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 recorder, I used this piece, instead of doing a new work, so I could concentrate on teaching myself the techniques of placing sound in space (between speakers) and moving it through space – hence the title. (Jackie Gleason, in his black-and-white TV days, used always to ask the pit-band conductor for 'a little traveling music' to help him move across the stage.)" Tod Dockstader was born in 1932 in St.Paul, Minnesota. In 1955 moved to Hollywood to work as an apprentice film editor, cutting picture and sound for animated cartoons including 'Mr. Magoo'. Dockstader became a self-taught sound engineer and sound effects specialist and apprenticed as a recording engineer in 1958. In 1960 his first composition 'Eight Pieces' later to be used in the soundtrack of Fellini's 'Satyricon'. Dockstader was part of the first wave of electronic musicians, who, before the advent of synthesizers in the early 1960s, worked with whatever hardware they could find: reel-to-reel tape machines, sine wave generators and a wild array of homemade circuits and military surplus gear. In the process, they created a universe of electronic music that still sounds unique and prescient today. In the late 1950s, Dockstader worked as a sound engineer at Gotham Recording Studios in New York. At night, he worked on his own music, which eventually led to a series of impressive albums of electronic music, including 'THE ORGANIZED SOUND', which is now reissued on Doxy.

 

Stereophile:
"Tod Dockstader belongs in the select company of Varèse, Stockhausen, Luening, Schaeffer, Subotnick, and the other pioneers of electronic music or musique concrète. His achievement is on a par with the best in his field."

The Wire:
"The obsessive care with which Starkland have compiled these extraordinary recordings should ensure that Dockstader will be remembered as the innovative, visionary figure he undoubtedly was."