Reel-to-reel: LA MONTE YOUNG 1968 S.M.S.#4 SMS REEL TO REEL DRIFT STUDY WILLIAM COPLEY

Very rare reel to reel.

La Monte Young (B.1935). Avant-garde composer and musician. Drift Study 4W37W40-5W09W50 5 VIII 68. For this fascinating work, the composer tuned five sine wave oscillators to precise rational frequency ratios and then recorded the drift between phase angles that occurred over time. Cover design Marian Zazeela.

This reel to reel is very rare and was only sent out to very early subscribers of the SMS portfolios - discogs says only 25 copies exist - a taped version of this recording was released later in 1988 and is more common.

The SMS multiples were published by The Letter Edged in Black Press / William Copley in 1968. Complete sets of these SMS multiples are in the collection of MOMA, New York.

If you would like one of the original Letter Edged in Black Press cardboard mailing packs each portfolio was sent in please contact us and one can be added to your purchase for £15 GBP

ABOUT

"Founded in New York City by artist, collector and dealer William Copley, S.M.S. was an art collection in a box, filled with small-scale, often whimsical, artworks available by subscription. Delivering art through the post offered Copley, and his collaborator Dmitri Petrov, a way to circumvent the art market and make contemporary art accessible to nearly anyone. Inspired by Copley’s mentor and friend Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise, S.M.S. was conceived as an inter-media and intergenerational publication that would present artworks by prominent and unknown artists side by side. The magazine gathered an impressive range including the Surrealist luminaries Man Ray and Meret Oppenheim, Pop artists Richard Hamilton and Roy Lichtenstein, composers Lamont Young and Terry Riley, and an up-and-coming generation of conceptual and post-studio artists such as Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman. Regardless of stature, each was paid $100 for their contribution. This egalitarian spirit extended to the communal atmosphere of Copley’s upper west side Letter Edged in Black Press loft which functioned as an unofficial hangout for many of the participants. The six issues of S.M.S. are composed of “original reproductions”—luxurious, exacting replicas of each artist’s work in an edition of approximately 2,000. The magazine spared no expense, seeking out, and even inventing, varied and obscure production methods including Lil Picard’s labor intensive Burned Bow Tie—each of which needed to be individually singed. The enormous edition size—and the affordable price of $125 per subscription—enabled a much broader swath of the public to collect the internationally recognized artists contained in the portfolios. Ultimately short-lived, S.M.S. portfolios were mailed bi-monthly between February and December of 1968 directly to subscribers, with each portfolio containing approximately a dozen works of art." Text from

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