tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43394246457989492872024-03-05T11:29:00.141-08:00The Incessant NoiseAaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-2912345748887722732016-04-06T10:23:00.000-07:002016-04-06T10:23:32.008-07:00It's the future<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0hpl7s_nnf8nbWQVVOZK-PVj4sKnhWPxwFLe6LBZv_x0lrOn68fbz5svHP_IyxNhZxe2hhtWj83fTbLzbcEtNPzVyVSIdbj2ft_AnLWok1BWpfhkni4rkATaHDc7BuiiS_hhnhQvJxw/s1600/catoculus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0hpl7s_nnf8nbWQVVOZK-PVj4sKnhWPxwFLe6LBZv_x0lrOn68fbz5svHP_IyxNhZxe2hhtWj83fTbLzbcEtNPzVyVSIdbj2ft_AnLWok1BWpfhkni4rkATaHDc7BuiiS_hhnhQvJxw/s1600/catoculus.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
It's been almost 5 years since I last posted on this here blog. All the pages had links to Rapidshare files for download, a site which hasn't existed at all for about a year (according to Wikipedia) and I don't think those files have been available for about 3 years. So, I've now updated with YouTube embeds of all the albums that used to be available here. I've personally uploaded most of those albums, but some of them were uploaded by others, in some cases from the rips I made and put up on this here page.<br />Everyone's streaming everything now anyway right?<br />
YouTube should be a more permanentish solution to files disappearing, at least until the next major paradigm shift in music consumption, which should happen any day now. <br />Unfortunately sound quality is a little lower, and no hi-res scans of liner notes and covers, but better to have these pages have actual music rather than just descriptions of unavailable records.<br />Thinking about actually posting some more music also, we'll see if that happens. No promises.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-45028900262483566322011-12-23T15:54:00.000-08:002016-04-05T17:14:37.054-07:00John (Luther) Adams - Songbirdsongs<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbrKZ_oLPxqrMMnkPBAqbxKB" width="100%"></iframe> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.johnlutheradams.com/">John Luther Adams</a> is probably best known for being the less well known John Adams in the small world of minimalism-influenced contemporary classical music. While the other John (Coolidge) Adams has become one of the most widely performed contemporary composers in the world, as well as a highly respected conductor, John Luther Adams has had an equally long, though less well-recognized career.<br />
<br />
Adams has been living in Alaska since 1978, and has been composing quiet, slow, minimal music there, reflecting the Arctic landscape around him. He's released a number of CDs on <a href="http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=search&composer_id=8">New World Records</a>, <a href="http://newalbion.com/artists/adamsjl/index.htm">New Albion</a> (which has also released early music from John Coolidge Adams, furthering the confusion there), <a href="http://www.coldbluemusic.com/index.html">Cold Blue</a> and <a href="http://cantaloupemusic.com/artists.php?artist_id=91">Cantaloupe</a>.<br />
<br />
"Songbirdsongs" was Adams' first LP, released in 1982. As you might expect from the title, most of the material is adapted from birdsong. The pieces are all very much of a kind, sparse, slow, and quiet, performed on ocarinas, piccolos and percussion only. The music on this album is very different from Adams' later music which I have heard. While much of his work is glacial, featuring very slow development with a focus on harmonic movement and slow polyrhythms, "Songbirdsongs" suggests something of a meeting of Morton Feldman and Harry Partch.<br />
<br />
The pieces here form a suite, with relatively little variation between them. Nothing deviates too much from its birdsong origins, with percussion largely consisting of arrhythmic background to the bird-like ocarina and piccolos. Adams says in the notes that these pieces are not meant to be transcriptions, but rather evocations - focusing too much on the details of a perfect transcription would sacrifice the musicality of the pieces, and make them less interesting. With the percussion providing atmospheric background, listening to the LP is like listening to straight field recordings of birdsong, the percussion evoking wind, background forest noise, and rushing water.<br />
<br />
While the birdsong origins are extremely clear, "Songbirdsongs" has a very mysterious character about it. There is little melodic development, hardly any sense of rhythm, and lots of silence and very quiet sound. Morton Feldman's influence is evident in the static textures and dynamics, lack of development, and spontaneous introduction of new ideas and material. The pieces just start, float around for a bit, and end.<br />
<br />
Standout pieces include the fourth track, "August Voices," which feature vibraphones and marimbas echoing, responding to and leading the piccolo birdsong. "Mourning Dove" also features prominent marimba, playing rolling patterns as a harmonic background for the ocarina's dove calls. "Joyful Noise" features a bass drum, frantic birdsongs from ocarinas and piccolos, clappers and bells, and is the busiest and most intense of the pieces on the LP. One gets the sense here of something disturbing a forest full of birds, or perhaps mating season.<br />
<br />
"Songbirdsongs" was one of the later albums released on the always nifty Opus One Records. It's credited to just John Adams, rather than John Luther Adams, so presumably this was before JLA conceded the John Adams name. Of course, no re-release of this LP seems forthcoming, though the suite was performed very recently in New York City, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/arts/music/john-luther-adams-songbirdsongs-by-le-train-bleu-review.html">here's a link to a NY Times article about it</a>.<br />
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-81015513412775775902011-08-05T16:30:00.001-07:002011-08-05T16:31:30.913-07:00Still goingI'm still around, just been really busy. Long distance move, starting a new degree, working, life..<br />Expect something new hopefully within a few weeks.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-14884928479371885142011-03-16T15:46:00.000-07:002011-03-17T09:19:30.899-07:00Dickie Landry on CD & LP<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_dZXq0RpM3Qo1cbp4dSXAKJ1sjxfWZessiCo-RySP_3DPGHVhfGI-yxJgwJ9cL_DiUQ0PsiZJwk7Oj4Tfe26aFAGqkNZwq6uDOTLtxtRCUoN49eUZ2HrbVMnyJ8eFJ-lElpls7Kvj7Q/s1600/landry.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_dZXq0RpM3Qo1cbp4dSXAKJ1sjxfWZessiCo-RySP_3DPGHVhfGI-yxJgwJ9cL_DiUQ0PsiZJwk7Oj4Tfe26aFAGqkNZwq6uDOTLtxtRCUoN49eUZ2HrbVMnyJ8eFJ-lElpls7Kvj7Q/s320/landry.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584813249036095058" border="0" /></a><br />Hurrah! Dickie Landry's fantastic <a href="http://incessantnoise.blogspot.com/2009/08/dickie-landry-fifteen-saxophones.html">Fifteen Saxophones</a> album has been re-released by the very, very fine folks at Unseen Worlds records. I highly recommend everything in their catalog - only six releases so far, but all are fantastic, underheard gems. Their Elodie Lauten CDs are among my favorite re-releases of the past few years.<a href="http://www.unseenworlds.net/blog/store/"><br />You can buy Fifteen Saxophones on CD or limited LP here. Only $10 including shipping in North America!</a><br /><br />I'll try to have a new album up sometime next week.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-53258512911592329732011-03-06T14:44:00.000-08:002016-04-06T10:08:36.027-07:00Terry Riley / Pierre Mariétan - Keyboard Study 2 / Initiative (+Systèmes)<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbpStZtTkMJyfezFj-7iDT8H" width="100%"></iframe> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.terryriley.net/">Terry Riley</a>, as I have to assume anyone reading this site would already know, is one of the originators of classical minimalism. His 1964 composition "In C" is indisputably one of the classics of the 20th century.<br />
<br />
"Keyboard Study 2" is from around the same time as "In C". Riley first recorded this piece himself on his Reed Streams LP of 1964 (there called "Untitled Organ"). It consists of a set of modules which the performer is to repeat as many times as they want before moving on to the next module, similar to "In C" and other pieces from that period like "Olson III" and "Tread on the Trail".<br />
<br />
This particular LP was released originally on the great BYG label of France, which mostly released classic American free jazz and European psychedelic and progressive rock. Keyboard Study 2 / Initiative (+Systèmes) was one of the few modern classical releases on the label. Unfortunately it shares with all BYG releases a poor recording and a plethora of semi-official releases of dubious provenance and quality.<br />
<br />
This seems to be the earliest recording of a Terry Riley piece done without Riley performing, and is also notable for being a very early European performance of American minimalist music. In 1968, when this was recorded, Riley wouldn't have been that well known yet, with his "In C" LP just having come out earlier that same year.<br />
<br />
"Keyboard Study 2" has been recorded several other times over the years, though the number of recordings doesn't even begin to approach the dozens of recordings of "In C" out there. Riley's own version on the Reed Streams LP of 1964 was performed on an electronic organ, overdubbed, and sounds quite a bit like his later organ improvisations like "Persian Surgery Dervishes". That album was re-released on CD in 2007 on Elision Fields, and you can still buy it <a href="http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/labels/elision+fields.html">here</a>, though it looks like it may be out of print again. Steffan <span class="desc">Schleiermacher</span> made an excellent, though somewhat loosely interpreted version in the late 1990s on <a href="http://www.mdg.de/">MDG Records</a>, with computer-controlled digital pianos, and there's another version on <a href="http://www.stradivarius.it/">Stradivarius</a> recorded just a couple of years ago by Fabrizio Ottaviucci.<br />
<br />
This here version was performed by Martine Joste and Gerard Frémy, a french new music pianist of note, who I've also heard on an excellent recording of John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano from the late 1970s. He has also recorded several other pieces by Cage as well as works by Luc Ferrari and Stockhausen.<br />
<br />
This recording is particularly interesting for its production through overdubbing several different sessions, creating the sound of an army of pianos playing endlessly. Mostly the sound is purely textural, a dense drone of pianos, but sometimes individual lines pop out of the texture above the rest. The poor recording quality actually enhances the sound of the piece, blurring everything together into a beautiful, dense mess. It's without a doubt my favorite version of "Keyboard Study 2", even well eclipsing Riley's own recording.<br />
<br />
The second half of the LP is a piece by <a href="http://www.pierremarietan.com/">Pierre Mariétan</a>, called "Initiative (+Systèmes)" performed by GERM (Groupe d'Étude et Réalisation Musicale), a nine-piece ensemble, including Frémy and Joste as well as Mariétan himself. Mariétan came out of the serialist school, having worked early on with Stockhausen and Boulez, but by the late 1960s was writing frameworks for improvisation and similar chance-based pieces.<br />
<br />
"Initiative (+Systèmes)" is along similar lines to any number of semi-improvised group pieces of that era. The sound consists of mostly short noisy gestures, atonal, though the pianos sometimes provide some rhythmic underpinning to the piece. That said, it's certainly not a bad performance, there are some rather interesting sections and events, but it's very much a piece of its time, and it's a somewhat odd choice for the b-side to "Keyboard Study 2". It's worth a listen, but I doubt it'll become anyone's favorite piece.<br />
<br />
This rip is from a CD edition of the album released in 1998 on Spalax Music, a label that has mostly released obscure Krautrock re-issues and other psychedelic musics of the late '60s and early '70s. I think this recording is still available at the moment as an LP reissue on Get Back (<a href="http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/riley.pierre.marietan.terry.html">Forced Exposure has it here</a>), but I've found their releases to be very poor quality on the whole. This Spalax edition is well out of print, and the album is not available anywhere on CD or digitally right now.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rapidshare.com/files/451294377/Riley___Marietan_-_Keyboard_Study_2___Initiative.zip">Download 320 kbps mp3s + scans of liner notes (in French)</a>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-91137936540934237532011-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:002016-04-05T16:59:29.922-07:00Malcolm Goldstein - Vision Soundings<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbo8DKcnTHaa1KgjohXCWxK4" width="100%"></iframe> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.philmultic.com/artists/goldstein/index.html">Malcolm Goldstein</a> is a composer and improviser with strong aesthetic ties to Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening movement, and he developed his work around the same time as her, from the 1970s to the present. Much of his music consists of his improvised "soundings", which are deep explorations of the different textures which the violin is capable of. He's very committed to improvisation, and the few compositions of his I've heard composed for other people to play also consist of frameworks for improvisation. He has CDs available on <a href="http://xirecords.org/120.shtml">XI</a> and <a href="http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=81794">New World Records</a>.<br />
<br />
Goldstein's work isn't chaotic, jazz-influenced free-improv. His improvisations involve playing one note for extended periods of time with gradual textural variation. It's similar to, again, Pauline Oliveros Deep Listening improvisations, and also brings to mind some of Alvin Lucier and James Tenney's work.<br />
<br />
Side A of this LP, "Center of Rainbow, Sounding" is a live recording of a 1983 performance recorded by Phill Niblock at his Experimental Intermedia space. Goldstein plays a sort of screechy rapid tremolo on multiple strings continuously throughout the nearly 20 minutes of this piece, and scarcely varies the pitches he's using. Most of the change in sound comes from changing his bow position and technique. It's not exactly drone music, as it's very active, and the rapid notes never really blend together. It's an interesting exploration of the possibilities of improvised solo minimal violin playing, quite different from the approaches of, say, Tony Conrad or Henry Flynt.<br />
<br />
Side B of the LP is "Vision Tree Fragment," a live piece from 1984 recorded at New York's Roulette. This piece has Goldstein drumming and scraping a maple tree limb. Similar to his violin soundings, Goldstein searches the maple limb for different sounds and textures, the sound shifting as he moves around the limb and varies his playing. He also sings long tones to accompany the maple limb, and varies his vocal textures by singing different vowels and such. It has the feeling of a ritualistic, shamanic ceremony. Neat stuff.<br />
<br />
Vision Soundings was self-released by Goldstein in 1985. Some CDs of his have other recordings of his Soundings performances, but this LP is the only place these particular ones were released.<br />
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-49441658648799926152011-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:002016-04-06T10:07:29.275-07:00Stuart Dempster - On the Boards<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbrjKdmhn1DxTLwM7ud8BP18" width="100%"></iframe> <br />
<br />
<br />
Stuart Dempster first came to my attention as a member of The Deep Listening Band along with Pauline Oliveros. As a performer, he played trombone on the original LP of Terry Riley's In C, as well as countless other new music albums, and is a master of circular breathing. Looking at his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Dempster">short bio on Wikipedia</a>, he is also apparently credited with introducing the Didgeridoo to North America.<br />
<br />
His own first album In the Great Abbey of Clement VI was originally released in 1977 and is <a href="http://www.newalbion.com/artists/dempsters/index.htm">still available on CD on New Albion</a> records, along with a more recent CD from the mid-1990s, Underground Overlays From the Cistern Chapel. Both are fantastic albums of improvised drone music, based around droning trombones, didgeridoos and conchs (on a couple of tracks on Underground Overlays) interacting with the extremely reverberant spaces they were recorded in.<br />
<br />
This album was recorded in 1983, and has a similar sound to his other albums, though a rather different approach. The music here is not about an interaction between Dempster and the space he's in, as it was recorded in a fairly ordinary sounding concert hall, but is rather about interactions between himself and the audience.<br />
<br />
The first track, "Didjeridervish", was also recorded for In the Great Abbey of Clement VI, in a much longer version. It's performed, as you might guess, on a didgeridoo, and the name comes from the fact that during parts of the piece Dempster spins around, whirling dervish style, while playing the didgeridoo.<br />
<br />
The second track, "Roulette", features some audience interaction, as they are instructed to sing an Eb drone. Over this, Dempster plays around with the harmonics of the drone on a trombone, creating a swirling, subtly changing mass of sound.<br />
<br />
"Don't Worry, it Will Come" is a strange piece to listen to. It's a recording of a sound installation, the nature of which I can't quite figure out. In the liner notes for the CD Dempster writes, "With hoses hidden under the theater seats, the audience is, indeed, surprised." I think that means Dempster was blowing through hoses, with the other end under the seats of the audience, but I don't know. The sound of the piece ends up being comprised of random horn blasts followed by the audience laughing. Divorced from its installation context, it makes for confusing listening, but it's a short piece, and it gives the album some sonic variety.<br />
<br />
The final piece is the lengthiest, the nearly 20-minute long "JDBBBDJ (John Diamond's Big Beautiful Brass Didjeridu)". This piece is named for the instrument which Dempster uses, a custom-made brass didgeridoo with a bugle bell at the end. This exceptional instrument creates strong, unusual overtones, and the audience was instructed to sing along with the low drone or the overtones, creating a beautiful choral sound, with fantastic harmonies and sudden swells. It's incredibly beautiful, and is well-worth the download alone.<br />
<br />
This recording was originally released on cassette in 1986, self-released by Dempster, and was re-released on CD in 2001 on Anomalous Records, a great label which released some great experimental and noise music before sadly shutting down in 2004.<br />
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-61075558012607225392011-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:002016-04-05T17:12:45.885-07:00Stephen Montague - Slow Dance on a Burial Ground<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbp6gOKxRvnP3K13tuwgf-BG" width="100%"></iframe> <br />
<br />
What's this? Two posts in two weeks? And more coming!<br />
I'm trying to make my posting a bit more regular, rather than the super-infrequent posts of the past. Another post is coming up next Sunday. I can't promise that I'll be able to maintain a once-a-week posting rate, but I'll definitely aim for at least one entry per month. Anyway, on to the music!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Stephen Montague doesn't seem to be a terribly well-known composer. I never see him mentioned in lists of post-minimalist composers, possibly because he's UK-based, though he was born and raised in the US. Maybe he's better-known in Europe, I don't know. I only discovered him because I was checking out every LP on Lovely Records I could find. No real internet presence either, aside from a <a href="http://www.ump.co.uk/composer%20pages/montague.htm">bio and work list at his publisher's page</a>.<br />
<br />
Montague is one of the group of post-minimalist composers who combined elements of minimalism with romantic classical music, like John (Coolidge) Adams, Daniel Lentz, and others. He's got a number of CDs out, of which I have a couple, on ASV and Continuum Records. They're nice albums, some orchestral stuff, some chamber music and some mixed electronic works, and I would recommend them to anyone interested in the more accessible end of the post-minimalists, but this here LP is rather different.<br />
<br />
Side A of the LP is taken up by the 24 minute piece which gives the LP its title, "Slow Dance on a Burial Ground", a tape piece constructed from electronic sounds, recordings of log drums, field recordings and folk flutes. It reminds me a little of Alvin Curran's early work, with its mixture of drones, electronics and field recordings, but Montague's piece here has a strong ethnic/folky element, what with the prominent flutes. It's a beautiful piece, static and textural, which sticks with a consistent sound and feel throughout.<br />
<br />
"Paramell I" is the next track, for muted trombone and "muted" piano. Fantastic new music trombonist James Fulkerson plays the trombone, while Montague plays the piano, presumably muted with some fabric or something. Much of the piece features the two instruments playing in unison together, very fast staccato notes, sometimes with longer drone notes from the trombone. Surprisingly the sounds of the trombone and piano blend together, and it can be hard to tell which instrument is which, and when they play together it creates a nice combined texture.<br />
<br />
"Paramell Va" (meaning Paramell 5, variation a) is a somewhat similar piece for solo piano, here played by Philip Mead. It features very fast staccato playing on the piano, alternating between high and low chords. I could again compare it to Charlemagne Palestine's Strumming Music, but this piece has a very, very different character. It's more melodic rather than textural, and not what I would call droney at all. It's minimalistically repetitive, but with a more natural, free-flowing character than, say, Philip Glass' piano music, with fantastic crescendos caused by the use of the sustain pedal.<br />
<br />
This is a really excellent LP from an under-appreciated composer, and certainly the best work of his that I've heard. It was released on LP on the amazing <a href="http://www.lovely.com/">Lovely Records</a> in 1984, and is one of the very few items on that label that has never been re-released. Lovely seems to have been doing some archival releases lately, though, so maybe that'll happen someday.<br />
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-33765924446808469692011-02-06T15:14:00.000-08:002016-04-05T16:36:40.620-07:00Alvin Curran - For Cornelius / Era Ora<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbo_rZ4GsQYbaDcRB-nW08NO" width="100%"></iframe> <br />
<br />
<br />
As a consolation for taking down the <a href="http://incessantnoise.blogspot.com/2009/10/alvin-curran-fiori-chiari-fiori-oscuri.html">earlier Alvin Curran LP I posted</a>, here's another Curran LP, though a very, very different one. <span style="font-style: italic;">For Cornelius / Era Ora</span> has two pieces for piano, written in 1981 and 1986, respectively. It was Curran's first release of fully composed music performed by other people, his earlier LPs containing semi-improvised solo electroacoustic works performed by Curran himself.<br />
<br />
"For Cornelius" is performed here by the great Ursula Oppens. It's been recorded several other times, by Yvar Mikhashoff, Eve Egoyan and others, but this recording is the first time it appeared, and it's a beautiful version of the piece. It was written shortly after the death of Cornelius Cardew, the great british composer and political firebrand. Curran has some additional notes about the piece at his website <a href="http://www.alvincurran.com/writings/ForCorneliusnotes.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
"For Cornelius" is in three contrasting sections. The first one is a simple, pretty, Satie-esque little lyrical part, only a few minutes long. The meat of the piece is in the second part, a long droney work, reminiscent of Charlemagne Palestine's Strumming Music, with very gradual harmonic motion, moving towards increased dissonance over the whole section. The third section is a short little afterthought, similar to the first part, and makes something of an ABA structure, contrasting these very different sonic worlds.<br />
<br />
"Era Ora", unlike "For Cornelius", has only ever been released on this LP. It's performed by Ursula Oppens again, with composer and fellow MEV member Frederic Rzewski on a second piano.<br />
<br />
"Era Ora" belongs to a relatively small set of pieces written for multiple pianos, here only two, but writing for multiple pianos seems to create some significant logistical problems. Pianos are big and difficult to move, so just getting two of them together on a stage or in a studio can be pretty hard to do. It creates a very unique sound, though, and allows for an extremely rich texture - just one piano can make a lot of noise on its own.<br />
<br />
The piece begins with a jazzy little intro section on one piano, while the second piano plays tense pulses in the background. Slowly the pulses take over, and the jazzy element disappears. One piano keeps pulsing, sometimes using the sustain, and the second piano adds some higher pulsing occasionally as an accentuation.<br />
<br />
It quickly becomes difficult to distinguish one piano from another in a textural piece like this. Like the second section of For Cornelius, there are some nice contrasts between sustained and non-sustained sections, particularly around the mid point of the piece, where the pianos are playing staccato chords which get beautifully washed out with the sustain pedal, then come back into sharp focus when it's released. Eventually the texture thins out somewhat, ending on a melodic, slower section somewhat reminiscent of the beginning of the piece.<br />
<br />
Brian Olewnick, who often writes for <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/">AllMusic.com</a>, among other places, has a good review of the LP <a href="http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2008/09/alvin-curran-for-corneliusera-ora-new.html">here on his blog</a>.<br />
<br />
This LP was released in 1986 on the great <a href="http://www.newalbion.com/">New Albion</a> records. Unlike most of New Albion's releases, it has never been released on CD and is long out of print, and New Albion seems to have wound down operations - doesn't look like they've put anything out in about two years - so a re-release looks pretty unlikely.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-6107468165012706332010-10-23T18:22:00.000-07:002010-10-23T18:28:56.142-07:00UpdateThe always fantastic New World Records has done the commendable job of compiling and releasing Alvin Curran's 70's solo albums in a 3CD set - <span style="font-style: italic;">Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Fiori Chiari Fiori Oscuri</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Canti Illuminati I</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Works</span> are <a href="http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=86184">now available together in a very nice looking package.</a> I have removed the MP3s of Fiori Chiari from this site, since I don't want to hurt their sales at all, but if you're one of the 400 or so people who downloaded that fantastic album from this site, please buy this set from <a href="http://www.newworldrecords.org/">New World</a>.<br /><br />I'll be posting a new album soonish, perhaps a different Curran LP to make up for taking down Fiori Chiari.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-87564450930800451502010-09-29T16:35:00.001-07:002016-04-05T16:19:45.698-07:00David Rosenboom & Donald Buchla - Collaboration in Performance<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbptdiSsObZ2rZg5h_Nxi2Uq" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
David Rosenboom was an early proponent of minimalism and live electronic music, and a fantastic classical and free-jazz pianist. As a performer he's worked with LaMonte Young, Anthony Braxton, Jon Hassell, Robert Ashley, and others. He taught at the famous Mills College Centre for Contemporary Music in Oakland throughout the 1980s, and since the 1990s has been heading the music department at CalArts. He's got quite a lot of recordings under his belt, as a performer and composer, including CDs on <a href="http://www.lovely.com/">Lovely</a>, <a href="http://www.pogus.com/">Pogus</a> and Centaur, with recent rereleases of 1970s LPs on <a href="http://www.mutablemusic.com/">Mutable Music</a>, <a href="http://www.newworldrecords.org/">New World</a> and Japan's EM records.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, this LP is co-credited to Donald Buchla, designer of the famed Buchla Electric Music Box, one of the earliest modular synthesizers, so favored by Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick and others. He performs some of the synth material on "How Much Better if Plymouth Rock Had Landed on the Pilgrims, Section V".<br />
<br />
"And Out Come the Night Ears" takes up the first side of the LP, and is an amazing showcase for Rosenboom's improvising and pianistic skills. Rosenboom plays an unending flurry of notes throughout the piece. His playing is incredibly fast and fleet, more textural than anything else. He runs up and down the keyboard at blinding speed.<br />
<br />
Throughout this, a nearby Buchla synthesizer is set up to respond to Rosenboom's playing. It seems like it's probably using a pitch follower, and when he strays into certain areas of the keyboard the synthesizer responds with effects or sounds. Some low pitches cause the synth to make a snare-drum type sound, while other regions respond with synthesized bell-like tones or filtering effects or the like. It's an interesting piece, and again, Rosenboom's playing is extremely impressive without being pointlessly virtuosic. Rosenboom periodically employs the sustain pedal to blur the notes, but this is no "Strumming Music" piano drone piece. It's closer at times to a free jazz improvisation, though I can't think of any particular pianists who play like this.<br />
<br />
The last four minutes or so feature Rosenboom repeating a short clustery phrase, which causes the synth to process the sound and create a sort of detuned tremolo effect, with occasional snare synth interjections.<br />
<br />
"How Much Better if Plymouth Rock Had Landed on the Pilgrims, Section V" is the only only instance I'm aware of of Donald Buchla himself performing on a record. He and Rosenboom together play the then new Buchla Electric Music Box 300 Series, which from my understanding had an exceptional amount of sequencing capabilities for the time as well as live control over the settings.<br />
<br />
The piece features several extremely fast repeating synth melodies playing simple modal scales at varying speeds. It has a strongly Indian feel to it, and is quite reminiscent of some of Terry Riley's late '70s organ improvisations. It's a gorgeous piece, a fantastic example of late 1970s electronic minimalism.<br />
<br />
"And Out Come the Night Ears" has been released on CD as a bonus track with Rosenboom's "Future Travel" album on the fantastic New World Records. Apparently, however, this LP features a different excerpt from an hour long improvisation than the CD does. I haven't heard the CD so I don't really know how similar the material is.<br />
<br />
"How Much Better if Plymouth Rock Had Landed on the Pilgrims" has been recently released in its entirety, in nine sections, on a double CD also on New World Records. That version consists mostly of new recordings, however, though there seem to be excerpts from this version used in some capacity. Again, I don't have the CD so I don't know exactly what the similarities are.<br />
<br />
This LP was released in 1978 by the excellent 1750 Arch records, who released a ton of excellent music from the 1970s to the 80s, including lots of 20th century american classical music and some great free jazz stuff, most of which hasn't been rereleased.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-32173640551355788732010-07-04T21:19:00.000-07:002016-04-05T16:19:54.521-07:00Daniel Goode - Circular Thoughts<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbonXl3lCf3iVpZaraF1KurK" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
This is the first cassette release I'm posting on this site, and it's an excellent album released on that most dead of dead formats.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.danielsgoode.com/">Daniel Goode</a> is best known as one of the founders of the contemporary gamelan group Gamelan Son of Lion, but has composed quite a bit of non-gamelan music. He also co-founded the excellent New York group The Downtown Ensemble, and has been one of the few composers to work consistently in a minimalist style of music as a gradual process. As Steve Reich outlined famously in the 1970s, this is music where things occur slowly, and at a rate which can be easily understood and followed by any listener, according to a predetermined, simple structure. At least, that's how I think of this type of music, I may be way off from Reich's actual definition. Goode's got some CDs out on <a href="http://www.tzadik.com/">Tzadik</a> and <a href="http://www.experimentalintermedia.org/xi/113.shtml">XI</a> records, which I haven't heard but definitely want to check out.<br />
<br />
"Circular Thoughts" was composed in 1974, and was first released in a version for gamelan, played by Gamelan Son of Lion and included on their "Gamelan in the New World" album, released on Folkways in the 1970s then re-released on a double CD on the amazing <a href="http://www.locustmusic.com/">Locust</a> records along with GSOL's other Folkways LP. This here is a solo clarinet version played by Goode himself, and while it's recognizable as the same piece, it obviously sounds very very different.<br />
<br />
"Circular Thoughts" starts on some very quick ostinati, with a nice melodic pattern. The real meat of the piece begins a couple of minutes in. After a short silence, the clacking of the clarinet keys can be heard without any notes. Goode slowly, quietly begins blowing in the clarinet, and doesn't let up much for the duration of the piece. An exploration of circular breathing techniques, the material of the piece is really just a fast ascending modal scale repeated endlessly, but Goode accents different notes at different points, pulling melodies out of the repeated figure. The accented notes then slowly recede back into the texture of the scale pattern. At times, the effect makes it sound like several instruments playing, not through any multiphonics or anything, just by having a repeated textural bed with individual notes popping out. At times it almost sounds like a solo version of Steve Reich's early phasing music, which doesn't make any sense but there you go.<br />
Towards the end of the piece Goode starts to throw in some traditional scottish (?) melodies now and again, making a nice little contrast to the repetitive stream of scales before. Incredibly beautiful, meditative, and probably my favorite piece of music for a solo, monophonic instrument.<br />
<br />
"Selected Chambers" is a very different piece. According to the notes, it is something of a collage of compositions and performances of Goode's pieces, as well as birdsong played at different speeds and backwards, and soundscape recordings of a stream. The piece starts out very sparse, then gradually builds in density with more and more birdsong until clarinet recordings start to come in after about 10 minutes. The birdsong and clarinet continue and are electronically manipulated and mixed together, creating an overall slowly developing, atmospheric piece. Reminds me of some of Jon Gibson's work mixing field recordings, electronics and clarinet, like his "Extensions" on <a href="http://incessantnoise.blogspot.com/2010/06/jon-gibson-in-good-company.html">"In Good Company"</a> (the previous album posted on this blog), but Goode's work here is more abstract, atmospheric, experimental and less new-agey than Gibson's.<br />
<br />
This cassette was released in 1987 on <a href="http://www.frogpeak.org/">Frog Peak Music</a>, a publisher and label which still exists, though this release is long out of print.<br />
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-65116963839454259262010-06-03T14:52:00.000-07:002016-04-05T22:48:04.164-07:00Jon Gibson - In Good Company<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DWHRWChs8HI" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
Jon Gibson is probably one of the most important performers in Minimalist music. He primarily plays saxophone and clarinet, plus occasional flute. He played in the premieres Terry Riley's "In C," Steve Reich's "Drumming," was a founding member of Philip Glass' ensemble, and so premiered a whole lot of his early work, and has worked and recorded with LaMonte Young, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran, and pretty much every major American Minimalistish composer who needed a reed player.<br />
<br />
As a composer he's somewhat less known, though his work is really up there with all of those guys. He made two albums on Philip Glass' old Chatham Square label in the 70s, "Two Solo Pieces" and "Visitations," which have been rereleased on CD by the Italian New Tone label with bonus tracks (hard to find, but <a href="http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/gibson.jon.html">Forced Exposure</a> has them). Both of these albums are among the top 70's minimalist recordings. "Two Solo Pieces" has an amazing piece performed on a church pipe organ, somewhat reminiscent of Charlemagne Palestine's organ music - very dense, long tones clusters, walls of sound. "Visitations" has some neat strange soundscapey stuff, and the bonus tracks on both CDs are just as worthwhile as the main albums.<br />
<br />
He also put out a CD on John Zorn's <a href="http://www.tzadik.com/">Tzadik</a> label in 2006, "Criss X Cross," which actually consists of recordings from 1979, solo pieces played by Gibson of continuous, meandering saxophone and flute lines, with some electronic effects.<br />
<br />
This CD here, "In Good Company," is a showcase for Jon the performer as well as the composer, and serves as something as a sampler of classic Minimalist music, though most of it was unrecorded at the time the CD came out. It features music from Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams, the very infrequently recorded Terry Jennings, as well as Gibson himself, and features LaMonte Young on piano on one track.<br />
<br />
The disc starts off with Gibson's "Waltz" (1982), a nice, simple little waltz performed on piano and sax. Nothing mind-blowing, but it's a pleasant enough way to start the album.<br />
<br />
Next is John Adams' "Pat's Aria" (1987), a piece from his opera Nixon in China, with the vocal line here performed by Gibson on saxophone, with piano and synth accompaniment. It's a gorgeous piece, and I much prefer it to the vocal version, at least as a stand-alone piece of music.<br />
<br />
Steve Reich's "Reed Phase" (1967) is next, one of Reich's early phasing pieces. This is the first recording of this piece, and if you've heard any of Reich's phasing works from the late 60's you know what to expect. Gibson plays a short repeating phrase on sax, then overdubs himself playing the same phrase several times slightly out of phase, creating shifting clouds of sound. With the reed based instrumentation here, the sound ends up almost sounding like bagpipes. Pretty interesting.<br />
<br />
Terry Jennings' "Terry's G Dorian Blues" (1962) follows, being the earliest composed piece on the disc. Jennings was a friend and contemporary of LaMonte Young, and this is one of the <a href="http://www.discogs.com/artist/Terry+Jennings">very few recordings</a> of his work available. His obscurity is probably partly due to the fact that he died in 1981, so he never got to benefit from the relative surge in interest in early Minimalist music in the 1990s. There's a recent CD on UK label <a href="http://www.anothertimbre.com/">Another Timbre</a> which features 5 piano pieces of his performed by John Tilbury (which I just ordered - on sale at the <a href="http://www.anothertimbre.com/">label website</a> until June 30th 2010 - sounds excellent), the release of which probably triples the amount of his music which is available. The piece on this album is interesting though somewhat hampered by the early '90s keyboard sounds (something which afflicts many of the pieces on this disc to varying degrees). It's a 12-bar blues piece with a 5-note repeating melodic pattern played over it, which creates a strange shifting melody. The electric piano is played by LaMonte Young, one of the very few commercial recordings of him as a performer.<br />
<br />
After that is "Bed" (1976), from Philip Glass' epic "Einstein on the Beach." Originally it was performed with vocalists, but here is just keyboards and saxes. Since the vocals are all wordless, it transitions to sax very nicely, and it's nice to hear just this extract of the mammoth work which it comes from.<br />
<br />
Terry Riley's "Tread on the Trail" (1965) is next, a piece from the same era as his classic "In C", and this is the first recording of it. It ends up sounding something like a jazzier "In C", with repeated phrases appearing at different times among the different instruments. Nice, and an important, neglected piece.<br />
<br />
Another of Gibson's pieces is next, "Song 3" (1976). According to the liner notes it was inspired by bagpipe music, and it sounds like it, with long tones contrasted with very short, quick bursts of ornamentation, and a continuous sound created by Gibson's mastery of circular breathing. Fantastic stuff.<br />
<br />
Next is another Philip Glass piece, "Gradus (For Jon Gibson)" (1968), a very early Glass work, obviously composed for Gibson himself. Solo saxophone, quick, repeating phrases and a shifting accent pattern make this an interesting, trancey piece.<br />
<br />
The disc ends with Gibson's "Extensions II" (1981). It features recorded bird sounds, soundscapes, electronic drones, percussion and saxophones, and it's an interesting piece, though it might veer a little close to new-age at times.<br />
<br />
All in all this disc is a great listen the whole way through, and is historically quite significant as it features the only recordings of very early minimalist works by a number of major composers. I think it can also be said that this is the only one album with contributions from all of the Big Four American Minimalists (Young, Reilly, Reich and Glass). Shame about the somewhat dated production and keyboard sounds but that's usually not too distracting.<br />
<br />
This CD was released in 1992 on Point Music, a label which I think was run by Philip Glass, and also put out some great stuff from Arthur Russell, Gavin Bryars and others. Point was connected to some major labels but ceased to exist sometime in the late 1990s, and I think everything on it has since gone out of print, though some of the albums they put out are still pretty easy to find.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-80992076744215122052010-05-03T02:22:00.000-07:002016-04-05T16:20:07.689-07:00Loren Rush - The Contemporary Piano Project Volume 2<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbpRd7Va7fG3JFcwn_7o31Pu" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
There's not a whole lot of info out there on the interwebs about Loren Rush. He came out of the same San Francisco scene in the early 60s as Terry Riley et al., and had a very early free-improvisation group with Riley and Pauline Oliveros in the late 1950s (by the way, if anyone out there has the recordings of this group, I would really really love to hear it). There's a fairly detailed biography, written in 1973, excerpted from Third Ear magazine, over here <a href="http://www.o-art.org/history/70%27s/Composers/L.Rush.html">http://www.o-art.org/history/70%27s/Composers/L.Rush.html</a>, and a couple of radio programs from the 1960s with his music over at archive.org<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/C_1963_02_22">http://www.archive.org/details/C_1963_02_22</a><br />
<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/C_1967_11_21">http://www.archive.org/details/C_1967_11_21</a><br />
<br />
Otherwise, not much to be found about his work since the release of this here LP, "The Contemporary Piano Project Volume 2". There seems to be a Volume 1 and Volume 3 of this series in existence, featuring works from various composers, but I can't find any real info on those. This LP was released on Serenus Records in 1977.<br />
<br />
The four pieces here are quite varied and nifty. Each one is a little over 10 minutes long. First up is "Oh, Susanna", which is built around a quotation from Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", featuring some atonal, but still rather pretty, variations on that theme. Interesting structure, the theme is quite recognizable and pops up periodically, then slowly moves to being unrecognizable.<br />
<br />
Next is "A Little Travelling Music," a really fantastic piece for piano with some computer-synthesized tape. This piece is from 1973, and must be among the first instances of FM synthesis, an early technique which enabled fairly complex sounds to be generated through a relatively simple process. The piano plays a drone in the lower register with some more complex repeated material in the upper parts, and the tape part responds and interacts with the piano very nicely, often melding almost completely. <br />
<br />
Side B of the LP is taken up by "soft music, HARD MUSIC," ostensibly one piece but the two movements are about as different as they could possibly be. Both are for three pianos, here all played by Dwight Peltzer and overdubbed.<br />
<br />
True to the title, "soft music" is rather gentle, quiet, slow and textural. It's sort of ethereal and meandering as well, in a good way, with no clear themes, and a rather elastic sense of rhythm. Reminds me somewhat of some Morton Feldman stuff, but a good deal more dense than Feldman tends to be.<br />
<br />
"HARD MUSIC," on the other hand, is a 12 minute long piano drone in the vein of contemporary works by Charlemagne Palestine and LaMonte Young. The pianist hammers continuously on the same notes throughout the duration of the piece, creating immense clouds of overtones and a really thick drone. Since "HARD MUSIC" is played on three pianos, it's even more intense and heavy than Palestine's Strumming pieces. Amazing, and my personal favorite piece on the LP though really it's all great stuff.<br />
<br />
The only other recordings of Rush's work that I've managed to find are a piece from the 1960s, "Nexus 16," on an old Wergo LP with works by John Cage, Robert Moran and Anestis Logothetis, which I might post some time in the future, and a CD called "The Digital Domain: A Demonstration" from 1983, which has the distinction of being the first album ever released solely on CD. "The Digital Domain" has some interesting pieces from a bunch of composers, was compiled and produced by Rush, and has a short droney piece of his for computer-processed trombone and voice. Might post that CD up some time too.. We shall see.<br />
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-49331063802384361092010-04-01T02:00:00.000-07:002010-04-01T02:32:29.245-07:00Still aliveIt's been a very long time since the last posting here, but I swear I haven't forgotten about this blogging thing.. I'm just finishing up with school, and should have lots of time on my hands within a few weeks. I'll try to get some new posts up soon. <br /><br />Next will probably be "The Music of Loren Rush", some fantastic droney piano compositions from this under-recorded and under-heard composer who did some early work with Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros.<br /><br />In the meantime, a link to a post on another blog: <br /><br /><a href="http://continuo.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/laurie-spiegel-the-expanding-universe/"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://continuo.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/spiegelcoverfrontsmall2.jpg?w=400&h=400"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://continuo.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/spiegelcoverfrontsmall2.jpg?w=400&h=400" border="0" alt="" /></a></a><br /><br />Laurie Spiegel's "The Expanding Universe" is an excellent minimalist computer music LP from the late 70's. I was going to post it up here but then found that it was already on the internets. Anyway, great stuff, get it from Continuo's Weblog here : <a href="http://continuo.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/laurie-spiegel-the-expanding-universe/">http://continuo.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/laurie-spiegel-the-expanding-universe/</a>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-17114052492471187412009-12-14T21:05:00.001-08:002016-04-05T15:21:34.347-07:00Pauline Oliveros - The Well and the Gentle<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbqchuw23zctg0B1FmYtCkON" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Pauline Oliveros is one of the earliest composers linked to the minimalist movement, having worked with Terry Riley beginning in the late 1950s. In San Francisco, she co-founded the famous San Francisco Tape Music Centre with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, William Maginnis and Tony Martin, creating one of the first electronic music studios in North America, and one of the only ones which was not affiliated with a university.<br />
<br />
Oliveros began composing primarily electronic music, with early Buchla synthesizers, tape, and various home-made and appropriated electronic equipment. In the 1980s she developed her theory of Deep Listening, and lately has been primarily been playing accordion with some electronic processing, which she calls the Expanded Instrument System.<br />
<br />
The first three pieces ("The Well", "The Gentle", and "The Well/The Gentle") all feature Oliveros performing with the Relache ensemble, here also featuring fantastic accordionist Guy Klucevsek. Most of Oliveros' recorded works are her solo playing or small groups (like Deep Listening Band, Carrier Band), so it's great to hear her here in a larger group setting.<br />
<br />
"The Well" is a slowly building, droney piece, featuring prominent wordless vocals from singer Barbara Noska. According to the notes, the piece is something of a guided improvisation, with Oliveros conducting the group, and using a pre-determined pitch group.<br />
<br />
"The Gentle" is a rather unique piece in Oliveros' canon in that it's very rhythmic. It begins with a basic woodblock beat which continues throughout the piece, and all the players follow the rhythm throughout. It sounds very typically minimalist, in a way, with its insistent continuous pulse. Beautiful piece, and completely unlike any of her other work that I've heard.<br />
<br />
The set goes on with "The Well/The Gentle", a shorter, combined version of the first two tracks, which segue nicely from one section to the next.<br />
<br />
The rest of the set features some excellent solo accordion and voice pieces from Oliveros, recorded in a giant empty water reservoir in Cologne. Similar, though somewhat more melodic than her later Deep Listening Band work, much of which was recorded in a reservoir in Washington state. The extreme natural reverb washes everything out into a beautiful drone.<br />
<br />
This here 2LP set was released in 1985 on the venerable Hat Hut label. About a year ago I saw Oliveros give a talk at my university and she mentioned that Hat Hut was going to be rereleasing is on CD soon. I have yet to see any other evidence of that, and have been checking their website frequently, but I sure do hope that's the case. If they do rerelease it though, they'll probably cut some tracks to fit the 2LP onto one CD (total time is 86 minutes) as they have done many times before. In which case, this rip still won't be totally pointless. Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-55333035485891108282009-11-27T14:58:00.000-08:002009-11-27T15:01:44.088-08:00Updates, againAgain, sorry for the long time without updates. I'm in school finals now, but should be finished-ish soon, and should be able to get some stuff up sometime in December. Next things coming up are probably Laurie Spiegel's "Expanding Universe" & Pauline Oliveros' amazing, stupidly out of print 2LP "The Well and the Gentle". Stay tunedAaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-60418416489330840062009-10-18T21:48:00.000-07:002016-04-05T15:21:26.091-07:00Ingram Marshall - The Fragility Cycles<br />
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbqY6Vvw4i_y7b7n2VYzmQSW" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Ingram Marshall has been active since the mid 70s, and this here is his first album. He's one of the earlier second-generation minimalists, along with John Adams, and studied under early electronic music greats Vladimir Ussachevsky and Morton Subotnick.<br />
<br />
This LP was recorded in 1977 (at Charlemagne Palestine's New York City loft!), and released on Marshall's own IBU records.<br />
<br />
The Fragility Cycles was a semi-improvised piece for live performance, performed solo by Marshall. It's played on gambuh (a balinese bamboo flute), Tcherepnin synthesizer, tape, voice, a delay system, and some percussion instruments. The end result is a beautiful, droning swirl of sound. The piece is very textural and slow, with sounds meshing with one another beautifully. <br />
<br />
Marshall has continued to explore fairly similar sounds, his relatively well-known piece "Fog Tropes" for brass sextet is a beautiful, droning classic. I've got a couple of more recent CDs of his, and it's all excellent, definitely worth checking out.<br />
<br />
I believe some of the music from this LP has been rereleased on CD on <span style="font-style: italic;">IKON and Other Early Works</span> on New World records, but I don't think it has the entire Fragility cycles album, which is a shame because the whole thing flows beautifully as one piece of music. <br />
<br />Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-54189310939822686592009-10-13T00:37:00.000-07:002010-10-23T18:20:14.622-07:00Alvin Curran - Fiori Chiari Fiori Oscuri<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb3EO2TZLTpu_fO7v6-orLTl_KGK-V9H89JbCHq80NwRJjV1yhD5kRem0maW4q6q27jot2yNWZuDehDqTka3Hc6R0gOICDJpQMQQ8o4plD9rhFx2I1zf1qG8oYSRwpudcxrFVXKr5yeg/s1600-h/front.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 318px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb3EO2TZLTpu_fO7v6-orLTl_KGK-V9H89JbCHq80NwRJjV1yhD5kRem0maW4q6q27jot2yNWZuDehDqTka3Hc6R0gOICDJpQMQQ8o4plD9rhFx2I1zf1qG8oYSRwpudcxrFVXKr5yeg/s320/front.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391989204727377282" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Alvin Curran was one of the members of the Musica Elettronica Viva collective, along with Fred Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum and others.<br /><br />Curran's first solo album, <span style="font-style:italic;">Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden</span>, was originally released in 1975, and consisted of largely improvised live electronic and acoustic drone music. <span style="font-style:italic;">Fiori Chiari Fiori Oscuri</span> was released a short while later, and continues in a similar vein, with more soundscapey tapes, vintage synths, and acoustic instruments.<br /><br />Side one starts with recordings of a cat purring, and then goes through a long series of electronic synthy drone bits, with occasional soundscape recordings underneath the synths.<br />Side two goes through a lot of change in its 28 minutes, starting with Alexis Rzewski speaking (I'm guessing he was Fred's young son). It goes into some toy piano, then quite a bit of super-fast minimalist piano playing, in the vein of LaMonte Young & Charlemagne Palestine's piano music. The piece ends on some nice improvised jazzy piano, which fades into electronic chimes and tapes of dogs barking.<br /><br />While <span style="font-style:italic;">Songs and Views</span> was rereleased on Catalyst, a subsidiary of BMG, in the mid-90s, <span style="font-style:italic;">Fiori Chiari</span> has remained out of print for the past 30 + years, never released digitally. Shame. It would be really great if someone out there collected all of these 70s Curran LPs together and rereleased them.<br /><br />UPDATE:<br />New World records has, in fact, collected all of Curran's 70s LPs and rereleased them, in a 3CD set. Looks amazing. Took down the download link since this is now commercially available and I don't want to bite into their sales. Go check out the set <a href="http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=86184">HERE</a>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-14096512934238235312009-09-02T17:17:00.000-07:002009-09-02T17:23:07.431-07:00UpdatesGood to see some people are actually getting to this site & downloading the music. I've been away for a few weeks but now I'm back & plan on posting some more music.. Once I get into the swing of things I'll try to be posting at least one entry per week. BTW, any suggestions on good places on the web to promote this here blog would be appreciated. I haven't quite figured this blogging thing out yet.<br /><br />upcoming entries include<br />- Alvin Curran - Fiori Chiari (Amazing 2nd solo LP from Curran, released in the mid 70s)<br />- Ingram Marshall - The Fragility Cycles<br />- Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe<br />- David Rosenboom & Don Buchla - Collaboration in Performance<br />- Fred Rzewski - Plays Rzewski, Braxton & EislerAaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-41000035049210906582009-08-10T23:54:00.000-07:002011-03-16T15:48:18.398-07:00Dickie Landry - Fifteen Saxophones<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxQKb0o1mALuMgkaoQ3odBsZfiGsvVxgagji9UjWHABuxwEKDEIz1L76HKs4lgaZJPQmHdtWvmEuKNAVd_nChfIWZUVbl05-EK9iwhwBj1aGW57PSXGErJz1bqjtK62DeDZX5w7p6IcQ/s1600-h/front.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 309px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxQKb0o1mALuMgkaoQ3odBsZfiGsvVxgagji9UjWHABuxwEKDEIz1L76HKs4lgaZJPQmHdtWvmEuKNAVd_nChfIWZUVbl05-EK9iwhwBj1aGW57PSXGErJz1bqjtK62DeDZX5w7p6IcQ/s320/front.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368596333614262130" border="0" /></a><br /><br />More frequently credited as Richard Landry, for some reason he decided to go with the name Dickie for this LP. Landry would probably be best known for playing sax with Philip Glass throughout the 70's. He played on pretty much all the original recordings of Glass' seminal pieces, like "Einstein on the Beach", "Music in Twelve Parts", "Music With Changing Parts", "Music in Fifths", "North Star", etc.. He also played on the Talking Heads' "Speaking in Tongues" and Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison's solo album "Casual Gods". Despite his close working relationship with Glass, though, this album bears more of a relation to Terry Riley's early improvisational, jazzy aesthetic than Glass' additive, endlessly repetitious style. This is a great album of dreamy, droney minimalist music, which nowadays would probably pass for ambient or some such thing.<br /><br />Landry has recorded a number of albums, and seems to still be somewhat active today. There's not much info about him on the web, but I was able to find <a href="http://talent.jazzandheritage.org/users/823">this page with a short bio and some nice recordings</a>. He released two albums in the earlyish seventies on Philip Glass' Chatham Square label, which I would LOVE to hear if anyone out there has them.<br /><br />This album was released on the great German Wergo label in 1977, and has three long tracks performed entirely by Landry. The LP was produced by frequent Philip Glass producer Kurt Munkacsi.<br /><br />The first piece, "Fifteen Saxophones", is about 10 minutes of overdubbed sax playing, presumably fifteen overdubbed tracks. There's some interlocking, hocketing parts, and some dronier sections. On the whole this piece is rather reminiscent of Terry Riley's "Poppy Nogood", though the fact that it's using overdubbing rather than just delay allows for a degree of complexity and interaction between the parts.<br /><br />The second track, "Alto Flute Quad Delay", consists of, as you might guess, Landry playing an alto flute through a long delay. Landry plays primarily long tones here, so it doesn't end up sounding all that similar to Terry Riley's delay-based works like "A Rainbow in Curved Air" or "Poppy Nogood" which tended to have faster playing.<br /><br />The last track, "Kitchen Solos", takes up all of Side B on the LP. Here Landry is playing solo saxophone with a long delay system. This track was recorded live at the Kitchen in NYC. While he plays some long tones and some repetitive phrases like a good minimalist, there's also some nice post-Coltrane free-jazzy sax squealing and multiphonics at times. This piece is probably mostly or perhaps entirely improvised, and has some really great bits, like a couple of minute of key clicks which end up sounding like some weird percussion instrument through all the delay.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.unseenworlds.net/blog/store/">Available on CD & LP from Unseen Worlds</a>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-41393017755319446182009-08-10T17:36:00.000-07:002016-04-05T15:21:16.274-07:00Garrett List - Your Own Self<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MtJaLBtbhWs" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
I don't know a whole lot about Garrett List. According to the short bio on <a href="http://www.garrettlist.com/">his website</a> he had a background in Jazz playing and then went on to be more involved in new music composition. He's got quite a resume, having worked with minimalist and new music people like LaMonte Young, Arthur Russell (on various works from the '70s, including some of his recently unearthed pop stuff released on "Love is Overtaking Me"), Yoshi Wada, Fred Rzewski and MEV, as well as free-jazz greats like Anthony Braxton, Byard Lancaster and Ronald Shannon Jackson. <br />
<br />
He's recorded a few albums but I haven't been able to find much of his music. His 1982 LP "Fire & Ice" on Lovely Music is, as I remember (it's been a while) a rather unfortunate pop-jazz-new music hybrid sorta thing which has not aged well at all. The only other thing I've heard is a track on the <a href="http://www.orangemountainmusic.com/">Orange Mountain Music</a> compilation "New Music, New York 1979", which is nice but unspectacular. "Your Own Self" is another story.<br />
<br />
This piece is a beautiful example of a minimalist/jazz crossover which is exceptionally unique. It inhabits a somewhat similar world to Fred Rzewski's Coming Together and Attica (covered earlier on this here blog, recorded around the same time and released on the same label), but is much more indebted to jazz, with a heavily improvised middle section.<br />
<br />
The piece begins with an organ drone, and some quiet singing and reciting of phrases from the text. Gradually more instruments are introduced, primarily horns playing long tones. After a couple of minutes the bass comes in, and starts playing sparse notes, which over several minutes become more frequent until it's playing a full-fledged jazzy bass-line. The horns follow a similar build-up from long tones to faster playing.<br />
<br />
The build up in this piece is perfect. It's so slow and fluid, you barely notice anything is happening, until you compare two points in the piece. At 11:00ish on side A there's a sudden break, and a fast, hihat-based drum beat comes in, the first major change in the piece. This section has a beautiful texture with fast piano scales, sparse bass notes, long horn tones, fast vibes, and vocalists singing and reciting the text. <br />
<br />
Side A fades out, and Side B begins where A left off, jumping quickly into a long section of freeish jazz, with a propulsive rhythm section laying the base. This goes on for about 9 minutes, and then the piece goes back into a section resembling the first part, with long tones and quiet speaking voices.<br />
<br />
I don't recognize most of the names of the musicians on this LP. There's Fred Rzewski on piano, Jon Gibson on sax, and vocalist Joan LaBarbara (who is an excellent composer as well, and appears on the classic 70s recording of Philip Glass' "Music in Twelve Parts"). Other than that I don't know much about the other musicians. Oh well. <br />
<br />
I imagine I'll be saying this a lot, but someone should really re-release this LP. It would be great to hear the whole piece without the side-break in the middle, for one thing.<br />
<br />
This LP was released in 1973 on Opus One records.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rapidshare.com/files/266482454/Garrett_List_-_Your_Own_Self_MP3.zip">Download 320 kbps MP3</a>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-49838425569404008092009-08-09T19:00:00.001-07:002016-04-05T15:20:30.107-07:00Frederic Rzewski - Coming Together<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL-YqbZM_hCbogmvJqqMC55ZG5g7ybf3fe" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
Rzewski's "Coming Together" is unquestionably one of the great
Minimalist masterpieces, and this first recording of it is absolutely
incredibly amazing. It's ridiculous that it's never been re-released.<br />
<br />
"Coming Together" is an extremely simple piece. It's really nothing more
than a short text read over a repetitive, fast sequence, much of which
is played in unison. But the overall effect it creates is of a very slow
build up of tension to an incredible climax after 19 minutes.
<br />
<br />
The text comes from a letter written by Sam Melville, who was an inmate
at Attica prison, and was one of the leaders of the 1971 Attica riots,
where Melville was killed.
<br />
<br />
The music starts with the piano playing fast rhythmic notes while most
of the other instruments playing longer tones over this foundation.
Gradually the other instruments start to play faster until they're all
playing in a fast, tense unison.
<br />
<br />
The lineup on this recording is pretty amazing. Rzewski himself plays
piano. Jon Gibson, who has worked with the big four minimalist composers
(Young, Riley, Reich and Glass) as well as being an excellent composer
himself, plays alto sax. Composer Alvin Curran, also of Rzewski's MEV
group, plays synthesizer. Garrett List, whose beautiful LP Your Own Self
will probably be the next thing I'll feature on this blog, plays
trombone. Karl Berger play vibes, and has played on some classic ESP
jazz recordings as well aso working with Don Cherry. Violist Joan
Kalisch has played on recordings by Don Cherry and Alice Coltrane, and
Richard Youngstein has worked with Paul Bley. The reading is done by
stage actor Steve Ben Israel, who was a member of New York's Living
Theatre.
<br />
<br />
The other pieces on the album are "Attica" and "Les Moutons de Panurge".
"Attica" has the same lineup as "Coming Together", though Curran plays
piccolo trumpet rather than synth, and is sort of a companion piece,
with the text coming from a quote from former Attica prison inmate
Richard X. Clark. It's much slower, calmer and droning than "Coming
Together".
<br />
<br />
"Les Moutons de Panurge" is a classic piece of process music, whereby
the performers are supposed to play a very long melodic line through a
process of adding one note at a time (playing the first note, then the
first and second notes, and so on). The interesting bit of the piece
comes in the instruction that if the performers forget where they are in
the piece (which should happen pretty easily), they are to continue
playing but not try to find their way back together again. The piece is
played here by the Blackearth Percussion Group.
<br />
<br />
This LP was recorded in 1973 and released on the excellent Opus One
records - all the covers of LPs on the label were meant to respond to
black light! Trippy.
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339424645798949287.post-52013051702636445002009-08-09T18:59:00.001-07:002009-08-09T19:06:54.880-07:00Statement of PorpoiseThe point of this blog is to post some rare and/or obscure, out-of-print recordings of 20th century experimental music, hopefully exposing some forgotten or overlooked works. Much of the stuff I will post here is taken from vinyl records from my university library, which has a quite substantial collection, along with some stuff from my own collection. My interests tend primarily towards Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, as well as free-improvisation and free jazz, so the bulk of what gets posted here will probably fit into one of those rough categories, probably with the occasional modernist atonal wankfest.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398287842719439781noreply@blogger.com2