Acts of Love: Fifty Songs to My Other Self

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A book of Penny Rimbaud’s poetry, complete with illustrations by Gee Vaucher, and a CD of Eve Libertine singing the poems.

£16.99

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Product ID: 5434 SKU: 9781629639604 Categories: , , Tags: , ,

124 page perfect-bound book of 50 poems by Penny Rimbaud, each illustrated by Gee Vaucher, with the accompanying audio remastered in 2008 and now released for the first time on CD.
Includes 21 additional tracks of studio extras and out-takes, and a poem by Eve Libertine.

Originally released in 1985 as a vinyl edition with an accompanying 32 page book. Written and composed by Penny Rimbaud. Sung by Eve Libertine. Illustrated by Gee Vaucher.
‘Acts of Love’ was Penny Rimbaud’s ‘other voice’. Fifty poems written by from 1968 to 1973, set to music – classical, jazz and avant garde – composed by Rimbaud and performed by Eve Libertine.

Penny Rimbaud: “Throughout the late Sixties and early Seventies, I had worked on a series of fifty poems entitled Acts Of Love, an expression of the existential/zen hybrid which to this day remains the core of my philosophical musings. The poems laid out a raison d’être far from the political, psychological and social complexities which later began to engulf me. To counter what had become the darkness of Crass, I felt compelled to return to those poems as a source of light, and further, to make them public. I wanted to the work to be a celebration of the communality of beauty, of a shared purpose within creativity. I was looking for a confirmation of unity, a reclamation of the great romantic tradition, an act of unconditional love.”

Gee Vaucher: “For me, Acts Of Love was the starting point anyway – the poems and the original illustrations were done a long time before Crass. They were part of the inspiration, part of the source of going on to say what we did. For me, it’s a return to those roots – not going backwards, but the source of inspiration within oneself. It’s a very natural extension of what we’ve done with Crass. What we tried to do is remind people of why they were putting themselves in a very dangerous position socially and personally, by making a beautiful record really.”

 

Reviews:

  • –  “A high female voice combining choirboy purity with adult knowingness; the music, mostly from synthesisers cleverly used, beautiful in a somewhat ecclesiastical way. A painstaking creation of a different kind of music, which is, in part, sublimely beautiful.” – Peter Clayton, writing for the mouthpiece of the Barclay empire
  • –  “This record-plus-book would make an excellent gift of affection for anyone . . . a clear, pleasing style swinging easily among idioms of stage musical, carol, madrigal and modern lieder.” – K. Spielmann, Puncture
  • –  “Acts of Love is an original and varied piece, particularly in the area of Eve Libertine’s pointed vocalisms. It is not an ‘easy’ album, but it is an album that provides rich and rewarding listening.” – Andy Dunkley, Rockpool
  • –  “Hauntingly beautiful in places, the style and vocals bear out Rimbaud’s reverence for early English chruch music.” – Paul Du Noyer, NME

Book details:
Original Publisher: Exitstencilisms
Originally Published: 2011
Pages:124
Size: 14x14cm
Republished: 2021
Republished by: PM Press
ISBN: 9781629639086

CD details:
Original release: 1985
Remastered: 2008
Runtime: 34:33

Weight 350 g
Dimensions 14 × 14 × 1 cm