The New Dawn’s “There’s A New Dawn” has been hailed as one of the rarest and best psych albums to come out of the late 60s and early 70s. Fuzz guitar, minor-chord organ dirges, tender vocals and monumental bass are the calling cards of this private press gem. Maybe it’s all the rain, but like their Northwest counterparts, the New Tweedy Brothers and the Sonics, The New Dawn helped to establish a regional musical perspective that is hauntingly addictive.

Initially released in July of 1970, five hundred copies were pressed, but it’s estimated that only around 200 may still exist. Subsequently, auctions on Ebay for an original vinyl LP go for $2000.

After being highly sought after by collectors, we are proud to release this definitive CD reissue which was produced in close collaboration with Dan Bazzy, singer, songwriter, and founder of The New Dawn. Also included are three previously unreleased 1971 demos and a live track from a 2008 band reunion. 

Track 1. (There's A) New Dawn

MK, Pesto Billionaire & pals (18/9/22)

A live version of the track from my 2023 album Proserpine for Tom Ravenscroft and Deb Grant on their BBC Radio 6 show New Music Fix Daily.

Like An Apple (BBC Radio Live Session)

Monorail - Year in Review (23/12/24)

For The Modern Institute’s self-titled first vinyl document, the practices of audio technicians Richard McMaster, Laurie Pitt and James Stephen Wright are brought into sharp focus, the initial analyses of a project which examines the rituals of performance, the signifiers of bourgeois culture and the absurdities inherent in the middle class art gaze.  While undoubtedly disturbing in execution, it’s a succinct reminder of the tension between lazy, electronic music tropes and the essential, quizzical attitude frequently lacking in the technoid culture, yet abundant in Glasgow’s agent provocateurs.
Seen through the frame of primary music generators McMaster and Pitt’s previous music projects – Golden Teacher, General Ludd – The Modern Institute’s recorded output is an oblique, strategic examination of rhythm and the spaces between. 

Rhythm is often re-defined and re-formed through out The Modern Institute, with the easy 4/4, communally cohesive beats of the Teacher and the Ludd some way off. Opener Black Blood is a case in point, with a elusive pattern providing a warped, skeletal framework for Wright to smother. The atmosphere is austere, aggressive, clinical as a gallery wall after the exhibition has failed. The yawning, sub-bass of False Beards and Diamond Hooves hacks at the exhibition floor opening up punishingly alien chasms. The narrator’s deadpan poesy, battling against the brutalist backdrop, reminds the listener of early industrial pioneers Cabaret Voltaire, not least in the unmistakably northern accent. Side A closes out on the first attempt by The Modern Institute to break into a recognizable pattern, though rendered on Destroy Logic as a dry destruction of a Bashment rhythm. Arabic Eight is nightmarish, a Normal deconstruction of art music. A nonsensical, Dadaist mutation of electronic dance music, Intelligent Dance Music with no intelligence, dance or Music. Wright intones “when I was younger you used to say you weren’t in it for the money,” taking down conceptions of artistic integrity, inspiration and muse. On Springloaded, we’re still deep in an alien lifeform’s insides, viewing the tropes the art industry uses to sell itself, splashes of digital distortion and burps crossfiring across the stereo field. Shiver And Quiver ends The Modern Institute, sounding like all the cities’ alarms simultaneously set off to the beat of the LPs only 4/4 beat, here juddering and unnaturally fast. Ask questions, just don’t ask for answers.

THE MODERN INSTITUTE: Destroy Logic (from S/T LSSN049)

"We stumbled across Cucina Povera when putting together the first Glasgow based ‘Clyde Built’ compilations. She featured on the first one as one half of Luxos and then offered some of her own material for the next one and we’ve been enchanted ever since. ‘Ethereal’ is maybe the closest description to reach for. One to keep an eye on for sure."

Rinse FM Podcast

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10 Years of Huntleys & Palmers: Cucina Povera - 14th October 2017

The Brvtalist is proud to present a new work from Maŕa. The Brooklyn based artist delivers an improvised long form composition featuring all new and original material from beginning to end. The result is a spellbinding fever dream of deep introspection, crushing romance and hypnotic rhythms. A special offering which is not selection but cinematic opus. Read more at: www.thebrvtalist.com/newbrvtalism145/ 

@maraperalta
@cultivated-sound

New Brvtalism No. 145 - Maŕa

For full track listing click here: https://bleep.com/features/bleep-mix-106--cucina-povera

Cucina Povera’s third LP Tyyni is a set of spectral, warped pieces that hover on the edge of torch-song and some more abstract style of songwriting. In this mix, we see her select various works from artists operating in much the same vein. Starting with an enchanting cello piece from American Canadian Abenaki filmmaker, singer, artist and activist Alanis Obomsawin we see her avant-garde approach to songwriting and production reflected throughout. Demonstrated also in Jan Eerala’s incredible track Stairway to The Windmill constructed of recordings of an isolated windmill in Takholutoto, Finland “playing organ” as the southeasterly wind rushes within. Some of Pan Sonic’s more sparse, minimal material features later on amongst work by @cucinapovera herself as well as her collaboration with ELS.

THE MODERN INSTITUTE: Destroy Logic (from S/T LSSN049)

Night School Records

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