Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Monday, October 30, 2017
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Thursday, October 26, 2017
a different Moebius
this is a bit "Unknown Soldier" suggesting a real thing for the Doors
http://gadrecords.pl/en/portfolio/moebius-welcome-to-world-complete-studio-recordings-1979-82-cd/
unfocus group
listening i did half-wonder if it was a fictitious entity perhaps, a pretend reissue
but it would be a lot of trouble given all the voices and real instruments involved
so must be real
the concrete-y bits remind me a bit of Focus Group
what do you know - Julian H on the artwork design, Jon Brooks on the remastering
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Monday, October 23, 2017
musica in bocca / musica del mouse
subtitle = Invenzione su Una Voce
"The sound-source is the remarkable voice of the American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian, who was then the wife of Maderna¹s colleague Luciano Berio. Already well known in avant garde circles (and at the same time widely respected for her efforts in the early music movement), Berio had the ability to work with abstract vocal sounds and texts which, like the one used here, is basically a succession of phoneme sounds. (They were prepared by a German poet, Hans. G. Helm.) Uniquely, Berberian was able to give the meaningless text a deep expressive content. Maderna then modified and elaborated on the sound structure of the voice itself to create this eloquent and fantasy-like piece." - Joseph Stevenson
"Le Rire began with Maderna running the recorded voice of Marino Zuccheri through some of the studio's processing equipment. Luigi Rognoni remarked to Maderna that the resulting sound was like Bergson's definition of laughter. "In that case," responded Maderna, "we'll call it 'The Laugh.'"
"The work was completed in 1962. The tape contains three voices identified as belonging to Maderna, Zuccheri, and the American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian, who was then Berio's wife. In addition, there are sound of footsteps in the rain, and some tones generated by sine-wave oscillators. In a second section, there is more electronic-generated sound, as well as the altered sounds of recorded timpani, flutes, piccolos, and white noise.
"The work as it exists now is incomplete. The original version, according to notes, included live marimba and flute parts, but the parts for these instruments appear to be lost. The surviving tape, though represents a viable composition in itself; unusually sparse and consisting of many short fragments. " - Joseph Stevenson
Friday, October 20, 2017
Kayn in the brayn
frozen reeds release for the first time a 14 hour meisterwork - ‘A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’ [recorded 2009]- by Roland Kayn as a sixteen-CD box set
update / blimey i posted that before i found that Geeta Dayal has just written a piece on Kayn for 4Columns !
release rationale:
Roland Kayn’s truly epic ‘A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’ is both a major late opus and a summation of his vast contribution to the fields of electronic music and composition. Hearing the briefest passage of this piece, assembled in 2009 and totalling almost fourteen hours in length, is enough to date the material it is comprised of back to the era of his noteworthy LP boxed sets, released on the Colosseum label in the late 70s and early 80s.
Kayn’s so-called “cybernetic music”, to use the term he preferred, resolutely refuses to showcase the methods employed in its creation. The mass of logical interactions and correspondences underpinning the sounds we hear are submerged so deeply below the surface as to defy analysis. We are left only with the results, which grant the listener a profound and unique experience.
With ‘A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’, Kayn provides both a vast sonic territory and the invitation to explore it. From glacial, drone-like vistas to violent staccato sequences, the piece’s twenty-two movements chart the length and breadth of electronic music in as comprehensive a manner as has ever been attempted.
The resurgence of the modular synthesizer as a popular musical tool in recent years belies the possibility that its boldest virtuosi may already lie in the instrument’s past. In his work in Europe’s electronic music studios alongside colleagues such as Leo Küpper and Jaap Vink, Kayn created sonic textures in such abundant variety as to make genre categorisation redundant. Photographs of the one-off, hand-built systems upon which they were realised have inspired the awe of electronic-music connoisseurs for years, but their output has been all too little heard and appreciated.
In 2017, Roland Kayn represents perhaps one of the last titanic figures of 20th-century music to receive their due recognition, and to have their vital music restored to availability. Fresh from its release of Julius Eastman’s ‘Femenine’, which spurred on its composer’s wider rediscovery and gave rise to performances, broadcasts and festivals devoted to his work around the world, frozen reeds is proud to initiate the first stage of a similar process for Roland Kayn, which his incredible music so richly deserves.
Criminy but 16 hours is a LOT of listening. He really went in for gigantism, that Roland Kayn - everything he did seem to involve triple or quadruple albums. I still haven't got round to properly digesting all the Kayn epics that I've "acquired" over the years. Many are unzipped still.
However a Kayn split LP - with a Luigi Nono on t'other side - was one of the very first vinyl things I picked up that launched me into the big electronic / concrete obsession that has yet to fade. This would have been '98, '99 i think. Found it for $5 in a West Village flea market!
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The Kayn piece in question
I think I was more taken by the Nono at the time
But talk about gigantism and epic scale, this work is over two hours long!
This one is nearly five hours!!
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
for all the Bernie bros
Never before released Bernard Parmegiani soundtrack of the film "Rock" (1982) .
Limited Edition Remastered from the original master tapes.Exclusive Liner Notes + OBI STRIP
Released by Transversales | Disques - a french record label based in Paris, who specialise in the release of long lost tapes, the reissue of rare records & soundtracks.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Friday, October 13, 2017
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
australian explorers
Performance by David Ahern (potentiometers, ring modulator, violin, narration and direction) Recorded ABC Radio Studios, Sydney, 1 Apr 1969
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Traces
“It’s a picture from the top of this mountain, where it’s eternally twilight, death is there. I really thought there were angels near me. I was hearing things, seeing things. It was a very bad, sad time.” - R-L-J
“‘Traces of the Western Slopes’ was like West Side Story, I was drawing you into a scene. That was my reference, not songwriting – the scene when Riff and Tony are killed under the freeway was the fear of my own life at the time. The other influence was Rimbaud, who I was reading constantly. Steely Dan was a big influence in general: those chords in the chorus are certainly inspired by their dark patterns.” R-L-J
knudist park
"Ambiences and Images are remarkable for how mysterious they sound – sonic transmogrifies, through which Knud Viktor elegantly folded avant-garde practice back onto itself, presenting an incongruous and unexpected link between the synthetic and the natural world. During the 1970’s he turned his house into one large mixing desk with a myriad of home-built microphones and cables spiraling into the surrounding landscape. He meticulously record everything – the sounds of snoring rabbits, cicadas, termites in his house. While far from the first utilize field recordings as an elemental material, there its a sensitively and attachment to point of origin in this work, which has been rarely produced. Nature is as source, but in Viktor’s hands, so much more. A writhing, bubbling abstract world of intrigue and depth – at once subtle, while possessing the power of hammer’s blow"
- The Hum Blog on the reissue of Knud Victor's Ambiences and Images
a life well spent
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Friday, October 6, 2017
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Sunday, October 1, 2017
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