T H I S album is an awareness-raising and a fund-raising musical collaboration of different artists bringing to life in song the words of Wilhelm Reich, one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers, feelers and scientists: the goals being to present Wilhelm Reich’s work in a different medium than had been done previously so people who may not have encountered his work before, particularly those interested in music and poetry, could learn about his many vital contributions, and to gather funds for The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust – this non-profit entity was established by Wilhelm Reich and charged with 1) operating Orgonon as the Wilhelm Reich Museum, 2) protecting, preserving and transmitting Wilhelm Reich’s scientific legacy to future generations, 3) safeguarding Wilhelm Reich’s Archives and 4) helping infants, children and adolescents –

for accurate/undistorted knowledge about Wilhelm Reich and his works and to make a tax-deductible donation to The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust, refer to the WIlhelm Reich Museum website at wilhelmreichmuseum.org –

gatefold cd is available via theredthreads@yahoo.com and includes poster insert with liner knotes and words (lyrics) by Wilhelm Reich and writings/arts by the participants –

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one of Wilhelm Reich’s significant contributions was to demonstrate how life energy must be suppressed in people for any authoritarian social order to produce and reproduce itself – this is accomplished in the first years of life primarily through the authoritarian family and also through institutions and ideologies such as education, religion, nationalism and commercialism – but alongside what Wilhelm Reich called the “emotional plague” of humynkind and its life-denying reactive tendencies and institutions, there exists life-affirmative active tendencies and grassroots organizations/cooperatives –

as folk music and rock ‘n’ roll have been central to the modern voice of resistance and the radical need for change on all levels of our planetary becoming, it makes sense at this point that this kind of musical expression could team up with writings from Wilhelm Reich and create a beautiful document of combined living truths and an unassuming introduction to the work of one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers, feelers and scientists – rock ‘n’ roll as an ethos and a practice has always been against the grain of authoritarian society and about revolt and rebellion, walking your own walk and talking your own talk – alternative, underground, rogue, maverick and independent are all words that could be used to describe the popular music of dissent and they could also be applied to Wilhelm Reich, who loved music and whose artistic and poetic spirit is made evident in his writings and paintings –

we feel this to be an apropos pairing, especially here and now, and it is our hope that this musical creation is received as simply and clearly as it was created: the combination of the words of someone deeply concerned with natural truth with the musical endeavors of those who have chosen, like Wilhelm Reich, to live their persynal truths –

we joyously thank: the artists who have participated in this project – they are kindred spirits on the path of the heart; HawK MotH for support; Bernd A. Laska for a copy of “Lied der Jugend”; I.C.G. for ongoing enthusiasm; life –

—excerpt from Four-beat Rhythm: The Writings of Wilhelm Reich liner knotes

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We find musical flesh being put onto the written words of Reich in the shape of the "Four-beat Rhythm" compilation. All the contributors offer exclusive material to this disc and it's a pretty wide-ranging mix of 'establisheds', 'lesser-knowns' and a very interesting comback from an artist forever linked with the sixties U.S. counterculture... Yesteryear's verse colliding with a scored background appears to be a rarely occurring concept... Hmmm...we could be on to something here!

—Steve Pescott terrascope.co.uk

Proceeding from dreamy, ambient rock drones with fingerpicked guitar and buried singing to straightforward yet moody hard rock–some almost rap-like. From heavily reverbed country-psych with guitar abstractions, to vocal ballads accompanied by violin lines and meandering synth washes. From shambling and rattling guitar picking and strumming with lo-fi background hum and female singing to noodling moody rock jams, not unlike Neil Old–or possibly even Neil Young. From ambient hover chock-full of mellow singing, synth, singing bowls, toy piano guts, guitar, bells, piano and organ accumulator to 4/4 beat synth damage techno rock with a delay pedal to garbled noise rock with layered stuttering and samples galore. The whole shebang comes packaged up in a lovely mini-LP gatefold jacket including a fold-out poster with Reich’s poems and copious liner notes from the participants.

—Garry Davis arcanecandy.com