Live, recorded for French radio in 1978, this archival album from minimalist composer Terry Riley is a gorgeous solo meditation for specially modified organ and plenty of delay, running about 54 minutes in length. It's not unlike Riley's classic Shri Camel record from around the same time - he says, "the musical materials of The Last Camel In Paris are second generational belonging to the family of Shri Camel while manifesting their own distinct shape and flavor". On Last Camel, Riley's gently piping organ tones and tinklings ceaselessly unfurl, slowly modulating, truly a lovely late night listen for anyone with an ear for Riley's special brand of New Agey, neo-classical, psychedelic minimalism. It's one long, continuous performance but has been conveniently broken into ten seamless tracks on this cd release "as a guide to compositional changes" in the piece, which does move into more and more intense, ever-repetitive realms as the disc progresses.
A most essential archival release for all Riley fans, despite the uninspiring album cover artwork (is that a solarized picture of a dream-catcher?). Inside the digipack, things look better, the foldout cd booklet having a black and white photo of the bald, bearded Riley in concert on one side, and liner notes (mostly in French, drat, though there is some text in English from Riley himself) on the other. Now, there's another Terry Riley reissue on this list, our Record Of The Week in fact, but don't fret, getting this along with Church Of Anthrax won't be too much of a good thing, just plenty of it!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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The unanimous AQ staff favorite of the week. Disc one is totally stuck in our cd player...it's only about 20 minutes long, but it may as well be infinite, 'cause we just keep playing it over and over. Appropriate, because, as with much of the late '60s work of American minimalist composer Terry Riley's work, repetition (with subtle changes) is the modus operandi here. The original source song "You're No Good", a pop-latin-boogaloo number released by Harvey Averne in 1968 (he's not credited in the liner notes to this, strangely) is a great tune in its own right. But soon after the original song's release. Terry Riley got his hands on it and created what oughta become one of his all time classic tracks. Riley used pedal-driven tape-loops and the Moog to take the infectious "You're No Good" chorus to extreme, abstract, mesmerizing lengths. It's looped over and under itself, at first sounding completely normal and then imperceptibly gets weirder and weirder until it's so odd that the customers in the store start looking concerned and asking if the cd player is skipping. It stutters wonderfully! Sometimes the left and right channels are playing different parts of the song simultaneously, to eerily beautiful effect.
That the original song is so insanely catchy and hook-filled (it's a "Dancing in the Streets"-style pop number) definitely contributes to the accessibility and fun of the piece. Disco minimalism? Hell yeah. Apparently it was commissioned as theme song for what must have been a very avant-garde Philly dance club, the operator of which was a Terry Riley fan present at the concert documented on disc one... Brilliant.
By the way, the original Averne song can be found on the compilation Dusty Fingers Vol. 2, and we've added a clip of the original below for you to compare.
Disc 2 of this archival set is live material from one of Terry's Poppy Nogood All Night Concerts held in Philadelphia in the fall of 1967. The lovely drones produced by his soprano sax and "time-lag accumulator" must have kept the attendees happy and hypnotized in their sleeping bags 'til dawn, and now we can experience a cd's worth of it now at whatever time of day or night we choose. Nice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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It's beginning to look as though the most popularly recorded composition of the new millennium is going to be Terry Riley's "In C". Why is this? At first I thought that maybe it was because just about anyone can play it. But then I asked myself, "why
Two sidelong pieces recorded in 1969 and performed by Groupe d'Etude et Rèalisation Musicale of France, or simply the GERM Ensemble. Riley's "Keyboard Study 2" is a twenty-four minute minimalist exercise for two pianists (executed here by Gèrard Frèmy
It says "Electronic Music From Razor Blades To Moog" on the disc and that pretty much sums it up. You'll glean a bit more of an idea of what this is all about from the in-the-studio photos of Robb, a nice looking old man with a big white mustache, though some liner notes would have been nice (c'mon, Locust!). What we do know is that lawyer-turned-maverick-composer, John Donald Robb, was on the cutting edge of electronic music starting way back in the 1940s! His work was perhaps especially beepy-bleepy beat-oriented (hence the title of this cd) and is certainly full of vintage electronica atmosphere. Rhythmania is compiled from the best of Robb's two Folkways LPs, and is a swell collection of his pioneering electronic experimentation, total mad-scientist laboratory stuff for fans of the likes of Tod Dockstader, the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Definitely a great personal soundtrack to the next '60s era sci-fi novel you sit down to read!
MISSISSIPPI ALERT!!!!MISSISSIPPI ALERT!!!MISSISSIPPI ALERT!!!!!
Ok, that no doubt got your attention. However, unlike Mississippi's forays into blues, world music, and, uh, Dutch punk rock, this record (an alternately titled reissue of Rockmore's The Art Of The Theremin album) takes a surprising turn into the realm of classical music. But not just *any* classical music, no, this here record will no doubt be familiar to many aQ customers, as Lithuanian born Clara Rockmore (1911-1998) is legendary for her mastery of one of the first and strangest electronic musical instruments ever - the theremin. Even if you think you are unaware of what this unique instrument sounds like, you've definitely heard it SOMEWHERE, most likely in some cheesy sci-fi movie from the 1950s. But rather than retread the story of the theremin in general and Clara Rockmore specifically (for that you're advised to check out the amazing documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey), we will just let you know that this record is completely amazing, absolutely beautiful, and probably unlike anything else you've heard before. Covering selected works from composers such as Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky, among others, Rockmore is capable of creating some of the saddest, most mournful sounds ever committed to tape. With literally every song, the theremin sounds like it is weeping out its melodies alongside its piano accompaniment, provided by Rockmore's sister Nadia Reisenberg. Soundwise, many of you will be reminded of a singing saw, or perhaps some heavily sustained bowed string instrument, but the buzzing electronic warmth of the theremin is really beyond classification. The sounds are at once familiar but also totally alien, and anyone who has actually played a theremin should be well aware of how unbelievably difficult they are to control (you don't even touch the thing!). But Rockmore was clearly cut from a different cloth altogether, and to this day she remains undisputed master of the instrument.
Mississippi really outdid themselves with the packaging on this one, the heavy duty lp comes housed in a beautiful thick gatefold jacket with all kinds of detailed information. And we should hardly have to warn you of this record's limited availability, so don't miss out.
Finally released on vinyl, Another Thought was the first posthumous collection of unreleased tracks by the great Arthur Russell. Released in 1994, shortly after he passed away and years before his wide-ranging musical genius would be recognized by a larger audience, it contains tracks spanning over a 10 year period, some in demo form documenting early versions of songs he was preparing for his next release after World of Echo. Yet of all the many Russell collections that have subsequently come out, Another Thought has the reputation of being the most difficult to digest. Long in length and minimal in economy (most of the tracks are just voice and cello, with the occasional addition of other instruments like bongos and horns), it is certainly the most intimate and unadorned of all of Russell's work. Which is why the vinyl release does this collection a great service by giving the songs ample space to breathe over four long sides. There is an incredible amount of nuance and grace in every one of these tracks, and for being so close to death, Russell remains unhurried in his approach. And unhurried is the way it should be listened to. Incredibly gorgeous, passionate and devastating.
Fourteen years after his death, the music of Arthur Russell is more alive than ever. Mostly known as a left-field disco producer and classically trained cellist, Russell was also an accomplished avant-garde composer, as evidenced here. Audika records, who re-issued Russell's World of Echo and Calling Out Of Context releases, focus their attention here on two little known early pieces: Instrumentals Vols. 1 & 2, and Tower of Meaning. It's no wonder they are so little known. While Instrumentals Vol. 2 was released on Belgian label Les Disques Du Crepescule in 1984, and Tower of Meaning was previously released on Phillip Glass's label, Chatham Square in 1983, Vol. 1 was made only into a test pressing and for some reason shelved (this is its first official release).
The Instrumentals disc is the most interesting because for music so rooted in the New York avant-garde of the '70s and '80s, it's surprisingly accessible. Instrumentals 1 feels like Rhys Chatham playing with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra as harmonic variations of horns and strings play across bass and drum rhythms, while Instrumentals 2 leaves the rhythms behind. Towers of Meaning, a suite of 7 pieces, has a more classical Gavin Bryars vibe as the horns play out long melody lines with unusual intonations and harmonics with each piece stopping abruptly. Rounding out each disc are two other unreleased compositions, Reach One and Sketch for the Face of Helen. Known to obsessively tweak mixes of his songs (Supposedly, Let's Go Swimming, a left-field disco classic, was mixed *ninety-six* times) and then never release them, it's been rumored that Russell left one thousand tapes of unreleased music at the time of his death, making the title of this release a small inside joke. Hopefully Audika, unlike Russell himself, will be able to tell when enough is enough.
Twenty-two years after his death, the music of Arthur Russell is more alive than ever. In fact in addition to this tape, and the Love Is Overtaking Me repress also listed this week, we have the new Red Hot + Arthur Russell Master Mix tribute lp in stock, just ask! Mostly known as a left-field disco producer and classically trained cellist, Russell was also an accomplished avant-garde composer, as evidenced here. Once reissued on cd in 2006 as part of the Audika collection First Thought Best Thought that documented his orchestral work with luminaries of the New York Downtown Scene (Rhys Chatham, Jon Gibson and Peter Gordon) following his stint as musical director at The Kitchen in New York, Tower of Meaning was originally released on Philip Glass's new music label, Chatham Square in 1983.
A suite of 7 movements performed by an ensemble of horn players and conducted by Julius Eastman, Tower of Meaning has a slow epic funereal vibe reminiscent of Gavin Bryar's The Sinking of The Titanic, or indeed like a Philip Glass piece in slow motion. While not quite as emotionally devastating as the Bryars piece, the horns in Tower of Meaning play out long plaintive tones simultaneously resulting in unusual intonations and harmonics as the tones overlap creating modalities of clustering chords that aurally seem to both march forward and float upward without ever quite resolving itself, the "meaning" in the title forever remaining elusive and out of reach.
The Bryars connection is a bit ironic however, because Towers of Meaning was originally intended as incidental music to accompany a staging of Robert Wilson's Medea, but creative squabbling between the two forced Russell out and Gavin Bryar's took over the project. The resultant recording is only a fraction of Russell's score which included voices and other instrumentation as well. Embittered by the experience, it was Russell's final orchestral effort. Limited to 100 copies.
How many reviews have you read where the influence of folks like Brian Eno, John Cage and Frank Zappa are mentioned? Lots! But it's not as often that we get to talk about someone else who had a deep influence on those very same icons. But one need look no further then the tender and melancholic piano playing of Erik Satie to find the roots and foundation for some of the most important music of the last century. This is one of the better Satie cd's to come out in recent years as the playing of Francis Poulenc is impeccable. The second half of the disc finds him playing his own compositions, and while Poulenc's pieces are beautiful in their own right, considering that it's pretty tough to follow up all of those amazing Satie pieces. Some of the prettiest, most delicate and touching pieces of music ever written. This is the sound of piano taken to higher level of majestic beauty.
These recordings date from the 50's and are unlike a lot of Scelsi's other compositions, which tend to be dark and bombastic (we at AQ are huge fans). These are all solos or duets composed for woodwinds and come from a period during which Scelsi abandoned all
MPEG Stream: "Quattro Pezzi (Su Una Nota Sola) 2nd Movement" [/audio/scelsiOW2quat.m3u]
"Giacinto Scelsi is unique among composers in this (or any) century. Trained in the New Vienna School, he grew into a totally personal style in which he focused completely on tone and sound. Scelsi was highly influenced by Oriental philosophies and the deep meditative aspects underlie his stark, expressive music. This disc presents five works that document this growth. 'Yamaon' has the voice (a booming operatic baritone) using no words -- only syllables and sounds, with instruments gradually taking over. 'I Presagi' is about the visionary precognition of the downfall of a Mayan city. In three movements, each focused on a single pitch, it is scored for 2 trombones, 2 tubas, saxophone, percussion and wind machines. 'Anahit' is a work for 18 instruments with violin solo. It is a very difficult work, creating a brilliant sound-world which defies any conventional description. 'Tre Pezzi' for solo saxophone contemplates a unique approach to sound, and 'Okanagon' is, according to the composer, 'to be understood as a rite, or if you choose, as the heartbeat of the earth'."
Better known for his post-Kraut rock electronica as Pluramon, Marcus Schmickler has also been tinkering with the ideas of academic composition. He claims that his interest is a "confrontation with modern classical composers," and that "innovations are only
First, before we get into the review, we should mention that this double lp is housed in an oversized French paper hand silk-screened jacket. While it's a beautiful package, the combination of its oversized shape and the delicacy of the material means it's prone to damage in shipping, and of course all the copies we have received arrived a bit bent up. The label has no replacement covers so this is all we're going to get. We've taken a couple dollars off the price to compensate a bit, but those who are more fastidious about the shape of their vinyl sleeves, might want to steer clear of this, as we won't be able to replace them. Sorry about that!
But WOW!, this is a beautiful double lp live set from 1972 by the late experimental kosmiche composer, Conrad Schnitzler. Salvaged from decaying tapes of a performance for an art exhibition, the sounds on this are like a multifaceted sci-fi ballet. The coordination of individual electronic sounds operating in harmonic tandem of each other showcases a brilliant array of synthesis and restraint, while at the same time emanating a warm centrally vibrant core. For some reason in some of our minds we always have this impression that Conrad Schnitzler was the most abstract and cold of the German musicians of this period, but lately with each new reissue that becomes available, that impression is proven wrong time and time again. This is a gorgeous set, as essential as any of his key recordings from this era. And as usual, crazy limited, ONLY 1000 COPIES and at this point almost gone so act fast!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Kinda like the title indicates, this is some (film) noir-ish, atmospheric music for theremin, played by Rob Schwimmer, who is joined by pianist Uri Caine and violinist Mark Feldman (not a bad line-up!). At turns pretty, dramatic, jazzy, noisy, and soundtrack-sappy: it's like Clara Rockmore (famed early 20th century theremin virtuoso) meeting up with some downtown NYC avant-garde muso schenanigans. C'mon, how many theremin recordings do you own anyway? Plus, for weird instrument lovers, Schwimmer also makes use of the daxophone! (And the accordion, waterphone, and various toys to boot.) In an interesting hard-back digibook packaging, not quite like anything we've seen before, by the way.
Blonk does Schwitters! So perfect. The Dada vocal babble classic as interpreted by the amazing Dutch sound poet/performer.
Last time, we reviewed The Omni Corporation's reissue of a wonderful rare "library music" album entitled Omega 2000 by German composer Peter Thomas and his "Orchestra". Those diligent diggers at Omni Corp. have another one along those lines for us this week, again a '70s library music collection, from the much less well known name of Patrice Sciortino. Can't believe this is the first we've heard of the man and his music, considering that this stuff sounds something like the more outre of Morricone efforts, pretty darn cool. And apparently, there's plenty more where this came from. Wow, thanks Omni!!
Sciortino is classically trained French musician, born in 1922, who eventually established a career in the '60s/'70s as a prolific and somewhat peculiar composer, with, eventually, many obscure recordings to his credit. He's also a poet and playwright. With an interest in both non-Western musics and the most avant-garde of electronics (he studied at GRM), his musical vision, as displayed here, is unusual and otherworldly.
Where that Orchestra Peter Thomas disc was groovy and funky, all about the big bombastic beats, this Sciortino stuff is much more atmospheric and academic sounding... it's like 20th century classical gone soundtrack wacky. Imagine Bernard Herrmann (of Psycho fame) meets Carl Stalling (of Warner Bros. cartoons fame). Or Luigi Nono writing music for TV shows. His music is sometimes ominous, sometimes uplifting, offering plenty of percussive exotica, chimings and tinklings, with shuddering, sawing cello and eerie wordless female vocals. And occasional echo effects intensifying the rhythms.
This disc comprises Sciortino's entire, intriguing 1970 album Chronoradial, plus extensive selections from three different 10" records of his belonging to a library music series out by the Musique Pour L'Image label circa 1967-1968. There's 36 tracks here in all, many of them jittery and unsettling, suspenseful and nervous - but others lively, joyous and beautiful.
Nicely done, in typical Omni fashion, the cd booklet full of informative liner notes, and awesome freaky black and white artwork from the original lps - love that raccoon-like creature with the clocks for eyes!! Quite recommended.
A while back, we highlighted an Omni label reissue of a pretty cool album called Chronoradial, some way-out library music from the late sixties/early seventies by avant-garde French composer Patrice Sciortino, which we likened to "20th century classical gone soundtrack wacky". Some months later, Omni released a follow-up second volume with more of Sciortino's works, which we're finally now listing as well. That's this disc, featuring two whole Sciortino albums: Percupulsions, from 1970, and 1975's Gymnorythmies/1, plus a few extra bonus cuts taken from a couple other Sciortino lps of the era - 43 tracks in all!
Percupulsions - what a great title, it sounds like a word we'd have coined to describe it - is of course very rhythmic, with classical percussionists gracefully navigating jazzy compositions that also incorporate harspsichord and tape manipulation, a soundscape that's melodic and playful - and rather strange and sinister too. Gymnorythmies/1 is likewise full of quirky movement and joy, being meant to accompany modern dance and gymnastics exercises (a instructional booklet with diagrams of dances was included with the original lp release!). Pretty neat, recommended to folks who liked Chronoradial or Omni's other arty European '70s library music reissues, such as those lps by Egisto Macchi.
The academic eggheads that congregate around the musical institutions of the globe have from time to time tried to bring elements of whimsical pop to the sonic weirdness of musique concrete and the electronic oscillators that have continued to gyrate since the 60s. For the most part, the experiments meshing pop & academic New Music have been pretty lame, but not those of Raymond Scott. "The Manhattan Research Inc" is a double cd which collects the "new plastic sounds and electronic abstractions" from Scott's idiosyncratic work from the 50's & 60's, which included space-age ditties for commercials and oddball electronic noodling. As weird as the 60's space electronics from Dick Hyman / Command Records, yet just as complex as Tod Dockstader or Vladimir Ussachevsky, but with Scott's previous work with Carl Stalling scoring cartoons, these recordings retain a solid grasp on the intrinsically catchy pop jingle. Top it all off with commercial voice-overs for detergent and chewing gum for a wonderful collection of electronic esoterica. It should also be noted that, if you didn't know any better, on first listen, there's a good chance you would mistake this for a Tape Beatles or Negativland record!
"Arguably the first ambient techno records, 1963's Soothing Sounds For Baby LPs were the culmination of Raymond Scott's decade and a half as an electronic music pioneer. Scott is better known for his circular, giddy jazz compositions from the '30s and '40s, many of which endeared themselves to youngsters through their eventual use in Warner Bros. cartoons. Soothing Sounds, though, is _meant_ for young children--he called it an "audio toy"--and, reissued on three short CDs, it can have the same stimulating, pacifying or hypnotic effects on adults (we don't recommend driving to "Sleepy Time," for instance). These gracefully layered loops of early electronics have the unmistakable stamp of their era -- Scott most likely used existing instruments of the time, like the Ondioline and possibly a derivative of the theremin -- probably combined with sequencers and modifications of his own design, the details of which are now lost. Still, his endlessly pinwheeling, trance-inducing grooves were far ahead of their time: we suspect that more than a few techno artists heard these records in their cradles, and though they're playful, pretty and simple, they have a depth and peculiarity that prefigures minimalism as well." [--Robin Edgerton & Douglas Wolk in CMJ New Music report, 6-29-97]
Wow. Available at a very reasonable price, these sought-after recordings have been packaged with very extensive liner notes and photos. If you're only wanting one volume, we recommend #2 or #3. They're all equally good (honestly) and Volume 2 features "The Toy Typewriter" which Irwin Chusid has likened to Metal Machine Music For Babies. We think a young Tom Jenkinson heard these in the cradle and thus preordaining that he grow up to become the Squarepusher.
"Arguably the first ambient techno records, 1963's Soothing Sounds For Baby LPs were the culmination of Raymond Scott's decade and a half as an electronic music pioneer. Scott is better known for his circular, giddy jazz compositions from the '30s and '40s, many of which endeared themselves to youngsters through their eventual use in Warner Bros. cartoons. Soothing Sounds, though, is _meant_ for young children--he called it an "audio toy"--and, reissued on three short CDs, it can have the same stimulating, pacifying or hypnotic effects on adults (we don't recommend driving to "Sleepy Time," for instance). These gracefully layered loops of early electronics have the unmistakable stamp of their era -- Scott most likely used existing instruments of the time, like the Ondioline and possibly a derivative of the theremin -- probably combined with sequencers and modifications of his own design, the details of which are now lost. Still, his endlessly pinwheeling, trance-inducing grooves were far ahead of their time: we suspect that more than a few techno artists heard these records in their cradles, and though they're playful, pretty and simple, they have a depth and peculiarity that prefigures minimalism as well." [--Robin Edgerton & Douglas Wolk in CMJ New Music report, 6-29-97]
Wow. Available at a very reasonable price, these sought-after recordings have been packaged with very extensive liner notes and photos. If you're only wanting one volume, we recommend #2 or #3. They're all equally good (honestly) and Volume 2 features "The Toy Typewriter" which Irwin Chusid has likened to Metal Machine Music For Babies. We think a young Tom Jenkinson heard these in the cradle and thus preordaining that he grow up to become the Squarepusher.
"Arguably the first ambient techno records, 1963's Soothing Sounds For Baby LPs were the culmination of Raymond Scott's decade and a half as an electronic music pioneer. Scott is better known for his circular, giddy jazz compositions from the '30s and '40s, many of which endeared themselves to youngsters through their eventual use in Warner Bros. cartoons. Soothing Sounds, though, is _meant_ for young children--he called it an "audio toy"--and, reissued on three short CDs, it can have the same stimulating, pacifying or hypnotic effects on adults (we don't recommend driving to "Sleepy Time," for instance). These gracefully layered loops of early electronics have the unmistakable stamp of their era -- Scott most likely used existing instruments of the time, like the Ondioline and possibly a derivative of the theremin -- probably combined with sequencers and modifications of his own design, the details of which are now lost. Still, his endlessly pinwheeling, trance-inducing grooves were far ahead of their time: we suspect that more than a few techno artists heard these records in their cradles, and though they're playful, pretty and simple, they have a depth and peculiarity that prefigures minimalism as well." [--Robin Edgerton & Douglas Wolk in CMJ New Music report, 6-29-97]
Wow. Available at a very reasonable price, these sought-after recordings have been packaged with very extensive liner notes and photos. If you're only wanting one volume, we recommend #2 or #3. They're all equally good (honestly) and Volume 2 features "The Toy Typewriter" which Irwin Chusid has likened to Metal Machine Music For Babies. We think a young Tom Jenkinson heard these in the cradle and thus preordaining that he grow up to become the Squarepusher.
Let's state right from the outset that Trey Spruance's musical entity known as Secret Chiefs 3 is simply impossible to nail down and describe. Words really do not do SC3 justice, especially in the case of their latest work -- sprawling in scope, intricate in detail and majestically presented -- but we will make a valiant attempt here. Indeed, adjectives such as magical, mysterious and mind-blowing do apply, however they barely scratch the surface. We'd say 'spectacular' but the folks at Tzadik already beat us to the punch by using it on the cd's obi blurb. On Xaphan they've joined forces with their comrade John Zorn, performing eleven passages from his epic work, Masada Book Two. The eleven players embrace, attack, caress and devour the compositions with an otherworldly zeal. They come together as a single inimitable force, at once seeming absolutely unhinged and utterly in control. The threads of the SC3 aural tapestries are always densely knotted and woven with ace musicianship and from a myriad of disparate styles and inspirations delving into spy thriller soundtracks, exotica, metal, surf, esoteric knowledge and so much more. So it is on Xaphan, and the formidable outcomes may seem impervious to some and electrifyingly listenable to others. Breathtaking.
If you're gonna tackle the works of Gavin Bryars and Philip Glass you better be capable of doing it right, exploring the beautiful restrained sounds of the originals, while managing to add something new to the music, and Sentieri Selvaggi are very much up to that task with this simmering and lovely short two track ep on which they perform one composition by Bryars ("Sub Rosa") and one by Glass ("Facades"). In many ways Sentieri Selvaggi are the Italian equivalent of the Kronos Quartet, not so much in sound but in spirit, and their mission seems to be bringing engaging, challenging and soaring contemporary music to ears who might not otherwise be exposed to those remarkable sounds. Fans of equally beautiful and moody music makers like Sylvain Chauveau, Erik Enocksson, or Rachels, will find these two tracks hit that same sublime spot.
There is a very fine line between schizophrenia and a totally eclectic diverse creativity and we seem to enjoy music most when that line remains really blurry. This 2-cd set, recorded between 1980-82 by electronic alchemist Barton Smith definitely straddles that weird blurry line. One moment basking in tender beauty while the next moment flourishing into a noisy wall-of-sound. Very little was known about Smith. The fact that Smithsonian Folkways originally released these tracks on vinyl back in the early '80s, and still Smith remained a relative unknown, just adds to the mystique. The first disc opens up with what sounds like gamelan influenced percussion on homemade instruments, followed by pastoral pretty meandering guitar and then underwater sounding rumblings drenched in primitive sounding electronics. We have been totally intrigued and in awe of these recordings since we first got this set in a few weeks back. Listening to it nonstop, and trying to think about how this was received in the early '80s when even now it still sounds so ahead of its time. Former AQ-er Windy came in recently and jumped for joy to see this on the new arrivals rack, telling us how she scored an original vinyl copy years back at a flea market and it's always been a record she found so weird and wonderful and special. Outside of Windy, we haven't really come across anyone else who knew anything about Barton Smith. We've come to discover that these were recordings he made for modern dance troupes and we can only struggle to imagine bodies moving to his ever changing sounds. While for most musicians it can be tricky and problematic to change gears and sounds so often within an album, there is something so natural and lucid and smooth about the extremes explored on Reelizations. We can't think of many musicians who have the ability to explore such a wide range with this much success and intrigue. Moondog's versatility and eclectic output is someone who came to mind when trying to figure out how to classify Mr. Smith. From acoustic tranquility to electric outbursts this had us picking up on a totally diverse range of reference points: Sandy Bull, Jim O'Rourke, This Heat, Koji Asano. And for sure you could start seeing how years later groups would start exploring similar sonic atmospheres. Black Dice, Excepter, Loren Connors are some who come to mind. Scott even suspects that Kieren Hebden might have heard this at some point, as there is a really good chance that the Barton Smith track "Lotus" was sampled on the Four Tet album Rounds.
This is a record that we can't stop listening to or thinking about. We hear so much music everyday, when something kicks our ass this hard we know we've discovered something really special.
As with all releases on the fabulous Japanese reissue label EM, this is gorgeously packaged, coming in an oversized double jewel case, with a huge booklet, tons of photos and lots of liner notes -- those unfortunately all in Japanese.
Another amazing release from VHF (who also brought us the Record Of The Week by Alexander Turnquist), and another fantastic disc of modern minimalism / 21st century classical, this one from the duo of Jesse Sparhawk and Eric Carbonara, who play the 38-string lever harp and the 22-string upright Chaturangui guitar respectively, hence the sixty strings of the title. Carbonara was trained by none other than Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, so there is definitely an Indian vibe to the proceedings, a dreamlike Raga feel, but Sparhawk also plays in psych folk outfit Fern Knight, so there is a bit of that sort of buzzy dreamy dronepsych going on as well.
Two long tracks, sprawling and spacious, the two instruments weaving lush webs of melody, those melodies constantly shifting and intertwining, like the dreamiest and new agiest krautrock, warm and tranquil, deeply mediative and mesmerizing, the harp melodies often leaping to the fore, while the guitar buzzes sitar like beneath. The second track is a bit more folky, the guitar urgently strummed, while the harp offers some melodic counterpoint, the overall sound very dark and percussive, eventually settling down into something a bit dronier and driftier, which is when a snare drum enters the mix, seemingly replacing what would normally be tabla, and playing tabla like rhythms, shuffling and skittery, the effect is quite fantastic, not so much propulsive as textural, the guitar melodies beginning to sound almost flamenco, as the harp takes on the supporting role, unfurling a gorgeously repetitive loopscape, which the guitar soon mirrors, until the two are engaged in an impossibly tangled dance, before the song finishes in a folky flourish. So incredible. The sort of record we want never to end...
Perhaps the most historically relevant in the series, Laurie Speigel's piece for the Lanthanides 12" series was commissioned in 1975 by Carl Sagan to be included on the golden disc included on the Voyager II spacecraft (which is now beyond the orbit of Pluto moving into deeper space). Harmonices Mundi is Spiegel's relalization of the "harmony of the spheres", a celestial harmony of the planets' relationships envisioned by the ancient Greeks, and updated in 1619 by Johannes Kepler after discovering the true paths of the planets around the sun were in fact elliptical. The technology to convert these relationships into sound, however, would not exist until the computer bcame a viable instrument for making sound and music. Spiegel's instrumental interpretation is grand and sweeping. A repetitive and hypnotic cycle of siren like tones, sweeping majestically across a static sonic palette, overlapping and moving outward, seemingly to the ends of the universe, like ripples in a galaxy-wide pond. Fans of modern high end drone/skree (Sunroof!, Birchville Cat Motel, etc.) will glimpse will recognise this as a definite sonic precursor. On clear gold vinyl (like that legendary golden disc), with Voyager II's galaxial trajectory and Spiegel's Harmonices Mundi score silkscreened in black ink.
A wonderful collection of works composed between 1970 and 1983 from this obscure, criminally overlooked American composer and electronic music pioneer. Instrumentation involves analog electronics (both manual and computer-controlled), electronic tape,
- RealAudio clip: Drums
- RealAudio clip:
It seems in the past couple of years, electronic music pioneer Laurie Spiegel has gone from an obscure cult-figure to a championed celebrity right before our eyes. Thanks in part to a key sound design role in this past summer's blockbuster movie, The Hunger Games, but also to this incredible, and indeed expanded reissue of her 1980 debut release, The Expanding Universe, complete with an extra disc of bonus material from the period and extensive liner notes by Spiegel herself. Following key archival releases from fellow female electronic innovators Daphne Oram, Maggie Payne and Suzanne Ciani, we're finally seeing Spiegel getting her due for her stellar accomplishments as both captivating composer and inventor.
While The Expanding Universe was released in 1980, it was made up of musical experiments Spiegel made throughout the seventies in her off time as a research scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratories where she developed unique modes of combining interactive and algorithmic computer logic to the compositional process. Originally released on folk label, Philo, Spiegel's organic compositions had more in common with folk music than one would initially suspect. A trained banjo, lute and mandolin player, Spiegel's first released recording, "Appalachian Grove I" was included on the groundbreaking compilation of female electronic composers, New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, where she applied the idea of an open tuned string instrument to her electronically created composition. The entire Appalachian Grove suite is included here and is an unlikely mix of John Fahey and Philip Glass, where banjo-like tonal arpeggiations become a rhythmically organic and pulsating layered stream of undulating sounds. With each piece Spiegel seems to strive to explore the boundaries of the compositional process with a determined zen like focus on how sounds interact and overlap. But this is not an academically minded process of willful bleeps and bloops. This is instead a carefully realized beautifully layered intuitive sonic constructions that rewards deeply concentrated listening. Easily some of the best and most effective second generation electronic music we've ever heard, which gives this reissue our highest recommendation!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
To reiterate - "And then I had a dream: I heard and saw the four string players in four helicopters flying in the air and playing. At the same time I saw people on the ground seated in an audio-visual hall, others were standing outdoors on a large public plaza. In front of them, four towers of television screens and loudspeakers had been set up: at the left, half-left, half-right, right. At each of the four positions one of the four string players could be heard and seen in close-up. Most of the time, the string players played tremoli which blended so well with the timbres and the rhythms of the rotor blades that the helicopters sounded like musical instruments. When I woke up, I strongly felt that something had been communicated to me which I never would have thought of on my own. I did not tell anyone anything about it. Since I did not, after the dream, have any time to compose, I wrote and drew several sketches and -- from the super formula -- developed the Helicopter String Quartet as the third scene of Wednesday from Light, the cycle of music dramas which I have been composing since 1977. Only in 1992/93 did I find the peace to compose the Helicopter String Quartet, and especially to made the fair copy of the colored score." -Karlheinz Stockhausen.
At the beginning of 2000, we got in the Arditti String Quartet version of this score, which featured the ensemble in a studio overdubbing their performance with canned helicopters. If you're gonna have a great conceptual idea, do it right. Stockhausen knew that and released the world premier performance of the piece with his studio mix-down of the previously mentioned Arditti String Quartet recording.
Who would be more erudite to explain this composition than the madman himself? "And then I had a dream: I heard and saw the four string players in four helicopters flying in the air and playing. At the same time I saw people on the ground seated in an audio-visual hall, others were standing outdoors on a large public plaza. In front of them, four towers of television screens and loudspeakers had been set up: at the left, half-left, half-right, right. At each of the four positions one of the four string players could be heard and seen in close-up. Most of the time, the string players played tremoli which blended so well with the timbres and the rhythms of the rotor blades that the helicopters sounded like musical instruments. When I woke up, I strongly felt that something had been communicated to me which I never would have thought of on my own. I did not tell anyone anything about it. Since I did not, after the dream, have any time to compose, I wrote and drew several sketches and -- from the super formula -- developed the Helicopter String Quartet as the third scene of Wednesday from Light, the cycle of music dramas which I have been composing since 1977. Only in 1992/93 did I find the peace to compose the Helicopter String Quartet, and especially to made the fair copy of the colored score." -Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stockhausen completists should note that this is actually a studio recording, with the helicopters dubbed in later. The original performance recording with live helicopters is apparently available on a different, much more expensive, release on Stockhausen's own label.
The first two incarnations of the composition "Hymnen" (1966 - 1967) are found on 4cds. The first being 4-track stereophonic recordings of elektronische musik in which shortwave radio transmissions of international gibberish begin to evolve into a strict directional score from which bursts national anthems from Germany, Switzerland, America, Spain, Russia, and Africa. Stockhausen elaborates on the compositional metaphors both aurally and conceptually in a massive 200 page book both in English and German. The second incarnation is a reworking of the electronic score accompanied by soloists on piano, tam-tam, electric viola, electronium, filters, and potentiometers.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the third version Stockhausen constructed of his legendary composition "Hymnen" in which elektronische musik/musique concrete recordings of 'found objects' (a variety of broken speech from conversations, crowd noise, demonstrations, and other public events) and shortwave radio noise are accompanied by a composition for a full orchestra (originally composed in 1973) playing a pastiche of national anthems. Performed in 1994 in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall by the Gurzenich Orchestra and conducted by Stockhausen himself.
While this may seem to be the more economic means of getting this legendary piece, we have to recommend the more expensive 4cd version. It really is soooo much better. But definitely the the Stockhausen bargain hunter's place to start.
Along with a photo of a dapper young Stockhausen looking just like John McEntyre of Totroise, this cd also features a massive 188 page book in German and English. Along with "Kontakte" are the compositions "Etude," "Studie I," "Studie II," and "Gesang Der Junglinge." "Etude" is a tape piece inspired by a meeting with Pierre Schaffer in 1952 in which the original recordings of piano strings being struck by an iron beater have been mangled through an incredible amount of splicing and re-recording. "Studie I" (1953) and "Studie II" (1954) are experiments in organizing micro-acoustic sounds and transforming sine waves & white noise into note-mixtures. "Gesang Der Junglinge" (1955 - 56) is a sophisticated electronic composition unifying vocal sounds and electronically produced sounds.
