S Press tape publisher

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The S Press Tonbandverlag was a publisher for experimental literature , beat poetry and concrete poetry . With the publication of the works on tapes and audio cassettes , the publisher broke new ground. Since 1970 Edition S Press has primarily devoted itself to acoustic literature, ie “poetry that has to be heard”, as one of the publisher's slogans read.

Surname

Even if the so-called Edition S Press was used as a superordinate name by publishers at an early stage, this article deals with publishing activities relating to audio tapes and audio cassettes. In catalogs and brochures published by S Press itself, the term S Press Tape Series is used alongside Edition S Press , S Press Edition and S Press Tonbandverlag .  

The following designations can also be found on the sound carriers themselves:

  • S Press tape (up to No. 50 of the publishing program)
  • S Press Tonbandverlag (from No. 50 of the publishing program)
  • S Press Tape (e.g. No. 71, Ted Joans: Jazz Poems)
  • S Press audio cassette (e.g. No. 60, Oskar Pastior: Tango)
  • S Press International (e.g., No. 57, Clark Coolidge: Polaroid)

The spelling with a hyphen is also found very rarely: S-Press .

History and profile

Edition S Press, catalog back cover, 1970s

The S Press Tonbandverlag focused on experimental texts of various kinds: In addition to sound poetry , performance, jazz and beat poetry, also conceptual and concrete poetry. The aim of S Press Tonbandverlag was to create opportunities to publish such works in a form that was appropriate for them by appearing on tapes and audio cassettes .

The publisher emerged from the S Press gallery in Hattingen . The “S” of the publisher's name was derived from the street name of the gallery's first address and the “Press” came from the published graphic editions. Back then, the gallery was run by German studies student Angela Koehler, grammar school teacher Nikolaus Einhorn and artist Axel Knipschild. In 1969, the idea of ​​"founding a publishing house that would publish and sell these works in the form for which they were designed, in the acoustic form" arose for them "as if by themselves". With this motivation, the S Press Tonbandverlag started as part of an international scene that was doing pioneering work in this field at the time. The more than eighty publications followed the basic principles that the selection should be as international as possible and the recordings should be authentic. This meant involving the authors themselves as much as possible in the production.

In the German-speaking countries, Friederike Mayröcker , Matthyas Jenny and Konrad Bayer were among others with readings of their own texts; Ernst Jandl's 13 radiophonic texts , on the other hand, were produced using electronic sound effects at the BBC in London; for broadcasting radio plays produced by Bazon Brock , Gerhard Ruhm or Herbert Schuldt have also been published, and concrete poetry found, for example, with the constellations of Eugen Gomringer and with the collection of texts Helmut Heißenbüttel input into the program. There have also been several publications by Oskar Pastior , including works designed exclusively for acoustic realization such as Summatorium .

Michael Köhler , brother of Angela Koehler, came to the publishing house in 1972 and made contact with John Cage . From 1974 he was out and about in the USA with his recording device and collected sound material at public readings or the poets at home. In the USA, too, a new type of performing arts developed at that time, which experimented with free rhythms, adopted jargon quotations and idioms, and integrated performative or musical elements. These recordings appeared in quick succession in the S Press publishing program: Beat Poetry by Gary Snyder , Lawrence Ferlinghetti , Allen Ginsberg , John Giorno and Anne Waldman ; 'Language Poets' like Larry Eigner and Robert Creeley , but also Clark Coolidge and Michael McClure . By Ted Joans are his Jazz Poems published (including instrumental accompaniment live in Cuckoo's Nest received Schwelm), while John Cage and Jackson MacLow are represented with conceptual approaches.

The publications from the French-speaking area by Bernard Heidsieck , Henri Chopin and François Dufrêne use the tape recorder not only as a recording medium, but also as an instrument by integrating cuts, speed manipulations, multi-track recordings and overlays as well as feedback effects as compositional methods. That corresponded to the intention of the publisher, because: "All these possibilities stimulated the imagination and experimentation of the authors and led to a completely new literary form, the acoustic literature that can no longer be presented in scores on the tape, the pieces produced directly with the tape."

The publication of poems by the surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim , as well as those by the musician Patti Smith , the reading of which is documented on cassette in a gallery in Cologne, are worth mentioning because they illustrate the broad spectrum of the publisher's program beyond the literary scene. In addition, a cassette appeared with poems by women from quarters from a Düsseldorf high school who “independently and without having been made aware of literary models” developed poetic playing techniques outside of class. In 1978, in cooperation with the Society for Threatened Peoples , a political lecture by Clyde Bellecourt (Nee Gain Nway Weedum), a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, was published .

In later years individual titles by Russian authors appeared, for example the Azbuki alphabets by Dimitrij Prigov or the publication Kulturpalast. New Moscow Poetry & Action Art , with contributions by Vsevolod Nekrasov , Nikita Alexejew , Natalija Abalakowa and others.

Examples of acoustic literature can be found in the early artistic avant-garde of the 20th century, such as Dada , Russian and Italian Futurism, and Expressionist poetry. In order to document this development, S Press also published individual works from this phase, for example Raoul Hausmann's sound poetry or Otto Nebel's lipogrammatic texts from the expressionist poetry of the Sturm circle; With these publications the publishing house started its program in 1970. A publication with texts by August Stramm , read by Rudolf Blümner , René Radrizzani and Otto Nebel was also planned, but was never published.

In 1980 the publishing house was handed over to Michael Köhler, who continued it from Munich. Together with Wolfgang Mohrhenn, he founded the S Press agency. The distribution company S Press Distribution was added in 1998.

From 1980 individual publications appeared on audio cassette with sound art by Terry Fox and Philip Corner ; as well as numerous new editions of earlier publisher titles, mostly with changed cover design and ISBN numbers.

After Köhler's death in 2005, the publishing archive was transferred to the archive of the Academy of Arts as part of his estate .

Artists published on phonograms (selection)

literature

  • Nikolaus Einhorn and Angela Koehler: The S Press Tonbandverlag. Outline of the publishing history . In: Herbert Schuldt (Ed.): Germany recite, Germany recite / separations: parrots, concepts and people, torpedoes and Schnurrpfeifereien . Belleville, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-943157-15-4 , pp. 39-40 .
  • Marc Matter: Sound of Poetry of Sound . In: Journal of the Arts . No. 6 , 2018, p. 44–45 ( issuu.com [accessed July 13, 2020]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Printed on various brochures and envelopes of individual audio cassettes.
  2. ↑ Holdings: Archive Michael Köhler / edition s press. Dossier: [Texts on sound poetry]. Document: LISTEN. Typescript about Edition S Press. Archive of the Academy of Arts. 1975. Signature: Köhler-Michael 322. Link
  3. ↑ Einhorn / Koehler (2015), p. 39.
  4. ↑ Poems are painted window panes . Edition S Press, Düsseldorf / Munich 1975.
  5. ↑ Holdings: Archive Michael Köhler / edition s press. Archive of the Academy of Arts. 1950-2008. link