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Angus Maclise)
Background
Angus MacLise (1938 - 1979) was a percussionist, composer, mystic, shaman, poet, occultist and calligrapher. An early member of The Velvet Underground, he played bongos and hand drums during 1965 with the first incarnation of the band, having been brought into the group by flatmate John Cale. Although the band regularly extemporised sound tracks to underground films, he never officially recorded with the group, and is often considered something of a shadowy, legendary figure in the band's history. When the opportunity of the band's first paying gig in November 1965 arose, Maclise promptly quit, calling getting paid for playing and being told when to start and stop playing music a sellout.
Maclise was replaced by Maureen Tucker, resulting in the "classic" Reed/Cale/Morrison/Tucker lineup of The Velvet Underground and only briefly returned for a handful of dates in 1966 when Lou Reed was in hospital with hepatitis. Cale moved to lead vocals, Tucker moved to bass and Maclise played percussion. By this time he was anxious to rejoin the group but was explicitly refused by Reed.
After leaving the Velvet Underground for good, Angus traveled around between North Africa, India, Greece, the Middle East and finally finding his place in Tibet. A student of both La Monte Young and Aleister Crowley(he was working a script for a film version of Crowley's Diary Of A Drug Fiend before he died), he would begin to blend Tibetan mysticism with his music to create magickal forms of transcendent sound through various drone techniques. He died of tuberculosis in Kathmandu in 1979.
Music
Maclise recorded a vast amount of music that went largely unreleased until 1999. These recordings, produced between the mid-60's and the late 70's, consist of tribal trance workouts, spoken word, poetry, Brion Gysin-like tape cut-ups and minimalist droning and electronics. They can be currently found on:
- Invasion Of The Thunderbolt Pagoda(Stiltbreeze, 1999)
- Brain Damage In Oklahoma City(Siltbreeze, 2000)
- The Cloud Doctrine(Sub Rosa, 2002)
- Astral Collapse(Locust, 2003)
Aside from private solo recordings and his stint with the Velvet Underground, he also collaborated with Tony Conrad, John Cale and La Monte Young on several other recordings:
- Inside The Dream Syndicate Vol.I: Day Of Niagra(Table Of Elements, 2000)
- Inside The Dream Syndicate Vol.III: Stainless Steel Gamelan(Table Of Elements, 2002)
- An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music: First A-Chronology 1921-2001/Vol.1(Sub Rosa, 2002)
Influence
Even though his music was mostly unheard of, the experimental group Coil have mentioned strong influences from Maclise in both sound and lyric form. His poetry can be heard recited on the track "The Coppice Meat" and his mystical droning techniques can definitely be heard on such Coil releases as Spring Equinox: Moon's Milk or Under An Unquiet Skull(Eskaton, 1998) and Astral Disaster(Threshold House, 1999). It is interesting to point out the similarities and differences between Astral Disaster and Astral Collapse. Besides the names, their cover art is strikingly similar, almost coming off as mirror images of each other. Both are experimental workouts in electronics and modular synthetics. Yet, Collapse is a compilation of recordings made during the 70's that was released in 2003, while Disaster is an album-proper released in 1999. Also, two years before vocalist Jhonn Balance's death in 2004, he expressed interest in publishing Angus' poetry in book form.
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