"Lelekovice, String Quartet #1" was composed by Frith in 1990 and was dedicated to
Iva Bittová, Lelekovice being the name of the village near
Brno in the
Czech Republic where Bittová lives. It was first performed in July 1991 by the Mondriaan Quartet at the Nieuwe Muziek Festival, in
Middelburg, the
Netherlands, and was used by the United States
choreographer Amanda Miller in her dance piece, ''My Father's Vertigo'' in 1991. The recording on this album was made in December 1992 by the Violet Wires String Quartet at
Angel Recording Studios, London. "Lelekovice" was recorded again in June 2003 by the
Arditti Quartet and appeared on Frith's 2005 album,
Eleventh Hour. "The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not" was commissioned by Roulette,
New York City and composed by Frith in 1989. It consists of eight movements labeled A to H, and can be performed in any sequence. For this recording, the order is D, B, C, G, H, F, A, E. The title "The As Usual Dance ..." is taken from a letter written by Anne Hemenway. The piece was first performed in February 1989 by
Les 4 Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar at
The Kitchen, New York City, and recorded by the same group in February 1989 at Studio Victor,
Montreal. An album of this piece and other recordings by the group were released on
Fin de Siecle (1989). Only sections A and C of this composition appear on the album. Frith did not play on "The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not" with Les 4 Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar, and when he wanted to perform this piece himself, he assembled an electric guitar quartet in 1992, comprising
René Lussier,
Nick Didkovsky,
Mark Howell and himself. The quartet recorded the complete piece in April 1992 at Sorcerer Sound, New York, releasing it on
Quartets. Later
Mark Stewart replaced Howell and the new quartet became known as the
Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, touring internationally and recording two albums,
Ayaya Moses (1997) and
Upbeat (1999). Parts of "The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not" also appear in the documentary film,
Step Across the Border (1990), and its soundtrack,
Step Across the Border (1990), performed by an electric guitar quartet which Frith conducts. ==Track listing==