Denis Smalley

Long out of print, this CD is an awesome example of early 70's early 80's  musique concrete - Pentes composed 1974 and realized at INA-GRM studios in Paris, France. Tides composed 1984 and Vortex composed 1982 realized at the electroacoustic studio in the University of East-Anglia, Norwich, England. The fairytale quality is bound to seep up like methane through the marshes, as so often in works by Jacques Lejeune or François Bayle – and the procedure functions in Smalley’s piece! Nature becomes enchanted here, and the elves and the fairies gather around a gray, bearded sage, sitting on a moss laden rock in the meadow, as individual rays of light angle down through the greenish mist, lighting up the wrinkled features of the old magician’s thousand-year-face. Secrets are felt through the vibrating sonic transparence.