#tompkins square

Cian Nugent

For the latest volume in its long-running Imaginational Anthem (IA) guitar series, Tompkins Square has enlisted Irish guitarist Cian Nugent as curator. The tracks provide a concise overview of the state of guitar-based music in that country.

Ceremony of Dreams: Studio Sessions & Outtakes 1972–1977 Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble 2018, Tompkins Square (Bandcamp)

Still wildly underknown given the transporting beauty of their compositions, there is a world next door to this one where Baltimore’s Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble is as popular a soundtrack for meditation and study as Steve Reich or Philip Glass are in our own. Their music lies somewhere between modern chamber music and progressive folk, with a dash of jazz, and it was often used to score experimental dance and theatre productions. The band released two albums in the 1970s on Folkways before dissolving following the death of bandleader Joe Clark in 1983. Most probably their obscurity came from practicing their craft outside a major cultural centre; if anything, the 1,600 monthly listeners they command on Spotify represents wider exposure than they enjoyed in their prime.

Ceremony of Dreams, available in a three-hour digital format or an abridged ten-track vinyl, collects material that didn’t make it onto either of their Folkways records. Compared to Entourage and The Neptune Collection, these tracks are a little less playful, less overtly experimental in their production; they weren’t after all recorded specifically for release as an LP. But even in its condensed wax form, I can speak to the quality of Ceremony’s sober reveries, the lot of it grey or ghost-haloed yet coruscating, like black and white footage of waves crashing at night. Rather than a mere trove of demos, it meaningfully expands on their discography.

The Pitchfork review does a better job of namedropping comparable artists than I have the chutzpah for today (Arvo Pärt, Bert Jansch, La Monte Young, John Cale, Sandy Bull, raga like in general), but if you have a taste for open-concept acoustic music, Ceremony of Dreams is a sure shot.

(As an aside though: It's either endearing or grownworthy that the Entourage boys still have the classic doofy musician dude sense of humour that compels them to give these ethereal compositions "Lick My Lovepump"-ass names like "Sleazy Sue" and "Necrophelia.")

2010

Ten Years Gone: A Tribute to Jack Rose

Cute and Clever Costumed Pups From the 27th Annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade