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Harry Partch's Original Invented Instruments: Barbican, London

Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1999

IT'S NOT every day – or every decade, come to that – that UK audiences get a chance to witness Harry Partch's bizarre instruments "in the wood", as it were. It's easy to see why: the Barbican stage is a symphony in spruce, wire and glass, being filtered with enormous contraptions resembling medieval torturer's machines, which turn out, when played, to be a musical magician's ingenious cabinets.

Total word count of piece: 534

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