presents a detailed insight into the work of Seattle-based Canadian Kerry Leimer, whose ambient new age tape experiments prospered in the Pacific North-West city’s small but fertile music scene. A typically detailed press release from RVNG Intl sets the scene on how K. Leimer came to be regarded as a self-taught visionary, finding parallels between the “seductively strange tendrils of Dadaism and Surrealism” and the kosmische output of Can, Neu! and Faust during his teenage years. Finding inspiration in the tape-manipulated serenity of Cluster’s II, Leimer apparently raided the pawn shops of Seattle for cheap instruments and recording material and set about teaching himself to compose.

Take a glance at Leimer’s discography and you’ll find a composer still active today with a long list of albums released through his own Palace Of Lights label founded in 1979 with his wife Dorothy Cross. The fact that Leimer chose to record under the abbreviated name K. Leimer in homage to Josef K, the doomed lead character from Franz Kafka’s The Trial, adds credence to the musician’s reclusive and literary inclinations. The forthcoming A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 – 1983) is understandably grand in scope and features both released and unreleased material among the 30 tracks, with the bulk of the former drawn from the Installation View cassette issued on Palace Of Lights in 1983.

Stylistically, the collection highlights just how diverse Leimer’s musical palette was, embracing “coolly composed stoicism, saturated fields of percolating beats, stark razed spaces,” and it’s easy to draw parallels with some of the slower material on contemporary labels such as Future Times and Mood Hut. Set for release across numerous formats, A Period of Review features archival photos, an introduction from Leimer himself as well as essay-length liner notes from Dave Segal, columnist for Seattle newspaper The Stranger and respected music journalist.

RVNG Intl will release A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 – 1983) by K. Leimer on May 13. Those unfamiliar with K. Leimer’s work can soak up a video for “Gisella” below.

Tracklisting:

1. Ceylon
2. My Timid Desires
3. From A Common Center
4. Explanation of Terms
5. From One To Ten
6. Entr’acte
7. Bump In The Night
8. (aka accident)
9. Facing East
10. At Daybreak
11. A Spiritual Life
12. Honey To Ashes
13. Stop It!
14. Two Voices
15. Lonely Boy
16. Practical Demonstration
17. Commercial
18. Gisella
19. Archie’s Dub
20. Ikumi
21. Reassurances
22. Assemble and Diffuse
23. Eno’s Aviary
24. Almost Chinese
25. Agfa / Lupa
26. The Phonic Chasm (feat. Dawn Seago) (Excerpt)
27. Acquiescence
28. Malaise
29. All Sad Days
30. Porcelain (feat. Nancy Estle)