Le Crabe Qui Jouait Avec La Mer, Conte De Noël
"Le Crabe Qui Jouait Avec La Mer" is a beyoot of a radio-play, based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling, narrated by Jacques Gripel & featuring one of the only full-length bits of Musique Concrète by the ORTF / INA-GRM aligned composer Philippe Arthuys. While heavy french texts pervade the goings on throughout, with it’s all-ages appeal, it’s kind of the first Creel Pone that’s for everybody; "Crabe's" absolutely gorgeous cover - with it’s depiction of psychedelic crustaceans - only sweetens…
Independent Electronic Music Composer
Now that the Creel-Pone series has reached its teens, its time for an irreverent late-60s blast of heavy Synth-Freakout / Tape-Psych weirdness from this Cicero, Illinois based composer Edward M. Zajda, about whom i can’t find a single bit of information - other than that he has a piece included in a 1964 radio program called “Electronic Music in America” that’s archived in the Brandeis library. Originally issued in the late 60s on the regional Ars Nova / Ars Antiqua” label, “Independent” star…
Celebration
Even to a die-hard Early Electronic Music acolyte, Frank W. Becker's name isn't a readily familiar one, despite issuing a half-dozen LPs of vaguely Berlin-school music via Toshiba EMI while based in Japan in the mid-late 70s. "Celebration," a "Private" issue on his own Gorilla imprint, starts out sure enough with the titular, 1976 side-length bit of protracted sequencing and minimalism-inspired forms - all with a vague new-age lilt to it b/w of calming ocean noises & an almost Terry Riley-ish …
Electronomusic, 9 Images
Much in the way I was confounded by Rod “A Safe Place to Land” McKuen’s forays into noise-oriented electronic music - see: Heins Hoffman-Richter, “Symphony for Tape Delay, IBM Instruction Manual, & OHM Septet," aka "Music to Freak your Friends and Break your Lease” - this set of “Electronomusic” by RCA-Victor “Living Stereo” architect - he recorded the vast majority of the legendary classical label’s productions, working with Van Cliburn, Heifetz, Horowitz, Leontyne Price, Fritz Reiner, Toscan…
A l'approche du Feu Méditant
Of all the works by Jean-Claude Eloy, the 1983 "Approaching the Meditative Flame...", for 27 instrumentalists of the "Gagaku" orchestra from Japan, and two choruses of "Shômyô" Buddhist monks (a work known partially in the West by a double LP album "Harmonia Mundi") and more particularly, "Anâhata", for five traditional soloists from Japan (three instrumentalists and two monk singers), percussions, and a major electro-acoustic part (presented in different festivals in Europe) – are the two works…
Naši Hostia: Experimental Studio Bratislava Series, vol. 3
This Series of electro acoustic music and Musique Concrète has started in 2015 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Experimental Studio Bratislava, Exs. Series 1 introduced us to Ina Hudba/Other Music from the first generation of Slovak avant-garde composers recorded in the Exs, mostly with self-built electronic equipment behind the Iron Curtain. Series 2 provided a platform for Nova Generacia/New Generation of Slovak composers using Western equipment – now integrat…
Invisible(s) Archipelago(s) #1 – Serendib rhythms
"The Unfathomless Series returns with another pair of fine releases, whose moods are polar opposites. Five Elements Music‘s lokrum patterns draws the listener in, while Stéphane Marin’s Invisible(s) Archipelago(s) n°1 – Serendib rhythms contains sounds that many would choose to avoid. Now to Sri Lanka, a land of many islands, whose sounds have been worked into a single composition by Stéphane Marin. The title may be unwieldy (Invisible(s) Archipelago(s) #1 – Serendib rhythms), but the idea is no…
At the Salt Museum
In December 2015, these three Melbourne musicians camped at Murray Sunset National Park in northern Victoria, Australia, sounding various sites and performing ritualistic actions. This album documents our interactions with rusted salt harvesting machinery discovered at the outdoor 'salt museum' on the shore of the Lake Crosbie saltpan.
Riflesso
Filtro was born in 2016 from the meeting of Angelo Bignamini and Luca De Biasi already active in the Italian psychedelic and noise scene (The Great Sanuites, Sukkia, Satantango, etc). In the grammatic of Riflesso magnetic tapes articulate with modular synthesizers and improvisation that the duo manipulates till they get a canvas of twines and multicolour stitches curves and corners sound scraps calibrated and polished get born again and find new context in the shape of patterns repeated sequence…
After Guernica
Once again the “boxes from Reykjavik” have started arriving on Thursday mornings like clockwork; let’s start up again not with an outright explosion of lost Tape-Psych damage - to give us all time to recover - but with a rather remarkable set of subtle, Lo-Fi Electronic compositions composed throughout the 60s & originally released in the early 70s on the private-press “Golden Crest Records, Inc.” label. Of the past Creel Pones, this one has the most in common with the George Engler “Inside of…
Trip-Tych
Originally brought to light in 1977 by Serenus - the same folks that unleashed the early Creel Pone “Hit,” “The Inside of the Outside ... or the Outside of the Inside”) this is a fine example of a record that straddles the divide between library-music style conventions - many of the pieces are short, melodic numbers of the sort that would dot the silent spaces in a public-tv science program - and wild, free-form synthesizer filigree. Thematically linked into three “Themes”, the A-side’s “The Bi…
Contemporaneos 4, Musica Electroacustica
Last C.P. of 2010, finally available after countless delays, mostly involving the tricky /expert-level remastering job needed to resuscitate this incredible, historically-important music from sub-par vinyl pressings - a high-spec issue of Cuban composer Juan Blanco’s first two Egrem / Areito label LPs, covering his earliest electronic music dating back to 1963. Opening with the token non-electronic “Musica Para un Joven Martir” - or "Music for a Young Martyr" - rife with swelling, Penderecki-ia…
Musiques de l'O.N.F., Music of the N.F.B.
reproduction of a lovely 1977 double-lp set collecting only the earliest electronic music made in canada; with a majority of pieces remarkably made without the aid of magnetic tape (!?) but directly on optical film... music of the n.f.b. (volume 1)audio without visualthis album offers an unusual opportunity to discover the "sound dimensions" of the national film board of canada. this is not, however, a matter of "film music" or "theme songs". the sound tracks to be found here, detached from thei…
Tropes on the Salve Regina
I've heard rumo(u)r of the Creel Pone "shortlist"; i.e. the member-curated selection of "candidates" for the Creel Pone treatment, each title nominated then judged according to strict set of attributes found running throughout the series (intangible qualities, mind you, such as "zonked" - "private-universe / bedroom" - "against-grain" - "aleatoric" - etc ...) Up high on said list all along has been this gem; Michael Sahl's first release, "Tropes on the Salve Regina." This one fits in so perfectl…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
Luc Ferrari Prix Presque Rien Prize
In 2010, Brunhild Ferrari decided to make public some of Luc Ferrari's original sound archives by offering a selected collection of recordings to other composers who may wish to use the material for the creation of original musical works. Her desire was to open this sonic treasure to other artists without wanting to impose any aesthetic direction on them, and with the only purpose of encouraging new artistic inventiveness. This edition presents the "Presque Rien Prize" winners and other selected…