Reissues
Songs We Taught the Lord Volume Two
"This album reissues the final recording (thus far) of the Milstein/Moore duo. It was originally released in 1997 by Chris Corsano's Hot Cars Warp Records label. Chris had a choice of this tape -- recorded December 4, 1996 at the Middle East in Cambridge MA -- or the one from the previous night at the Iron Horse in Northampton (FTR 288LP). He chose this one, and the first volume was scheduled to appear on the Ecstatic Yod label. Why it never happened, who knows? Not me! The set was recorde…
Songs We Taught the Lord Volume One
"As I recall, the idea seemed pretty reasonable at the time. It was late 1996. I'd met Fahey a couple of years earlier, and partly as an outgrowth of that meeting he had decided he wanted to meet and play with 'noise musicians.' This resulted in a lot of music that made his olden fans weep, but who was I to argue with The Great Koonaklaster? Anyway, it was late '96 and Fahey wanted to play some gigs on the east coast. He also wanted Thurston to be on the bill with him, and so Mr. Moore asked…
Music Works for Industry
Marc Barreca’s Music Works for Industry is a layered assertion. An economic mantra for the mind to spin, like the many loops on this recording, or churn, as gears of some godhead machine. From the pool of playful compositions, a social subtext appears – a somewhat sardonic riposte to the commercial and cynical abuse of music and musicians. The work profits the listener over industry. Said another way, its motivations are more generative than lucrative.
No longer than four minutes, no shor…
¡Ahora!
At the top of my personal holy grail list for a number of years has been this unobtainable side of Agitprop Musique Concrète by the Composer Ivan Pequeño, composed from 1973-1975 at Paris' Studio de Musique Expérimentale du Centre Americain & at Belgrade's Studio de Musique Electronique du Treci Program-Radio & issued on Aldo Pagani's mythic Eleven label - home of Franco Leprino's "Integrati… Disintegrati", amongst other gems. The A-Side's "¡Ahora!" ("Now!") weaves the Composer's interstitial, c…
Avalanche, Nightmare Music, Suite for Two Pianos and Tape, Compu
Great to see this particular title of purely electronic pieces by Lejaren Hiller in the series; we last heard from him via the piece "Vocalise" on Creel Pone #039, "Electronic Music, Experimental Studios In Prague, Bratislava, Munich ..." but this particular collection, specifically including the otherwise unavailable early tape-music piece "Nightmare Music" (1961), gets into an area of his work that veers straight into the same text-and-electronic-sound miasma as such C.P. classics as Anestis …
Predestination
A-grade, primal bleep from the Academic sector; Rune Lindblad's first & best record - amazingly never available on disc prior to this replica edition - from 1975, originally issued via the Proprius books & records imprint. Listening to this now, eyes closed, I'm amazed at how little progress there's been in the world of analogue electronic music & the organization & compositional sensibilities offered within; some of the timbres sounds wholly contemporary & their working methods perfectly in li…
CANTS DEL TROBADORS: «La Doucer D'Un Son Nouvel»
The Ventadoorn label was set up in 1970 & released over 100 LPs & EP's over the following decade, all centering in on some facet of Lenga d'Oc / "Old" French language & culture. Some of you may be familiar with the 1980 Henry Fourès / Luc Ferrari "Folclòre Imaginari" set - later reissued on Adda as "Ce Qu'a Vu Le Cers" - as one of the label's final releases, but a year prior they issued this absolute masterpiece of a record, merging Occitan folk forms & instrumentation with extended drone-psych…
Underwater Electronic Orchestra
One of the, in retrospect, better constructs of the Creel Pone cabal is that, despite many beliefs to the contrary, it is in fact a committee of semi-like-minded souls, all interested in portraying some aspect of the "Unheralded Electronic Music" canon. Case in point; while I personally wouldn't have included this particular collection of gossamer isolation-tank filigree & majority psychedelic-disco, it was strongly nominated by a number of the Cognoscenti along the way - partly due to its scarc…
Ritratto Di Giovane, Symphonie Pour Un Enfant Seul
One of the true Musique Concrète Holy Grails - alongside Jacques Lejeune's "Fantasmes Ou L'Histoire De Blanche-Neige" & the Jean Schwarz / Jacques Lejeune / Phillip Beetz "Des Musiques Des Sons" set - is this privately issued 3LP boxed set from the husband & wife team of Françoise Barrière & Christian Clozier, consisting of one extended piece by each; Barrière's "Ritratto di Giovane" & Clozier's "Symphonie Pour Un Enfant Seul." Barrière's six-part "Ritratto Di Giovane" - "Le Vieux Clown, "Et Le…
Musical Electro-Alchemy
The only solo outing by "Works of Electronic Music" alumnus Iván Patatich, a collection of six late-70s Electronic works realized at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht & "H'EAR" - the Electronic Music Studio of the Hungarian Radio, including "Antiphons (Antifonák)" (1977), "Calling sounds (Hivó jelek)" (1977), "Ballade" (1976), "Ludus syntheticus" (1977), "Chinese temple with echo (Kínai templom visszhanggal)" (1979), & "Hommage à l'électronique" (1978). Much like the László Dubrovay "Live Ele…
An Electronic Visit To The Zoo, Sound Hypnosis
Closing out a trilogy of releases initially readied by the Harriman, NY powerhouse Spectrum (following the Jack Tamul & William Hoskins titles) is this fantastic set of noisy synthesizer adagios, composed in the late 70s by William Strickland on Moog Modular, Organ, and Four-Channel Tape. Offering a pair of conceptual, side-length suites, a series of exceedingly lo-fi miniatures meets us on the A-Side; "An Electronic Visit to the Zoo" seems to almost ignore its own premise - despite the red-herr…
Collections I, Electronic Music With and Without Instruments
Second title in this 199-x series - itself dedicated to working through titles that had been languishing in limbo in the Creel Pone "nominations" sector for some time while specific "Golden Circle" Cabal members feud bitterly over their possible inclusion - offering the only LP by Scott A. Wyatt, following the fantastic "in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios" set. Released at the tail-end of the 1970s on the Academic "University Brass Recordings Series" (UBRES)…
La Trilogie de la Montagne
Gorgeous, three-part Musique Concrète suite, composed at McGill's Electronic Music studio during 1977 & 78 by Quebecois composer Michel Longtin, timbrally presaging much of the FM synthesis-laden work of the early 80s & onwards, acting a bridge between the two sensibilities.
Brotzmann Box
"Brotzmann Box" is a beautiful box set containing 3 albums by German free jazz master Peter Brötzmann. The first volume of the album is "Full Blast" (JW 1) with Brötzmann (alto and soprano sax, tárogató) playing in a super Swiss-German trio with Marino Pliakas (electric bass), a member of Swiss Steamboat, and Michael Wertmuller (drums), one of the best musiciand of the Berlin music scene and member of the group Alboth. Together these three musicians create a truly unique musical cosmos that lies…
Viaje
In 1976 the fairly square “Movieplay S.A.” imprint (via their slightly hipper “Serie Gong”) quietly issued this monster of a live-electronic / psych-freakout opus (oddly, alongside canonic titles by Inti-Illimani, Victor Jara, et.al ... all considerably more “Inside”) by the then-unknown composers Eduardo Polonio & Horacio Vaggione, recording under the name It. Predating the latter’s canonic Cramps-label debut “La Maquina Del Cantar” by a couple of years, this is miles away from the controlled g…
Genesis Interruptions +
Creel Pone reproduction of Randall McClellan's 1975 Opus One LP "Genesis Interruptions," including, as a bonus, his pieces from the Opus One split with Joel Chadabe & one from a later CRI compilation, collecting all of his Early Electronic Music issued formally in the "Classic Era." After a semi-recent Sun Ark 4CS box of his later, more New-Age-leaning productions, it's interesting to hear his "Academic," yet largely drone-centric music made when he was the director of the Electronic Music Studi…
Computer Music, Musica Elettronica+
Handy collection of all of Composer James Dashow's early Computer Music issued in the vinyl era, including his 1982 Edipan "Computer Music / Musica Elettronica" LP, plus his track from the "Computer Directions" collection on CRI & the piece "La Pianta Di Livio" tucked onto the end of the soundtrack to the film "Oedipus Orca" released on Cinevox. Dashow started out in the Chicagoland area, studying with J. K. Randall amongst others before heading to Italy on a Fulbright in the late 60s where he s…
Jacques Bekaert (LP)
Continuing in the Igloo appreciation thread, here is a replication of IGL 008; Jacques Bekaert's 1981 eponymous LP - following 1979's "Summer Music" for Lovely - containing three tape pieces composed between 1969 & 1978, featuring contributions by a who's who of 60s & 70s Avant Garde & Fluxus figures - Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, David Behrman, David Rosenboom, Maggi Payne, George Lewis, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Ryo Koike, amongst many others. The extended "Late Lunch" - at 28 minutes barely fi…
Silances
Continuing in the Creel Pone "6" Igloo program, here's a picture-perfect reproduction of one of the more obscure & bewitching entrants into the label's early discography, Henry Krutzen's 1981 "Silances" LP; IGL 006. Nestled somewhere between Ghédalia Tazartès' mutant Sound Poetry, Anton Bruhin's acoustic / Alphorn drones & the more "Private" sensibilities of Badouin Oosterlynck, Paul A.R. Timmermans, or latter-day channelers like Raymond Dijkstra, the largely quiet, humble multi-track constructs…
Te Deum - An Electronic Realization
"I have a soft spot for "Religious" Early Electronic Music outings - secular or not, the "Provocative Electronics" LP is one of my favorites in the C.P. series, as are Ralph Swickard's "Sermons Of Saint Francis" & "Hymn Of Creation," both present on the first "Creelpolation" - so this "Private" 1979 outing, the sole release by Composer Henry Sweitzer of beautifully hand-played advanced synthesizer motifs & home-studio Musique Concrète is a real find. Starting with the side-length title piece, Sw…