Gaines transforms the original text of the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred and Harriet Scott historic decision, which decreed that people of African ancestry were not U.S. citizens, and therefore could not sue for their right to freedom. Federally sanctioning white supremacy, the ruling has long-stood as one of the court’s most disastrous decisions, irrevocably altering the course of the country’s social, cultural, and political evolution.
The arrangement for Manifestos 4 is generated by a rule- based methodology, transcribing letters ‘A – H’ from the courts decision into their equivalent musical notes (with the use of the letter ‘H’ representing the code used in early Baroque tradition for B-flat). Despite the essentially random, arbitrary relationship the resulting composition has to the original content and history of the source texts, the music’s complicated chords, elaborate melodies, and intricate timing give new inflection to the texts in profound and unexpected ways.
According to the Los Angeles Times, “The music is as orderly, systematic and unromantic as everything else in the piece. Forget the stirring, soaring sentiment of national anthems: Reliance on a rigorous system removes individual artistic taste and flights of fancy from the equation.” As with all of Gaines’s works, the will of the author is complicated by the determinations of the systems that ultimately produce them.
The vinyl includes 3 records, 1 CD, and an exclusive 24”x 24” poster.
