Abattage
Recorded in 1981 & issued “privately” in 1983 (on Jean Marc Foussat’s own Pyjama imprint) this is a screamer of a record, taking in a decidedly unique approach to minimal musique concrète assemblage (there’s an emphasis on presenting banal, interstitial in-situ sound-events [coughs, footsteps] that reminds of Luc Ferrari one minute ... before a sudden barrage of jackhammer-noise, plunderphonic mangling [is that ... Barbra Streisand !?!], and high-end oscillator scree takes over pushing this clos…
The Pulses of Time
Creel Pone of a 1981 LP privately released by the University of East Anglia containing three sparse Musique Concrète pieces composed between 1974 and 1979 at the GRM and UEA studios by New Zealand born/bred composer Denis Smalley. Widely considered to be one the classics of early British electro-acoustic music - alongside Trevor Wishart’s “Journey Into Space” & “Red Bird”, Desmond Leslie’s “Music of the Future”, and Basil Kirchin’s “Worlds Within Worlds”), the three pieces on “Pulses” each wor…
Oeldorf 8
Issued by the Dutch "Nea Mousa Promotion Centre for Contemporary Music", the initial 1976 issue of this music documents the 8th meeting of "The Oeldorf Group" of Composer-Performers Pëter Eótvös (whose "Cricket Music" graces Creelpolation 1), Joachim Krist, Dietrich Frische, Gabriele Schumacher, and Mesias Maiguashca, who met annually at the barn pictured on the cover to workshop & perform each other's pieces from 1971 on. The two-part "Oeldorf 8" suite, composed in 1975, is a thing of wonder; f…
Suomalaista Elektroakustista Musiikkia
Reproduction of this superb 1978 pressing, realized at the Finnivox-studio & issued on their in-house Fennica Nova imprint, covering early- to late-70s work by a coterie of composers working largely in & around various public & private studios in Helsinki, including Yleisradion Kokeilustudio (Finnish Radio's Experimental Studio), Helsingin Yliopiston Musiikkitieteen Laitoksen Studio (The Electronic Music Studio at Helsinki University Music Department), Osmo Lindeman Kotistudio (Osmo Lindeman's p…
Aniseikonia, Zeitsplitter, 4 Etüden
Warped, asynchronous, mid-80s FM Synthesis assemblages, captured at the absolute cusp of the Analogue-Digital transition, from Czech-Swiss Composer Jan Beran. Ages dormant on the Creel Pone shortlist, endlessly vetoed by yours truly for breaking the cardinal rules of comprising a total sum of post-1984 activity (pending a rewrite of the foil-stamp copy) and, specifically, explicitly incorporating the "Devil's Xylophone" amongst its tonal palette. But ah, the times, the times. After a few caref…
Saturday’s Notes
The debut LP by Chicago-based artist Guido Gamboa, Saturday’s Notes is a multi-faceted collection of sonic studies born from a day of studious and diaristic note-taking. The music flows in idiosyncratic segments taking on a form akin to an artist’s sketchbook, constantly crossing and challenging the line between the aesthetically curious and the personally candid. Various influences are apparent as the listener is weaved in and out of hollowed concrète construction zones, beds of frayed a…
Electronic Music in Canada, vol.1 & 2
Epic, double-disc edition covering three LPs of formative Electronic Music from Canada; both volumes of the Melbourne-label "Electronic Music By Canadian Composers" series - presenting both cover-variations of each in a metallized variant of the de facto Creel Pone "grid" - then the internal Radio Canada pressing of "Music Canada Vol XIII Electronic Music in Canada." Starting with an amazing, side-length piece by "Sky-Sails" co-author Ann Southam (more about her later in the series) & continuing…
Reidarin Sähköiset Kuvat, Ode To Marilyn
A pair of mid-70s Finnish Experimental Electro-Acoustic gems featuring "Suomalaista Elektroakustista Musiikkia" 's Antero Honkanen, masquerading as 1). a picturesque "Music To Accompany Paintings" affair and 2). a straight-ahead jazz-fusion session. The first disc here covers "Reidarin Sähköiset Kuvat," a wonderful set dovetailing pieces by Honaken & Åke Andersson, composed after paintings by Reidar Särestöniemi at the Experimental Studio of Yleisradio. With a production style owing to the forma…
Ramasses-Miettes, Nouveaux Modes Industriels
Long on the Creel Pone radar has been this pair of LPs by French bandleader Philippe Doray, recorded in conjunction with the aid of his five "Asociaux Associés" & issued in 1977 & 1980, respectively, via Jean-Marc Patrat & José Serré's Gratte-Ciel & Invisible, the house-label of the inimitable Jacques Pasquier's Société Coopérative d'Ouvriers-Producteurs Artistiques. Centered around Doray's Synthi VCS3 playing & sprech-stimme vocal stylings, the selections here run the gamut from puerile, absurd…
Automare
From the city that brought you LSD comes a new album by Marco Papiro, a Swiss-Italian musician and graphic designer who has gained some notoriety with his album covers for the likes of Panda Bear and Sun Araw. "Automare" is Papiro's seventh solo album, recorded on 4-track cassette, on hard-disk, in public and in private, entirely self-produced and now released on Nikolaienko's Muscut label. The five hauntingly evocative tracks offer a variety of atmospheres from surreal to arcane, from ce…
Cosmographie
Once again, i’m reminded that one can twist & turn, uncovering rocks looking for stray Paleozoic lifeforms one’s whole life and still never find 0.01% of what’s out there. To my knowledge, the early 70s platter replicated here is the sole LP by one Bruno Menny; he’s mainly known for his endless CV of engineering, arrangement, and production credits for people like Mouloudji - yes, the voice on the Jean Genet / André Almuro "Un Condamne a Mort" LP - Michel Portal, Benoît Widemann, and a little-kn…
Conrad & Sohn
Thus far the creel pones have all been academically-inclined in some way. by contrast, here’s a repro of a very bizarre one-off private-press lp “released” in 1981 by one-time tangerine dream / Kluster associate Conrad Schnitzler and given only to friends and family ...The b-side is pretty odd, even for schnitzler, with its pitched up vocals & arbitrary lo-fi synth drippings ; but the real prize is the a-side featuring his teenage son gregor on electric bass and completely fried vocals (in en…
Parmak Çocuk, Çizmeli Kedi
While there’s no explicit date listed anywhere within, I’m guessing the pair of 45rpm 7”s in question - released only in Turkey - date to the mid-60s, with each featuring Solmaz Sporel reading a different fairly tale over a completely amazing Musique Concrète tape-backing by Ilhan Mimaroglu, produced at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York. Personally, these particular outings are some of the most gratifyingly zonked things I’ve ever heard, having much to do with the langua…
Le Crabe Qui Jouait Avec La Mer, Conte De Noël
"Le Crabe Qui Jouait Avec La Mer" is a beyoot of a radio-play, based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling, narrated by Jacques Gripel & featuring one of the only full-length bits of Musique Concrète by the ORTF / INA-GRM aligned composer Philippe Arthuys. While heavy french texts pervade the goings on throughout, with it’s all-ages appeal, it’s kind of the first Creel Pone that’s for everybody; "Crabe's" absolutely gorgeous cover - with it’s depiction of psychedelic crustaceans - only sweetens…
Independent Electronic Music Composer
Now that the Creel-Pone series has reached its teens, its time for an irreverent late-60s blast of heavy Synth-Freakout / Tape-Psych weirdness from this Cicero, Illinois based composer Edward M. Zajda, about whom i can’t find a single bit of information - other than that he has a piece included in a 1964 radio program called “Electronic Music in America” that’s archived in the Brandeis library. Originally issued in the late 60s on the regional Ars Nova / Ars Antiqua” label, “Independent” star…
Music From A Small Planet, Paths Of Motion
Two discs covering three self-issued LPs of 8-bit digital grind by Boston-area composer John Holland; as unheralded and unbeknownst as they come. Despite living in the hub for 24 years, and being a rabid fanatic of exactly this sort of thing, I had never seen nor heard head nor hide of either release, proving all too well that there are still gems out there waiting to be mined. On par with such proto-Digital-Synthesis masterworks as Daniel Arfib's "Musique Numerique", Pietro Grossi's "Compute…
Celebration
Even to a die-hard Early Electronic Music acolyte, Frank W. Becker's name isn't a readily familiar one, despite issuing a half-dozen LPs of vaguely Berlin-school music via Toshiba EMI while based in Japan in the mid-late 70s. "Celebration," a "Private" issue on his own Gorilla imprint, starts out sure enough with the titular, 1976 side-length bit of protracted sequencing and minimalism-inspired forms - all with a vague new-age lilt to it b/w of calming ocean noises & an almost Terry Riley-ish …
Omen
Ah, CP #200; never in 12 years did I think we'd make it this far. Those of you keeping count will realize that, despite the catalogue number this is actually the 181st title in the series; that said we're definitely winding down & what a great run it's been. This, in many ways, is the perfect title to ring in this momentous occasion; arguably the longest in the Creel Pone "Queue" (mainly as virtually the entire cabal, upon discovery, scratched their collective heads, rooted around for close to…
in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music
Comes with 8-page 12" booklet.. Replica edition covering this wonderful 2LP boxed set, issued on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios of the University of Illinois School of Music. Features work by a largely otherwise undocumented array of midwest composers, including Antonio G. Barata, Paul Christian Koonce, Carla Scaletti, Michael Kosch, Brian E. Belét, Sever Tipei, & Nelson Mandrell alongside those by more well-known ones such as studio head Herbert Brün, Mar…
The Complete Narco Recordings
After a several-months-long blackout, Creel Pone is back in action! What a fine little number to get the ball rolling with once again; a reproduction of all five LPs originally self-released by Nicolas “Nik Pascal” Raicevic on his Narco Records and Tapes label - rumored to be one of the first truly independent labels, with Raicevic simply walking into an L.A. pressing plant & placing orders for stock - between 1969 and 1975. The music is nothing short of genius; a fine beaded mist of exceeding…