SKU: 75715124438

Cheri Knight - American Rituals

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Cheri Knight - American RitualsOn the outskirts of late 1970s Olympia, Washington, something stirs, sings, and breathes. Cheri Knight, a music composition student at the Evergreen State College, is developing her practice in a quaint but adequately equipped campus recording studio, amalgamating with the sonic timbre of the surrounding time, space, and place, while devoting to her own inner maxims. At once performative and meditative, electronic and organic, collaborative and self

On the outskirts of late 1970s Olympia, Washington, something stirs, sings, and breathes. Cheri Knight, a music composition student at the Evergreen State College, is developing her practice in a quaint but adequately equipped campus recording studio, amalgamating with the sonic timbre of the surrounding time, space, and place, while devoting to her own inner maxims. At once performative and meditative, electronic and organic, collaborative and self-contained, Cheri's early compositions are simultaneously complete and sketches of a ceremonial process at play. American Rituals captures the artist's environmental emergence, unearthing a unique compositional voice and signposting a regional sonic ethos. The path to Evergreen seems gently preordained for Cheri, a whisper in the trees. Growing up in a musical household in Western Massachusetts, she learned to play piano and clarinet, demurring from notated music but composing piano pieces in the minimalist mode of Erik Satie and folk songs inspired by Joni Mitchell. In high school, her class studied John Cage's work, an epiphanic moment for the young artist. The group also visited a studio outside Amherst where she encountered the modular limitlessness of a Moog synthesizer. Cheri studied philosophy and music at Whitman College in Washington, and then took a year to build a stone house with some friends in New Hampshire. She settled at Evergreen soon after, carrying with her a zeal for improvisation, creative investigation, and hands-on experimentation. The seven works anthologized on American Rituals are foremost an expression of Cheri's elemental approach to creating, rather than writing, music. Polyvocal chants, spoken-word collages, primal post-punk excursions and hymn-like incantations are bound together by a performative energy; a Cage-ian commitment to the present moment which harbors a meditative interior. The first piece Cheri made at Evergreen manifested when a multi-tracked mic test spontaneously evolved into a vocal ostinato. This experience of layering her own voice allowed Cheri to see images of the sounds she was making "in real time." In Cheri's music, language takes on a playful, fluxist, material quality as it is patterned in space. This word play is most evident in pieces like "Prime Numbers" and "Primary Colors, " which uses speech as an elemental material forming our changeable perception of the world. Channeled through the human voice, which is instrumentalized in every piece on American Rituals, language becomes a mutable force and a virtuosic apparatus. Spoken, sung, recited, incanted, chanted, instructed, whispered. It asks us to breathe, in and out. It tells us stories, reads us instructions, reminds us of water. Through rhythmically repeated speech patterns and flowing turns of phrase, the voice conveys ritualized patterns of everyday material becoming beautiful and strange, musical and memorable, conceptual and devotional. The musical output of Evergreen entering the 1980s should not be underestimated in it's contribution to the burgeoning Seattle-Olympia DIY axis, with pieces on American Rituals evidencing a contagious ethos and aesthetic. K. Leimer's Palace of Lights label first issued Cheri's "Primary Colors" and "Hear/Say" as part of it's 1982 compilation Regional Zeal, Mouth Music From Olympia Washington, while "Prime Numbers" and "Breathe" were included on the Steve Fiskproduced compilation Dub Communiqué the same year. But beyond catalog crossover and collaborative evolution, there is a shared sonic energy coursing through American Rituals which speaks to an absorption of place, of atmosphere, of weather. During a peer pilgrimage to the 1981 New Music America Festival in San Francisco, a change in weather was forecasted when Cheri met composer and theorist Pauline Oliveros. She spent part of her final year at Evergreen independently studying at the Zen Arts Center in Mount Tremper, New York, with Pauline and her partner, the performance artist Linda Montano. Aligning with both luminaries amplified the artistic and philosophical resonance of Cheri's work, bringing tenets of Buddhism and Living Art into both her artistic and life practice. Following these principles, Cheri's art eventually did become absorbed into life: living on a farm with goats in rural Massachusetts, writing songs, playing in bands, and eventually drifting away from music and into other things. But as is often the case, the path taken is never forgotten, only temporarily out of mind. With the help of old friends and new, the music of American Rituals was salvaged (not without hundreds of emails and phone calls) from master tapes stored in the collections of various peers and recording engineers from the extended Evergreen set, and is re-presented / represented now with care. Cheri Knight's American Rituals arrives in vinyl and digital formats July 15, 2022 from Freedom To Spend. A portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit Draft Gratitude, a draft horse rescue in Winchester, New Hampshire dedicated to saving the lives of senior working horses.

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SKU: 75715124438

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Nana
Cuba, US
★★★★★ 1
My Monster Dogs destroyed these balls
Color: Glow in the dark II, Size: Large
I was so excited to get two of these balls for my doodle puppies to have to play with . THEY DESTROYED THEM IN ALL OF TEN MINUTES. I don't believe that there was anything wrong with the balls. They were beautiful, high quality balls. Just not durable enough for my doodles.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2026
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Deborah Goellner
Omaha, US
★★★★★ 3
Doesn't glow in the dark but my dog still enjoyed
Color: Glow in the dark Ⅳ, Size: Medium
Great
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Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2026
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KC
Phoenix, US
★★★★★ 5
Sturdy, well made, puppy & senior dog approved
Color: Glow in the dark I, Size: Medium
Pet approved !!!! Our puppy immediately grabbed it by the straps and took off!! It is well made and has handled some serious chewing in the last 24 hours. We love the glow in the dark because puppy playtime does not stop when it gets dark out!! It came with a pump and was very easy to assemble and inflate. This toy would be great for a pet owner that struggles with grasp & grip strength, the straps are absolutely genius.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2026
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KennyR
New York, US
★★★★★ 5
Fun, Durable Ball, But Straps Could Be Tougher
Color: Glow in the dark I, Size: Large
I bought the QDAN Glow in the Dark Dog Toys Soccer Ball for my German Shepherd, who absolutely loves it. The glow-in-the-dark feature is great for evening play, adding an extra layer of fun to our outdoor interactions. The ball itself has proven to be remarkably durable, standing up well to the rough play that comes with a large, active dog. However, the straps did not fare as well. My GSD managed to bite through most of them relatively quickly. While this hasn’t stopped us from enjoying the ball, it does mean that some of the interactive potential of the toy is lost. The ball continues to be a hit on its own, thanks to its resilience and the glow feature that keeps my dog engaged. If the straps were as durable as the ball itself, this would be a perfect outdoor toy for energetic dogs. As it stands, it’s still a good purchase for anyone looking for a sturdy, engaging toy for their pet, especially if nighttime play is a routine.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2024
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Beach Lover (Sue)
Lowell, US
★★★★★ 5
Pup loves this!
Size: 6 Inch, Color: Red
This soccer ball is so cute. My dog loves to play with these. The straps are durable, easy to pump up (they come with a pump), good value for the money since they tend to last awhile, at least for us. The straps are durable but could be an issue if your dog is an aggressive chewer. They stay pumped up for quite awhile and just need to be topped off once in awhile to keep the bounce there. We keep them outside even in the winter and they do just fine. HIghly recommend as a good play toy.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2025

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