Edition of 500 copies, double LP with inserts.
towards the end of the 1970s, a film about me and my work was made in kabul for the south german tv program. the director was arpad bondy. in order to find a venue for my music that is typical for afghanistan, it was agreed that my “percussion environment”, a tubular cube of 2x2x2 meters including the associated instruments, would be transported on a barren, stony ridge in the hindukush mountains. the people called the place “maidan”, which means nothing but “place”. while a couple of men dragged the frame pipes and the instruments up the hill, I decided to carry my large wuhan gong (100 cm diameter) up the mountain, in a kind of ritual. michael ranta sent me this gong from wuhan/china to kabul. – with slow and careful steps, carrying the heavy gong like an umbrella on my head, I walked over the difficult rocky terrain without a path up. suddenly a snake about two meters long came out of the rocks towards me and hissed aggressively at me. I could only take the gong off my head and put it like a shield in front of my legs. as I later discovered, it was a very venomous snake! since I couldn’t go on or back without her attacking me, I had to bring myself to kill the beautiful animal. I managed to smash her skull with a rock that I threw at her while standing behind my gong. finally I hung the lifeless body around my neck, put the gong back on my head and continued my way up, with a pounding heart. when the percussion environment was set up, I hung the dead snake between my instruments and spontaneously decided to name my solo performance “requiem for the snake of maidan”.
