GORDON,PETER/TIEGHEM,DAVID VAN - Winter/Summer12")

Winter Summer is the result of Peter Gordon and David Van Tieghem's first sessions together, recorded in 1978 in a farmhouse in upstate New York. The previously unreleased EP predates the duo's work as Love Of Life Orchestra, whose members have included David Byrne, Arto Lindsay and Arthur Russell. (Another former Love Of Life Orchestra collaborator, Laurie Anderson, contributed new artwork for Winter Summer.) Gordon and Van Tieghem's tastes were clearly well developed by the late '70s, and these two songs are short hops back in style from what would follow on their group's excellent debut EP, Extended Niceties. Winter Summer's best track, Winter, features the late novelist Kathy Acker on vocals. In contrast to much of Extended Niceties and Love Of Life Orchestra's first album, Geneva, the song is without their sax-woven euphoria. Acker's casual delivery gives an extra bite to the chintzy synth textures and waspish funk, which is both abrasive and something to whistle along with. The instrumental Summer seems to nod to the rural surroundings that Gordon and Van Tieghem found themselves in. Decorated with resonant organ stabs and daylit piano chords, the song's friendly sound is completely at ease. The path that Gordon and Van Tieghem followed after Winter Summer hints at the lessons they learned from these sessions. Elements of this music survived on their subsequent work, but it's the nervous funk of Winter that would set the tone for Love Of Life Orchestra.