Pitchfork

Ladies and gentlemen, forget about floating in space. We are floating in dreams-- dreams woven of sustained overtones, duration and pitch playing tricks on our ears and distorting our sense of time and place. It began with this, funny enough. Lou Reed's infamous Metal Machine Music; Jim O'Rourke's unlikely entrance in the pantheon of indie rock; all those SYR EPs and Sonic Youth's rectum-suffocated worship of the avant-garde; these instances and countless others were all born from the same seed: the legend of the Theatre of Eternal Music, La Monte Young's Dream Syndicate.

One of the most significant and controversial releases of 1965, Inside the Dream Syndicate offers a glimpse behind the mysterious curtain. It's what you might have heard had you been fortunate and bold enough to sit in on one of the Dream Syndicate's legendary '60s performances. Mind-numbing waves of amplified strings, slowly bowed to maintain overlapping drones the likes of which you never thought you'd ever want to listen to-- alienating, enveloping sound, seemingly devoid of notation and sense.

"Outrageous!" was the cry when Lou Reed unleashed Metal Machine Music. "You should have heard the Dream Syndicate," was Reed's response. But don't let the band's name fool you: they're not to be confused with the Paisley Underground psych-pop band that adopted the moniker as a high-brow homage in the early '80s. This is the high-throttle point when 20th Century Classical almost became rock 'n' roll. This is the Big Bang of Minimalism. And just look at the star power: a pre-Velvets John Cale on viola; venerable avant-garde composer and filmmaker Tony Conrad on violin (he was Mercury Rev's mentor at SUNY Buffalo, don'tcha know); poet and percussionist Angus MacLise on tabla; and one of the weirdest, most visionary of artistic marriages in John Cage protégé La Monte Young and visual artist Marian Zazeela, who provide vocal drones and conceptual direction to the project.

La Monte Young owns the original performance and rehearsal recordings of the Dream Syndicate and refuses their release, much to the frustration of Cale and Conrad. He insists that he should be credited to the sole "composer" of the music-- himself. Cale and Conrad have always maintained otherwise, that it was a collaborative effort in performance and improvisation, and that they shall never cede complete authorial credit to Young alone. This dispute, along with Young's intractable perfectionism, has prevented the world for the past 35 years from hearing just what those five headcases were up to.

However, some high-quality bootlegs ("an additional cache of tapes," it's said) have surfaced, so here we have it: a healthy dose of controversy and confusion, and the first semi-legit release of Dream Music ever, credited to all five. La Monte Young is pissed, noting imperfections in the mix, length, etc. But any way you cut it, avant-garde indie Table of the Elements has balls, and this release is ideal.

This music is not meant to be listened to on headphones. It is difficult, should fill space, bounce off walls, clear rooms, and mess with your head. Appropriate volume levels do not exist for what is on this disc. Originally, Dream Syndicate performances were debauched night-long endurance tests, presaging the vibrant rave scene that would follow. Goodbye 20th Century? I think not. The past always comes back to haunt you.