Rab-Rab Press, 2019, Softcover, 64 pages, 21 × 14 cm
Contributions by Dave Smith, Jan Steele, Gavin Bryars
From Scratch is a story of Albanian Summer: An Entertainment, an LP album released by Practical Music in London in 1984. The album was composed by Dave Smith, musician and a member of The Scratch Orchestra, and performed by Janet Sherbourne and Jan Steele, improvised and classical musicians. Through interviews, archival materials, and hard-to-find essays the publication contextualizes the background of British experimental musicians’ interest in socialist Albania.
The book will introduce new insight into the leftist internationalist background of British experimental music influenced by the work of Cornelius Cardew.
Apart from the musical internationalism, the book also includes a section of nine abstract slogans depicting the political and artistic contradictions of socialist Albania; annotated bibliography of books published in different languages on Albania; the collection of images taken from the biweekly Zëri i Rinisë (The Voice of Youth) published in 1984 and 1985.
