Alvin Curran
Democratic, irreverent and traditionally experimental, Curran travels in a computerized covered wagon between the Golden Gate and the Tiber River, and makes music for every occasion with any sounding phenomena -- a volatile mix of lyricism and chaos, structure and indeterminacy, fog horns, fiddles and fiddle heads. He is dedicated to the restoration of dignity to the profession of making non-commercial music as part of a personal search for future social, political and spiritual forms.
Democratic, irreverent and traditionally experimental, Curran travels in a computerized covered wagon between the Golden Gate and the Tiber River, and makes music for every occasion with any sounding phenomena -- a volatile mix of lyricism and chaos, structure and indeterminacy, fog horns, fiddles and fiddle heads. He is dedicated to the restoration of dignity to the profession of making non-commercial music as part of a personal search for future social, political and spiritual forms.
Il Bestiario
** Temporary super offer, very last copies ** There was never anyone like Maria Monti – and this album is a true testament to her genius! Il Bestiario might be best understood next to albums by artists like Brigitte Fontaine, Scott Walker, and Catherine Ribeiro, all of whom began their careers within the saccharine confines of popular music, before embarking on some of the most revolutionary recordings of the era. It enlisted the radical poet Aldo Braibanti (a man defined “the lone true Italian…
Natural History
** few copies back in stock, long out of print** Black Truffle present the first-ever vinyl issue of Alvin Curran's Natural History, originally released on cassette by Edition Giannozzo Berlin in 1983. A founding member of the radical electronic improvising group Musica Elettronica Viva, since the early 1970s Curran has developed an idiosyncratic body of solo work that occupies a unique position in the post-Cageian experimental tradition. Singularly undogmatic, Curran's work takes the Cageia…
For Leos's Piano
Alvin Curran, piano (originally owned by Janacek), electronics. Gordon Monahan, digital performer software, native instruments akoustik pianosoftware.“Janacek Revisited, Recomposed, and Retuned.In June 2013, on the occasion of the Exposition of New Music festival, Gordon Monahan created a sound installation on the grounds of the famous Villa Tugendhat in Brno, using the music of Henry Cowell and Leos Janacek. The choice of these composers was not accidental; Cowell highly credited Janacek’s musi…
The Alvin Curran Fakebook
300 pages, A4, black and white and colour. A fake book is a collection of musical lead sheets usually containing melody line, basic chords and words where appropriate - the minimal information in other words required to fake an impromptu arrangement of a song. This is Alvin Curran’s, offering a lifetime’s work and experience in the form of useful fragments, instructions, graphic scores and compositions of a bewilderingly wide variety. The alvin curran fakebook is an atypical autobiography i…
Shofar Rags
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* Active since the mid-’60s, Alvin Curran is one of America’s most courageous and outrageous musical mavericks. A true forefather to the Downtown scene, his music embraces the dialectics of composition/improvisation, tonality/atonality, minimalism/maximalism, electronic/acoustic and more. Alvin’s use of the Shofar in experimental music making goes as far back as 1988, and this long awaited release features several compositions for Shofar and electronics, rangi…
Segments
A deep investigation of a very few simple principles: acoustic instruments rub ambiguously up against electrified objects and electronics, but these in the main provide atmosphere and harmonic complexity. Taking its cue from John Cage, the trio began sticking contact mics to anything that sounded and amplified their raw sounds. Awesome! "New release for Alvin Curran, Paolo Tofani and Mauro Tespio : Electrifying all the objects is the common interest of those three artists. We could say that repr…
Schtyx
All his life, my father played the trombone and sang; just before he died, he became a music critic. He said "Chords, yes Alvin, but it needs more melody." SCHTYX was the answer. It opens with a dotted quarter at 50. From the start, implications appear and never cease. They remain open for business like a river. The melody, first thought terminal, is recycled on a child's buzz saw, but then reappears as a mensch. Ten minutes later, it turns up a 5/4 Waltz scrutinized by a group of unemployed har…
Solo Works : The '70s
This historic collection gathers together the four seminal solo albums recorded by Alvin Curran (b. 1938) in the 1970s. Two, Fiori Chiari Fiori Oscuri and The Works, are making their first appearance on CD. Author-critic Tim Page, an early advocate of these works, writes, 'Curran weaves electronic technology, an occasional acoustic instrument, voices and musique concrète ('found' music) into a multi-hued tapestry of sound. He holds these dissimilar elements together with a compelling subliminal …
Live in Roma
Although Alvin Curran is almost universally recognized as one of the leading figure of the late 20th Century musical avant-garde, he has never received the recognition he deserves in the form of a proper publication. This is in fact the first book ever to present a complete and coherent picture of this gigantic figure of experimental music. A radical experimentalism and a kind of innate volatility have, in fact, long kept the person and the work of Alvin Curran, one of the historic founder…
Under the fig tree / The magic carpet
** FEW RESURFACED COPIES, VERY LAST ** Two masterpieces of the early 70s by released by Die Schachtel for the first time ever. Using VCS3 live electronics and environmental sounds, Alvin Curran created a hypnotic and meditative transcendency of minimalist beauty. Limited deluxe vinyl LP edition."The two works presented here are “seminal” pieces of two genres from which a great part of my musical practice springs and to this day continues to evolve from. Under the Fig Tree is in fact the realizat…
Maritime Rites
rare original book from the early 80s with the amazing descriptive book designed by Melissa Gould. Maritime Rites is a series of ten environmental concerts for radio composed by Alvin Curran. This series features the Eastern Seaboard of the United States as a musical source in collaboration with improvised musical performances by ten distinguished artists in the American new-music scene: John Cage, Joseph Celli, Clark Coolidge, Jon Gibson, Malcolm Goldstein, Steve Lacy, George Lewis, Pauline Oli…
Source: Music Of The Avant Garde - Source Records 1-6, 1968-1971
Astoundingly great collection of some of the classic pieces from the 60s avant-garde / live electronic music wave presented here as originally issued (in chronological order) by larry austin & stanley lunetta via their “source: music of the avant garde” magazine & 10” record series between 1967 and 1973 .... Source Records 1 and 2 with Robert Ashley: The Wolfman (1964). David Behrman: Wave Train (1966). Larry Austin: Accidents (1967). Allan Bryant: Pitch Out (1967). Source Records 3 and 4 with A…
Inner Cities
Performed by Daan Vandewalle (piano), 4 hours, 24 minutes worth. "Alvin Curran's music-making embraces all the contradictions (composed/improvises, tonal/atonal, maximal/minimal) in a serene dialectical encounter. His more than 100 works feature taped/sampled natural sounds, piano, synthesizers, computers, violin, percussion, shofar, ship horns, accordion and chorus. Whether in the intimate form of his well-known solo performances, or pure chamber music, experimental radio works or large-scale s…
Lost Marbles
A pioneer of live electronic music and one of America's most adventurous composers, Alvin Curran has been walking his own eclectic path since the late 1960s. The range and scope of his work is enormous, and unprecedented. Few composers have as many interests, or as much wit. This special compilation takes us on a whirlwind tour of fifteen of his most productive years (1987–2002), capturing both live and studio performances from around the world. Featuring a seductive work for chorus and ensemble…
Just Before Dawn
What we are here presenting is one of the most intimate releases Ants has produced ever. Luca Miti is a “strange” kind of composer and musician. And organizer, too. He has the uncommon attitude to make private experiences and let them become “public” in a very natural way. Primarily known for his compositions (most of them unconventional and ”experimental” in the best sense) and impro-live-written collaborations, he’s also a “perfomer” with many different sides. One of these aspetcs is shown in…