** Lats copies. Special signed edition, number 1-17 ** Epic release by Alvin Lucier, with a load of previously unreleased material compiled in one incredible box set. 4 x LP (180 grams), 1x CD and an extensive 120 pages lavish book plenty of previously unseen images. Safe to say that this one’s aimed at the Lucier aficionados, but it’s a real eye-opener for anyone into the far reaches of experimental music and the sonic art. Given the cost and scale of the project it's unlikely these will ever get a re-press. Only 500 individually numbered copies have been made...so if you want one of these, it's now or never.**
The 85th birthday of composer and sound-theorist icon Alvin Lucier has been justly celebrated with the release of an incredible 4-LP+CD+Book deluxe box by the Züricher Hochschule der Kunste in Zürich (ZHDK) in the occasion of ZHDK’s festival that marked his revolutionary work. Held in October of 2016, ZHDK’s festivities were centered around three days of concerts, installations, workshops, and symposiums that featured Lucier and prominent figures such as Joan La Barbara, Charles Curtis, Stephen O’Malley, Oren Ambarchi, Gary Schmalzl, as well as many University students and faculty members spanning the disciplines of composition, music theory, musicology, sound studies, aesthetics, critical theory, and art history. Alvin Lucier is considered among the most cerebral of the so-called minimal composers.
Born in Nashua, New Hampshire and educated at Yale and Brandeis, he currently teaches at Wellesley College. In the late 1960s, he became involved in an experimental composer collective along with composers Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley known as the Sonic Arts Union. The group performed together for over a decade, using each other in their compositions and artworks. Lucier was a particularly inteesting case for the others because he had a stutter which they liked to exploit. Lucier's music tends to be concered with physical space, acoustic resonance and the acoustical beating that results when two pitches that are very close in frequency are played at the same time.
LP 1 Side A
I Am Sitting in a Room (1970) for voice and electromagnetic tape / Alvin Lucier, performer / Hauke Harder, assistant. 18:20 min
LP 1 Side B
Music for Solo Performer (1965) for enormously ampli ed brain
waves and percussion / Alvin Lucier, brain waves / Hauke Harder and Daniel Wolf, assistants. 24:06 min
LP 2 Side A
Charles Curtis (2002) for cello
with slow sweep pure wave oscillators / Charles Curtis, cello. 13:40 min
LP 2 Side B
Double Rainbow (2016) for voice and slow sweep pure wave oscillator / Joan La Barbara, voice. (world premiere) 12:08 min
Nothing is Real (Strawberry Fields Forever) (1990) for piano, ampli ed teapot, tape recorder, and miniature sound system / Johannes Herrmann, piano. 8:21 min
LP 3 Side A
Braid (2012) for alto ute, clarinet, English horn, and string quartet / Felix Profos, conductor / Patrycja Pakiela, alto ute / Soraya Dos Santos, clarinet / Megumi Nakajima, English horn / Nora Peterhans and Cécile Vonderwahl, violin / Tabea Frei, viola / Nadja Reich, cello. (European premiere) 16:00 min
LP 3 Side B
Two Circles (2012) for flute, B-flat clarinet, violin, cello, and piano / Felix Profos, conductor / Patrycja Pakiela, ute / Soraya Dos Santos, clari- net / Nora Peterhans, violin / Nadja Reich, cello / Lora-Evelin Vakova, piano. 17:52 min
LP 4 Side A
Hanover (2015) for violin, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, three banjos (three e-guitars), piano, and bowed vibraphone / e Ever Present Orchestra: Lars Mlekusch, conductor / Rebecca ies, violin / Charles Ng, alto saxophone / Joan Jordi Oliver Arcos, tenor saxo- phone / Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O’Malley, Gary Schmalzl, electric guitar / Felix Profos, piano / Anthony Burr, bowed vibraphone. (European premiere) 18:06 min
LP 4 Side B
Step, Slide and Sustain (2014) for horn in F, cello, and piano / Retro Disco: Samuel Stoll, horn / Moritz Muellen- bach, cello / Simone Keller, piano. (world premiere) 14:55 min
CD
One Arm Bandits (2016) for four cellos / Charles Curtis, TJ Borden, Judith Hamann, Reynard Rott, cello. 60:09 min