Monk's 1965 realization that the voice could have the same flexibility and range of movement as a spine or a foot, and that one could find and build a personal vocabulary for the voice led to this invisible theatre classic. This CD is the re-release of the landmark first recording of Meredith Monk's earliest compositions for voice. The songs that make up Key were composed and performed in a 3-year period between 1967 and 1970, when Monk collected them into this 45-minute invisible theater experience. The songs that make up Key were composed and performed in a three-year period between 1967 and 1970, when Monk collected them into this 45-minute invisible theater experience. Now, 25 years later, the long-playing qualities of a CD make a seamless hearing of Monk's piece possible. Some time in late 1965 I suddenly had a revelation that the voice could have the same flexibility and range of movement as a spine or a foot, and that one could find and build a personal vocabulary for the voice just as one makes movement based on a particular body. I realized then that within the voice are myriad characters, landscapes, colors and textures. From that time on, I began working with my own instrument-trying to discover the voices within it.-Meredith Monk
Review by "Blue" Gene Tyranny
A 1973 classic, Monk's modern folk music from her beautiful and noble performance -- ceremonies that recall former times and a lineage of human understanding beyond the present state of things. Songs include "Porch," "Under Street," "What Does it Mean?," "Vision," "Fat Stream," "Do you be?" "Vision" (reprise), "Change," and "Dungeon" with Meredith Monk, voice, organ, jew's harp; Daniel Ira Sverdlik, Dick Higgins, Colin Walcott, Lanny Harrison, and Mark Monstermaker, voices. See also her beautiful "Phantom Waltz" in the collection U.S. Choices by the piano duet Double Edge.
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