The Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer
2024 stock. Jon Appleton, Sydney Alonso, and Cameron Jones set out to create a new digital synthesizer at Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering in 1972. They considered the computer-controlled synthesizer superior to analog because of its “ability to create, by digital means alone, time-variant timbres which make all natural sounds interesting to our ears.” This 1976 recording presents the results of their effort—four different compositions, one each by Jon Appleton, Lars-Gunnar Bodin…
Sounds Of New Music
2024 stock. Sounds of New Music is a collection of 18 compositions from the 1920s to the mid-1950s representing attempts at a "new means of musical expression." Some use familiar instruments in new ways, while others experiment with new instruments; the formats of the compositions range from structured musical scores written for orchestra to electronically altered music using tape-recording devices. Composers include Edgard Varèse, Henry Cowell, and John Cage, whose "Dance" is played on a transf…
Science Series: Sounds of Frequency
2024 stock. While some of the sounds on this album could be the noise produced by various electric equipment (fax machine buzz, phone busy tones etc.) this album is actually to provide “a standard by which record playing equipment can be checked for frequency response, and distortion, without equipment other than an oscilloscope and volume indicator.” Recorded and annotated by Peter Bartok. Liner notes include detailed information about each track (frequency) and method of testing.
Rhythmania And Other Electronic Musical Compositions
2024 stock. Released in 1976, Rhythmania and Other Electronic Musical Compositions spotlights the sounds of a specially assembled Moog Synthesizer (a type of analog synthesizer). The variety is impressive: from birdcalls and the sounds of machines in a factory to waltzes. Pieces such as “Cosmic Dance of Shiva” and “Hear the Clock Tick” are “composed of natural sounds recorded through a microphone,” rather than generated electronically like the “Triptych” fugues. This album also highlights electr…
Reelizations 1
2024 stock. This 1980 recording explores combinations of acoustic instruments and recording technologies. The increasing cost of large ensembles performing new works led composers to experiment with inexpensive alternatives. Barton Smith creates his own orchestra mixing recordings and acoustic instruments with everyday items such as swivel chairs and glass bottles. Liner notes include descriptions of how each track was composed, the composer's biographical information, and suggestions for how ea…
Reelizations 2
2024 stock. This 1982 recording builds on Barton Smith's previous Reelizations release, incorporating acoustic and electronic instruments with tape-recording technology into a unique one-person orchestra. The ability to create and perform music with the use of new technology and without large and expensive orchestras made sharing creations easier, especially for accompaniment in film, radio, and television. Liner notes include descriptions of how each track was composed, instrumentation, and sug…
Outer Space
2024 stock. "Ingenious use of echo, artificial reverberation and electronic alterations gives the music in this category a weird, spooky futuristic, 'out of this world' quality, well-suited to super-natural happenings of any kind. Piano, drums and electronic instruments are used to achieve the strange atmosphere and spatial sounds." Vaclav Nelhybel crafts a supernatural world, describing nebulae, meteors, star clusters and craters on Mars with sounds natural and manipulated to tell the story of …
Futuribile (The Life To Come)
*2024 stock* What did the future sound like in 1980? Futurible is brought to you by Italian composer Gianni Safred and will take you both back in time and into the future. Safred uses Moog and Arp synthesizers that have now become commonplace in popular music. These sounds are "suitable for space travels, space explorers, experiments, fantastic adventures, future enterprises, interplanetary stories, important achievements, industrial accomplishments of broad implication… modern scientific discov…
Exotic Moog
*2023 reissue* Now available on classic black vinyl. The inventor of exotica/cocktail music goes electronic/Moog. Originally released in 1969, "Exotic Moog" is a much sought after title in our Martin Denny reissue series. Great music for hunters of synth, exotica, experimental, 60's rock, and psych. "Exotic Moog is the glittering grail for both Martin Denny collectors and Moog fans. There really is nothing else like it, and the LP is very much in short supply. The Moog in this case is one of the…
Electronic Works 1958-1995
2023 Restock. Triple yellow LP version. Pressed on audiophile grade heavy duty vinyl. Else Marie Pade, born in 1924 in Denmark, is a precious golden gem in the world of contemporary electro-acoustic music. She is a true pioneer of electronic music and musique concrète. Pade is Denmark's first lady of electronic music and her piece "Syv Cirkler (Seven Circles)" became the first electronic piece performed on Danish radio. Pade's fascination with sound began in early childhood. Isolated in her bed …
Push Button
*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Library act with different people involved depending on the record. Not a side project of Jenkins & Ratledge per se. Karl Jenkins co-forming Nucleus, which won first prize at the Montreux jazz festival. This was followed by a period with Soft Machine, one of the seminal bands of the 1970's. Michael Ratledge Founder and long-time member of Soft Machine.
De Unicornis Veritate
*In process of stocking. First ever release* ADN Ckrystall is the pseudonym of French synth experimentalist Érick Moncollin. Armed with a Crumar, Multiman 52 with brass pedal and sustain/volume pedal, two Kawai Synthi 100-F, Roland CR-65, Korg PS-3200, Roland Jupiter-4, a Boss flanger, MXR phasing and a TEAC 8-track recorder he produced his first LP, Jazz'Mad, with the help of synth expert sound engineer Benoit Hutin. The LP was self-released in 1982 to critic aclaim and generated a fan base tha…
The Electric Lucifer
*2022 repress. In process of stocking* Bruce Haack's The Electric Lucifer is rightly considered one of the masterworks of 20th century electronic music. Originally recorded in 1968-69 (released in 1970), it's an eminently listenable work where pop-psychedelia and Moog/musique concrete sounds coalesce. Acclaimed upon its original release (one of Rolling Stone's favorite albums of 1970) yet unavailable for over three decades, The Electric Lucifer is presented here for the first time on LP. Remaste…
Collector
Digipak CD edition. From the world-famous "Psyché Rock", to "La minute éternelle" sent by NASA into space, to "Variance", an unpublished remix of the iconic work "Variation pour une porte un soupir". Pierre Henry’s Collector is conceived as a Best Of collection of 16 tracks from 1950 to 2013. This album is a gateway for any listener to discover the innovative and masterful work of the founder of electronic music, exploring an intense, audacious and fascinating sound universe.
Issue 91: Stephen Mallinder
This month's cover star is the legendary Stephen Mallinder, once of Cabaret Voltaire, now of Wrangler and Creep Show, and we have an exclusive and totally glorious green vinyl seven-inch by this giant of UK electronic music to accompany the issue.
Would It Sound Just as Bad If You Played It
A Collection of Sounds from the Studio Eksperymentalne Polskiego Radia (1959-2001) with art by Zofia Kulik. “Would it sound just as bad if you played it backwards?” assembles a collection of audio experiments created at the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) from 1959 to the beginning of the millennium. These exceptional works are presented alongside images from the Polish artist Zofia Kulik, whose career reached its apogee between the late 1960s and early 70s.
Polish Radio Experimental…
A Group for Experimental Music
Edition of 50. CD+CDR+poster CDR is included the following three tracks are recorded by using Rionocorder, a flexi disc cutting machine by Rion, released in 1962. Therefore, the sound range is narrow with a lot of scratch noises. Since there was a time limit to fix these issues, it was decided not to include the piece in the CD.The reason it was used despite this performance, is because they also had an experimental approach to the recording method.
tr.1_Hajime Yamashita : Mural (Abstract for Pi…
Issue 75: Hannah Peel - Rewiring the Radiophonic Workshop
This edition of Electronic Sound's cover star is Hannah Peel, whose latest album is a superb reimagining of 'Electrosonic', a 1972 library music collection on KPM Records featuring The Radiophonic Workshop.
Soest Live
One of the most influential bands in the last five decades, Kraftwerk virtually established the blueprint, the source code even for electronic music. Founded by classically trained musicians Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleban in Dusseldorf in 1970, the band has informed and inspired a diverse range of genres and artists including David Bowie, Björk, Afrika Bambaataa, and Joy Division. This early live performance, in Soest, Germany in Winter 1970, broadcast on WDR-TV displays the band in …
The Lost Theremin Album
** 160 gram vinyl, old school tip-on jacket + 8-page booklet ** A new LP collection of incredible performances by the virtuosa of theremin, Clara Rockmore, accompanied by her sister Nadia Reisenberg on piano. Recorded in 1975 and never before released on vinyl, this compendium features stellar performances of compositions by Bach, Chopin, Schubert, Gershwin and more, and even features a cello ensemble on a few songs! Some of the finest examples of Clara Rockmore’s unrivaled art - rich with bit…