animasonix (Piotr + Bernard)

(via Bollops at Found Objects)

the first three at least are definitely soundtracked by Parmegiani

reviewing a Bernard P box set, I noted direct parallels between the processes of animation and musique concrete

"In the booklet accompanying L'Oeuvre Musicale, Parmegiani talks revealingly about an artistic past-time that preceded his adventures in sonic fiction: photomontage. He'd cut out a large number of image-fragments from magazines--human limbs, machine parts, etc--and then glue them into surreal assemblages. His music-making would follow a similar process, starting with the building-up of a sound-bank, an inventoried miscellany of noises, before embarking on composition. Compared to the photocollages, though, Parmegiani's music has at least one extra element: life. It's analogous maybe to animators who use stop-motion film techniques to bring a queer vitality to their materials, whether three-dimensional puppets or photographic and illustrative material (as with Terry Gilliam's Monty Python collages). "I do consider sounds as living things," Parmegian has said. But with concrete as with animation, the movement in the musique is life-like but umheimlich."


Bernie soundtracking one of his own experimental films



Now a lot of this concrete for cartoons and experimental shorts was rounded up, unofficially, by a label that called itself New England Electric Music Company for a six part series of mini-CD-Rs.

This label would seem to be the immediate precursor to Creel Pone:

"... named after the original New England Electric Music Company from the early XX century, which funded Thaddeus Cahill's ambitious plan to transmit music, produced on his Telharmonium, to hotels, restaurants, theatres and private homes via the telephone network. This visionary project (preceding the concept of online music streaming for generations) failed due to high costs and potential interference with telephone calls on the same line. The description on the website mixes reality with fiction, describing Thaddeus as our contemporary and Whitman' "good friend": 

"The New England Electric Music Company was set up by our good friend Thaddeus Cahill to make rare, obscure, and unreleased historic electronic music available to individuals on a local basis. All NEEMC releases are lovingly researched and sourced by Thaddeus throughout the world, mastered in the Math Lab by Hrvatski, designed by Pieter Christophssen and manufactured in small runs in the Reckankomplexreplication bureau by the Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge staff. They are sold to local music stores on a not-for-profit basis".

Koonce thinks he's Parmegiani

Pritchard to the converted

Damn! if I had known this was being reissued in March of last year I would have attempted to review it or write up the story of its making somewhere or other

I came across the vinyl of Nocturnal Earthworm Stew by Canadian radiophonics dude David Pritchard about a decade ago. Knowing nothing about the artist, but going through a phase of intense interest in all things Island Records and pre-punk Seventies, I decided to take the leap despite the not-cheap price tag and was not disappointed. It's a delightful oddity, laced with late-period Can whimsy, and it's electronic and stereodelic aspects would make it Creel-worthy I should have said.

Here's what I said about it on Blissblog back in 2008:

"A real curio stumbled upon in my local used record store, grabbing my eye on account of the title and the fact it was on Island in 1976, yet I'd never heard of the artist. Turns out he was something like the Canadian David Vorhaus, or more like their one-man equivalent to the Radiophonic Workshop (interesting how so much of the post-War avant-garde was linked to national radio stations: WDR in Cologne; the Experimental Studio department of RTF in Paris; the Studio Fonologia Musicale of Radio Italiana in Milan). Pritchard did a freaky all-night radio show for CHUM-FM in Toronto in the late Sixties and early Seventies, then went on to found a long-running operation called Sonic Workshop doing adventurous audio projects for some 30 years. The release date--1976, that liminal year--is signficant: aspects of the music hark back to Eno, Faust, the pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk, Uncle Meat Zappa; other look forward to Cabaret Voltaire, TG's 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Der Plan. I wouldn't say this record is quite in either of those leagues; there's a whimsical/willfully wacky/messing-with-FX/ooh-look-at-all-my-synths (every piece of gear and every treatment used is itemized in classic Tomita style) that equally brings to mind Godley & Crème with their Gizmo or Peel Show quirksters like Morgan Fisher. Yet (like Radiophonic Workshop or much of the stuff on Daphne Oram's Oramics) there's that aspect where it's all the more enjoyable for being grounded in the pragmatic/mercenary, no-nonsense-yet-gimmicky-and-Goonsy world of radio and commercial jingles, radioplay Foleys and sound FX, interstitional muzik etc. Mind you, the second side--"Nocturnal Earthworm Stew" itself--is actually a side-long opus/sound-suite intended as "an electronic rendering of the night"--which suggests a certain grand ambition.

Release blurb:

Nocturnal Earthworm Stew is a glorious experiment in electronic music, capturing the vitality and early curiosity of the 1970s. An earlier press statement called it "Serious headphone music made under the influence of Stockhausen, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Charles Ives and others." The influence of prog and space rock is pronounced, and contributions from Canadian prog legends Nash the Slash and Martin Deller (of FM) solidify Nocturnal's place in the prog cannon. The website Prog Archives calls Pritchard a "pioneer in experimental, cosmic-synth electronics." 

The Artoffact Records reissue is housed in a gorgeous gatefold sleeve, complete with photos, reproductions of essays by David Pritchard and Nash the Slash, and an all-new piece by Scott McGregor Moore. The audio is remastered for vinyl across three sides, and a fourth side contains a marvellous etching of Pritchard himself. Bonus tracks that were never pressed to vinyl are also included. A special collectors' edition on cream-coloured vinyl is also available.

mouth music (See/Hear)

mouth music (oh see can you say)

mouth music (whim seas streams of consciousness onomatopoeia spoke inn whirr’d freestyle poetree)

release rationale:

about the artist

tay_ploops is jessica gabriel who is a multidisciplinary artist, puppeteer, life model, permaculturalist, poet, clown, currently based in vancouver, canada. using tape loops and other (un)sound textures. gathering gumption for growth and decay. an ongoing exp(lore)ation of lo_fyi sketches from handheld casse-tête tape reek or dings.

about the album:

spool oops is filled with recent whim seas, streams of consciousness, onomatopoeia spoke inn whirr’d, freestyle poetree, solo loops collage, old tapes cut intu haphazard (in)precision. 

about the label: 

pan y rosas discos is a small netlabel based in chicago that focuses on experimental: noise, improvisation, and weirdo rock. we believe that music should be available to listeners for free and all the music that we release is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-no derivative works 4.0 unported license

Rapsodia Meccanica vs. fabbrica illuminata

Symbolisme Psychedelique

chimescapes (7 of ???)

available on Numero Group's ambient sound app Environments , which contains all of Irv Teibel of Syntonic Research Incorporated's  long form field recordings  designed for audio-therapy and lifestyle chillage.

from the press release:

"Environments began as an unprecedented series of vinyl records, garnering widespread acclaim and selling millions of units. Now Environments steps into the mobile age as an invaluable and unique sonic tool for the way one lives. Numero has created a new form “the reissue app” transforming all 22 of Teibel’s environmental soundscapes into this new app. Each unique track on the app features the original album art and the history behind the recording. You can also customize your own track list with your favorite sounds from the "Psychologically Ultimate Seashore” to a "Caribbean Lagoon,” "Country Thunderstorm” and even the “Ultimate Heartbeat” featuring the sounds of a real human’s heart."

more information here -  buy it here

Irv Teibel's story at Atlas Obscura

malcolm and alan

Lowry and Clavier

chimescapes (6 of ???)

(via Bruce)

release rationale: 

Musique Hydromantique is the second solo album by Tomoko Sauvage archiving many years of her performance-based practice on the waterbowls – the natural synthesizer of her invention, composed with porcelain bowls filled with water and amplified via hydrophones (underwater microphones). While her first album Ombrophilia (released on and/OAR in 2009) was studio-recorded /composed work, Musique Hydromantique is about experimentation and improvisation with the environment – acoustics affected by the architecture, temperature, humidity and the human presence.

For more than ten years, Sauvage has been investigating the sound and visual properties of water in different states, as well as those of ceramics, combined with electronics. Water drops, waves and bubbles are some of the elements she has been playing with to generate the fluid timbre. Since around 2010, hydrophonic feedback has been an obsession for the musician – an acoustic phenomenon that requires fine tuning depending on the amount of water, a subtle volume control and interaction with the acoustic space.

Calligraphy was recorded in a genuine echo chamber, with about 10 second reverbs, situated in a former textile factory. Like an endless exercise to draw perfect curves and forms floating in the air, the subaquatic feedback frequencies are pitch-bended with the mass of water sculpted by a hand changing its quantity. Fortune Biscuit is about the singing bubbles emitted from the pieces of ‘biscuit’ (porous terra-cotta). Depending on the texture of the surface, each biscuit makes different sound : insect and animal voices in a forest, motors, crying babies changing pitches and rhythms while absorbing the water… Clepsydra (meaning water clock) features Sauvage’s classical technique, a random percussion with dripping water. She tunes the waterbowls by adding and removing water, making flowing glissando, to find the balance point in ever-changing tonalities.

Just as the flow of water is subject to a number of variables such as temperature and pressure, water clocks mark a time that is shifting and relative. However, slowness dominates throughout the album as a result of favoring the full resonance of the instrument, leading to a path to experiencing timelessness.

Hydromancy is a method of divination by means of water. Unpredictable bubbles and water ripples become oracles. Evaporation and acoustic space constantly play a chance operation. Through primordial materials and ritualistic yet playful gestures, Musique Hydromantique questions contemporary divination.

All the tracks are live-recorded without electronic effects or editing. They were recorded during the night or very early in the morning and the whole album is to be listened to during that period of a day.

chimescapes (5 of ???)

chimescapes (4 of ???)

chimescapes (3 of ???)

chimescapes (2 of ???)

chimescapes (1 of ???)

mouth music (the other, better BB)

proggy rog

what a waste of good machinery

зашто не за осуде, or, mouth music (eeyorescape)

bonus breathscape




incantationscape

teevee memories

talcy malcy

kevin in the sky with diamonds

уста музика

vlad all over (Ово је било сутра)

here come the drums (#2 of ???)

口楽 ( 音声ハードコア) (mouth music - voice hardcore)

triptasia

mouth music (clara de lunacy)

mouthy part from about 4.40 onwards

Nogie bogie

well abstract noisy skronksynth... then glides into Japanese Weather Report

here come the drums

sovietronica

(not really sovietronica - belgidisco)

mouth music (a load of B.S., or, Uncle Bob Cobbing and all)

a really interesting and entertaining BBC radiodoc - created by D.J. Taylor and Geoff Bird - about experimental novelists and sound poets of the British Sixties, involving deep dives into the BBC radio archives

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tybwl


B.S. Johnson, Ann Quin, Bob Cobbing, Rosemary Tonks, Alan Burns, Christine Brooke-Rose...

Particularly tantalising are snippets of the BBC Radiophonic / Delia Derbyshire collaborations with Tonks ("Sono-Montage") and Cobbing ("ABC in Sound")


More on Tonks here



Fragments of other Bob C stuff









Jandl - another sound poet the Radiphonic Workshop worked with



My favorite -  Lily Greenham

Way Out Like David Behrman

punsplained

Geeta Dayal piece on David Behrman at 4Columns

mouth music (jittery and Jarre-ing) (Fairlight fairytale)

beak music (musica d'uccello)

beak music (venezuela)

beak music (clair de loon)

Teresa x 2 (elettronica femminile)

http://www.teresarampazzi.it/bioteresarampazzi/

The Crunch

this sort of de-necessitates Add N To X and Goldfrapp a quarter century ahead of schedule

synthglam trudge-funk bovver-boogie

what it reminds me of is "Spirit in the Sky" with a smear of futurity over the bluesy shuffle





context




me old mate Paul Oldfield points out this as a cousin to the Rah Band tune



that's the same Smoke as in "my friend jack eats sugarlumps"

But back to the RAH band - who i had always thought of (based on their 1980s stuff) as a jazz-funk group

well it's not a band at all, it's a bloke - a studio entity (Richard Anthony Hewson - R.A.H. geddit).

there's no synths involved - all done with guitars and bass done up with pedal effects

more of that Crunch-y ilk



these titles on the Crunch albums seem promising

. 01 00:00 The Crunch 02 03:38 Electric Fling 03 07:41 Concrete 04 12:30 Is Anybody There 05 16:50 Beyond 06 22:11 Spacerace 07 27:57 Turkey Roll 08 33:06 Vampire Vamp 09 38:38 Woogie Boogie 10 43:29 The Crunch (Reprise




but the promise is not delivered

in their 80s mode

mouth music (ohwouldntitbeluvverleee)

mouth music (synthsoprano)