Tod Dockstader
Tod Dockstader (1932 – 2015)[1] was an American composer of electronic music, and particularly musique concrète. He moved into work as a sound engineer in 1958, and apprenticed at Gotham Recording Studios, where he first started composing. Dockstader's first record, Eight Electronic Pieces, was released in 1960, and was later used as the soundtrack to Federico Fellini's Fellini Satyricon (1969). He continued to create music throughout the first half of that decade, working principally with tape manipulation effects.
Tod Dockstader (1932 – 2015)[1] was an American composer of electronic music, and particularly musique concrète. He moved into work as a sound engineer in 1958, and apprenticed at Gotham Recording Studios, where he first started composing. Dockstader's first record, Eight Electronic Pieces, was released in 1960, and was later used as the soundtrack to Federico Fellini's Fellini Satyricon (1969). He continued to create music throughout the first half of that decade, working principally with tape manipulation effects.
Aerial #2
Tod Dockstader's Aerial series, an electronic/drone masterpiece, is cherished among fans of the artist's work.15 years in the making, Tod Dockstader's Aerial series is sourced from his life long passion for shortwave radio. Dockstader collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere. Opening with airwave drones, Dockstader gradually allows elements to slowly come and go, summoning an ominous atmosphere of ethereal clou…
Eight electronic pieces
**2020 stock** Chance combinations, accidental themes, chaos in general—these are the musical modes that Tod Dockstader uses in composing electronic pieces. Blending oscillating electronic sounds with natural sounds is like being "confronted with a potential orchestra of thousands of instruments," he says, and the task becomes one of "improvising."
This CD is a custom made copy from Smithsonian Folkways collection. Every effort has been made to preserve its historical and aural integrity. The or…
Aerial 1
Tod Dockstader's Aerial series, an electronic/drone masterpiece, is cherished among fans of the artist's work and this first volume is available in an audiophile quality double LP edition of 500 copies. 15 years in the making, Tod Dockstader's Aerial series is sourced from his life long passion for shortwave radio. Dockstader collected over 90 hours of recordings, made at night, and comprised of cross signals and fragments plucked from the atmosphere.
From the Archives
This unexpected CD premieres 15 electronic music works from Tod Dockstader, “one of the giants in the field” (The Washington Post). Carefully selected from over 4,200 sound files left behind by Dockstader, who died in 2015, these were the last pieces composed by Dockstader, before dementia stopped his studio work. When thousands of files were discovered on Dockstader’s computer, his daughter Tina Dockstader Kinard encouraged a devoted enthusiast, Justin H Brierley, to shift through this extensiv…
Organized Sound: Luna Park Traveling Music Apocalypse
Another killer reissue on Doxy, equally desirable volume, which completes the documentation of Dockstader's organized sound works. "Traveling Music was originally composed as a monaural piece (Electronic Piece No. 8). It was, in effect, my Poeme Electronique, after Varese, and my first piece to be strictly organized with a few sound-materials (instead of throwing everything in and stirring briskly, as I'd done prior to this). When I got the use of a two-track…
Organized sound Drone Two fragment From Apocalypse
Seminal musique concrete recordings from the early 60s, first time available on vinyl (original has been out of print on LP for over a decade, originally published on his private 'Owl' imprint). Dockstader deserves shelf space next to Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, Varése, etc. -- historically vital, minutely detailed experimental electronic music and tape composition. "My choice of the term 'Organized Sound' for my own work was, in part, a tribute to the 'Poéme' and to Varése. I…
Electronic Vol. 2
Mordant Music beautifully join the dots between the hauntological zeitgeist and original library music with the 2nd of two vinyl reissues of seminal tape music by Tod Dockstader. Born 1932 in Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Dockstader majored in psychology and art but would go on to explore his interests in painting and film as an apprentice editor in Hollywood. This led to a job as a sound engineer in 1958, employed at Gotham Recording studios, where he started meticulously composing during lon…
Electronic Vol. 1
Mordant Music beautifully join the dots between the hauntological zeitgeist and original library music with the first of two vinyl reissues of seminal tape music by Tod Dockstader. Born 1932 in Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Dockstader majored in psychology and art but would go on to explore his interests in painting and film as an apprentice editor in Hollywood. This led to a job as a sound engineer in 1958, employed at Gotham Recording studios, where he started meticulously composing during l…
Aerial # 3
This release is the third and last in the three-part Aerial series. Tod Dockstader is one of the all-time great figures in the world of musique concréte composition, with his "organized sound" works from the 1960s being amongst the most radical ever conceived -- in league with Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, and Varese. Aerial is a rare new work in the realm of shortwave radio, from one of America's most experimental composers. Volume 1 was released in March 2005 inside a slipcase. Volume …
Omniphony 1
In the early 1960's Tod Dockstader was a young maverick composer of electronic 'organised sound', and James Reichert a film composer and music supervisor. They met in New York in 1963, and launched one of the most extraordinary collaborations in modern music, a unique attempt to integrate electronic sounds and the classical orchestra. Unlike Varese's Deserts, and Stockhausen's Kontakte, it does not merely have the orchestra play along with a tape, or even process orchestral sounds live. What mak…
Bellstomp / Pond Dance
Me, Myself & Ekoplekz present two versions of Tod Dockstader library production tunes from his 1979/1981 LPs for Aldwych stalwarts Boosey & Hawkes...one veers towards saline techno, the other remains a resolute radiophonic bubbler...both of us are well chuffed to have had the chance to tamper with the wiley tape sage's great work ...BM
Recorded Music For Film, Radio & Television: Electronic SBH 3073
Recent claims made re: Tod Dockstader’s absence from the public eye since releasing his owl-label lps in the late 60s are somewhat off. In 1979 this and another “companion” volume were released on the boosey & hawkes library music label; consisting of a spate of sound-queues made by mr. dockstader for production/documentary use. this sounds like no other dockstader recording you’ve heard. There are a couple of “fat brass synth-fanfares for sci-fi” kind of queues, but for every one of those there…
luna park
Original, still shrink wrap copy of Organized Sound by Tod Dockstader Luna Park/Traveling Music/Apocalypse, 1966 Owl Records. This is one of the best and most creative records of electronic/concrete music ever! Dockstader made this music at night, staying at his day job’s studio (where he did the sound effects for Mister Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing), becoming expert at manipulating their tape recorders and rewiring oscillators to make powerful, pulsating electronic drones and effects. Absolut…
Bijou
A subtle, moody, rich and wide-ranging work, in which atmosphere, emotion and dramaturgy lead the ear far beyond music into a world of hints, evocations, anticipation and association and, in passing, reveal a complex metonymic language that, at a deep level, invokes that mostly unconscious lexicon of sound we have all absorbed collectively and subliminally in the course of a century of movie-going, television viewing, documentary recording and electroacoustic experimentation. Once sounds have be…
Pond
Life meets art. Born of a long written corresPondence and a mutual affection for frogs between David Myers (the artist formerly known as Arcane Device) and Tod Dockstader which eventually spawned this programme of electronic & concrete pieces derived almost entirely from field (and swamp) recordings of frogs - choral and solo processed, manipulated and organised in a million ways. This release also marks the welcome return of Tod Dockstader to the lists; it's his first large-scale new published …
Apocalypse
Tod Dockstader's musique concrete turns out to have a surprising relevance to music created decades later; he's been described as "one of the godfathers of Nurse With Wound, and a distant cousin of rap and techno" (Option). Craig Anderton writes that Dockstader was one of the few to master "the art of assembling tape-recorded sounds and painstakingly splicing, cutting, dubbing, manipulating and mixing to create final compositions," then adds: "If you think that sounds similar to the procedures u…
Quatermass
Seminal musique concrete recordings from the early 60s that were first issued on CD in '92/'93. This CDs offer all of Dockstader's principal solo works, including unreleased works and material that has been out of print on LP for over a decade (spread over 3 LPs on the Owl label). Dockstader deserves shelf space next to Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, Varése, etc. -- historically vital, minutely detailed experimental electronic music and tape composition. "My choice of the term 'Organized Sound' …
Aerial # 2
This release is the second (Volume 2) in the three-part Aerial series. Tod Dockstader is one of the all-time great figures in the world of musique concréte composition, with his "organized sound" works from the 1960s being amongst the most radical ever conceived -- in league with Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, and Varese. Aerial is a rare new work in the realm of shortwave radio, from one of America's most experimental composers. Volume 1 was released in March 2005 inside a slipcase. Volu…
Aerial
Tod Dockstader is one of the all-time great figures in the world of musique concréte composition, with his "organized sound" works from the 1960s being amongst the most radical ever conceived -- in league with Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, and Varese. Aerial is a rare new work in the realm of shortwave radio, from one of America's most experimental composers. This release is the first (Volume 1) in a three-part series. "I've written before of my interest in shortwave radio. When I was ve…