EXCLUSIVE ADVANCE RELEASE! Elodie Lauten's groundbreaking avant-opera, "The Death of Don Juan," finally sees its first reissue in digital form. This New York by way of Paris composer infused her neoclassical training with minimalism and microtonality (Lauten studied under LaMonte Young, Marian Zazeela and Pandit Pran Nath) and created a seminal piece of music that is both meditative and mystical. Players include Arthur Russell and Peter Zummo. Highly Recommended!

Unseen Worlds continues its streak of timely, avant-garde reissues with the release of Elodie Lauten's long out of print post-minimalist opera, The Death of Don Juan. Born in France and immigrating to New York in the early '70s, Lauten fronted the all-female, avant-punk band Flaming Youth for a few years before devoting herself to a life of composing acoustic, electronic and electro-acoustic music, partly at the urging of her one-time roommate, Allen Ginsberg, who gave Lauten her first electronic instrument -- a Farfisa organ he bought for her from the Fugs.

Lauten's first opera, composed in 1985 and premiered at Boston's ICA in 1987, The Death of Don Juan was met by great critical acclaim before lapsing inexplicably into obscurity. In recent years, however, there has been a renewed interest in the piece and it has been hailed as one of the major post-minimalist works of the '80s and "a great lost experimental record" by critics like Kyle Gann and Alan Licht. For many reasons Don Juan can be seen as both a way out of the reductive ends of minimalism as well as a great feat of musical synthesis. The tight repetitive patterns that open and appear throughout the piece are classic minimalism in the Philip Glass/Steve Reich vein, but as Lauten says, "I heard another layer of improvisation on top..." A devoted Tibetan Buddhist compelled by universal correspondences between frequencies, colors, planetary bodies, and well...everything, Lauten often structures her works on compositional matrixes she calls "Philosopher's Stones" -- esoteric looking grids of musical and extra-musical information that can be used to generate sequences of patterns, melodies and harmonies. Improvisers on this recording include guitarist Bill Raynor, Elodie Lauten herself on harpsichord and trine (a seven stringed lyre of her own invention), Peter Zummo on trombone and Arthur Russell on cello. Russell's unmistakable voice also figures prominently in some sections, in counterpoint to operatic soprano Randi Larowitz and Lauten's multilingual spoken and sung parts. Overall, The Death of Don Juan is a mysterious work, suggestive of a grand cosmic vision that attempts to include everything from the insistent, bouncing pulse of minimalism to the rich tonal subtleties of eastern music -- Lauten studied with LaMonte Young and Pandit Pran Nath -- and the emotional weight of early choral music. Lauten's investigation into the mythic nature of gender roles -- here, the aged Don Juan archetype encounters Death who is, of course, a woman -- provides yet another layer of meaning to an already dense fabric of associations. The reissue of this long-overlooked masterpiece of new music is sure to spark a new wave of interest in Lauten's work, which has continued to follow the myriad entangled threads laid out in Don Juan. Highly recommended and essential listening for fans of minimalism, Meredith Monk, Robert Ashley, etc. [CC] (July 30, 2008)