Gordon Mumma

condition (record/cover): M / NM (in shrink)

Three quadraphonic electronic works from the mid-sixties, composed at the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music that Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley ran in Ann Arbor and remixed for this 1979 release at the Mills Center for Contemporary Music. The Dresden Interleaf 13 February 1945 (1965) is a twelve-minute meditation on the 1945 firebombing, built from synthesized blasts, low-frequency rumbles and silence. Music from the Venezia Space Theatre (1964), premiered in Venice in September 1964, incorporates portions of André Boucourechliev's Texte II. Megaton for Wm. Burroughs (1963), the side-long B-side, is a 23-minute live-electronic work for ten channels involving the ONCE Group colleagues George Manupelli, Harold Borkin, Joseph Wehrer, Milton Cohen and Ashley.

This is the foundational Mumma document. War and military technology run through all three pieces; Mumma built much of the analogue circuitry himself. Sleeve design by Ken Cornet and Patrick Vitacco. Vital Records imprint on the early Lovely catalogue.