Карнавал света: Затерянная авангардная запись The Beatles

the Ride album

"Carnival of Light" is an unreleased avant garde recording by the English rock band the Beatles. It was commissioned for the Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, an event held at the Roundhouse in London on 28 January and 4 February 1967. Recorded during a session for the song "Penny Lane", "Carnival of Light" is nearly 14 minutes long and contains distorted, echo laden sounds of percussion, keyboards, guitar and vocals. Its creation was initiated by Paul McCartney's interest in the London avant garde scene and through his connection with the design firm Binder, Edwards & Vaughan (often called BEV, and headed by the partners Doug Binder, Dudley Edwards and David Vaughan). Since the event, "Carnival of Light" has rarely been heard, and does not circulate on bootlegs. For McCartney, the piece came to hold significance in his efforts to be recognised as the first Beatle to fully engage with the avant garde, over a year before John Lennon recorded "Revolution 9". In 1996, McCartney tried to release the track on the Beatles' Anthology 2 compilation, but its inclusion was vetoed by his former bandmates. McCartney confirmed that he still had the tape in 2008. As of 2016, he was still considering releasing it.

With their August 1966 album Revolver, the Beatles broke new ground in pop by departing from the genre's conventional notions of compositional form, instrumentation and engineering; in musicologist Walter Everett's description, it was also "an innovative example of electronic music". Around December, Vaughan painted a psychedelic design on a piano owned by Paul McCartney. When delivering the piano to McCartney's home in St John's Wood, he asked McCartney to contribute a musical piece for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave. To Vaughan's surprise, McCartney agreed. This is the story offered in Barry Miles' 1997 biography Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. Alternatively, McCartney later told music journalist Mark Ellen that it was Miles who asked him to contribute to the event, while author Howard Sounes said that Edwards of BEV asked McCartney for a musical contribution from the Beatles and received a tape of "Carnival of Light" soon afterwards. The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave (sometimes referred to as the "Carnival of Light Rave") was an art festival organised by BEV as a showcase for electronic music and light shows. It was held at the Roundhouse Theatre in Chalk Farm, north London. Posters for the event promised "music composed by Paul McCartney and Unit Delta Plus". The latter was an electronic music group whose members included composers Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and synthesizer pioneer Peter Zinovieff. In preparation for the event, Edwards took McCartney to meet Zinovieff at the latter's house in Putney in south west London. There, Zinovieff played them an experimental composition "at such intense decibel frequencies", according to Edwards, "that many parts of my anatomy (including internal organs) began to perform an involuntary dance. I can only describe it as 'ecstatic twitching'."

quote box|quote= I said "all I want you to do is just wander around all the stuff, bang it, shout, play it, it doesn't need to make any sense. Hit a drum, then wander onto the piano, hit a few notes and just wander around. "|source= – Paul McCartney recalling his suggestions for "Carnival of Light" He said that Harrison did not enjoy the avant garde ("as George would say, 'avant garde a clue'"). George Martin, who helped evaluate all the Beatles' recordings for inclusion on the Anthology CDs, also considered "Carnival of Light" unworthy of release. McCartney was motivated to include the track out of a wish to be recognised as the first Beatle to embrace avant garde music, almost eighteen months before Lennon – who used to deride avant garde as "French for bullshit" – recorded "Revolution 9". Lewisohn assisted the Beatles in compiling the Anthology project. He said he advocated for the track to be included on Anthology 2, but: "It certainly didn't get beyond George, I'm not sure it got beyond Ringo or Yoko either. It was something that was going to, potentially, spotlight only Paul in a good way and I don't know that was something they collectively wanted." One of the few others to have heard "Carnival of Light", Barry Miles dismissed it as "really dreadful". He also said: "It doesn't bear being released. It's just masses of echo It was the same thing that everybody was doing at home." In Ian MacDonald's opinion, unlike the sensitivity AMM brought to their work, "the Beatles merely bashed about at the same time, overdubbing without much thought, and relying on the Instant Art effects of tape echo to produce something suitably 'far out'."

In a 2001 interview with Ellen, reproduced on the Rocking Vicar website the following April, McCartney said he was working on a photo collage film of the Beatles that was similar to another film he had created, Grateful Dead – A Photo Film (1995). He said he was planning to use "Carnival of Light" in the soundtrack. As of 2006, this project had yet to be seen and no part of the track had surfaced. During a 2004 interview, McCartney confirmed he still owned the master tapes and that "the time has come for it to get its moment. I like it because it's the Beatles free, going off piste." Music journalist Michael Gallucci has described "Carnival of Light" as "the holy grail of lost Beatles recordings". Ian Peel devotes a full chapter to the track in his 2002 book The Unknown Paul McCartney: McCartney and the Avant Garde. In his comments to Peel, David Vaughan said of the importance of this avant garde piece to McCartney: "the idea of course was that he did it before John [Lennon]. They were a pain in the arse, the pair of them In fact they all were. They were always trying to upstage each other. I mean, who gives a f*** who was first for that one, do you know what I mean?" In a 2016 interview, McCartney stated that he was toying with the idea of releasing previously unissued Beatles recording takes, including "Carnival of Light". Contrary to fans' expectations, it did not appear as a bonus track on any of the expanded 50th anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band released the following year. Giles Martin, who oversaw a new stereo remix of Sgt. Pepper for the 50th anniversary releases, commented that the track was considered for inclusion, but "it wasn't really part of Pepper It's a very different thing", Following the long awaited release of "Now and Then" in 2023, many Beatles fans have called for "Carnival of Light" to get its own release.