Legendary Texan artist Terry Allen occupies a unique position straddling the
frontiers of country music and conceptual art; he has worked with everyone from
Guy Clark to David Byrne to Lucinda Williams, and his artwork resides in museums
worldwide. Pedal Steal + Four Corners
collects, for the first time, Allen’s radio plays and long-form narrative
audio works—two and a half hours of cinematic country-concrète songs,
stories, and sound collage—in a deluxe gatefold edition, including one LP,
three CDs, a DL code, and an exhaustive 28pp. color booklet boasting the first
in-depth essay to explore this singular body of work; dozens of images of
Allen’s related visual art; and full scripts and credits for all five pieces
(a total of 33k words.) Pedal Steal (1985), originally composed as a soundtrack
to a dance performance, appears on vinyl for the first time, as well as on CD.
Torso Hell (1986), Bleeder (1990), Reunion (a return to Juarez) (1992), and
Dugout (1993) comprise the Four Corners suite, radio plays broadcast on NPR and
never before released, now spanning two CDs. All audio has been meticulously
remastered from the original tapes. Fans of Allen’s violent masterpiece
Juarez will find much to love in these haunting Southwestern desert dramas,
which feature Jo Harvey Allen, Lloyd Maines, Butch Hancock, Stones saxophonist
Bobby Keys, and many others. Roger Corman tried to option the film rights; Jesse
Helms tried to ban them; now you can own them!
