Tod Dockstader

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' for my own work was, in part, a tribute to the 'Poéme' and to Varése. I also chose it because, in the 60s, the term 'electronic music' was coming to mean music made purely of synthetic sound, and I was working in both 'concrete' and electronically generated sounds...my 'synthesizer' for everything on this CD was one or two sine-wave test generators ('oscillators' in those days) which were 'played' by turning a dial. I forced them to produce harmonics (square waves) by amplifying them into distortion, and got pulse-trains out of them by temporarily rewiring them into instability. The 'notes' they produced were achieved by editing tape, note by note (by note by note...)...it had a muscular joy to it. I think a lot of us had fun up on that singing high wire, teetering between control and chaos, trying to push the sound a little farther toward Something we hadn't heard before, working in it...listening."