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Two events in music history had revolutionary consequences: the creation of notation and the invention of electronic sound. The initial stages of electronic music brought about new musical instruments like the theremin, the electric guitar and the synthesizer. In the digital age, the computer has itself become a musical instrument, with the invention of live electronics providing traditional instruments, such as the violin or piano, with new, unimagined sonic possibilities. The SWR Experimentals…
Smallest Functional Unit was founded in 2020 by Ute Wassermann, Tony Buck, Mazen Kerbaj, Magda Mayas and Racha Gharbieh with the aim of performing and publishing unconventional, hybrid notational formats and graphic scores by international composers. The publication will appear as Graphème, a series with a thematic focus on experimental notation.
The phenomenon of “graphic” scores has been a subject of fascination, controversy, and a flourishing of artistic talent since its inception in the aftermath of the Second World War. The scores of that age, despite their compelling visual presence, nevertheless remain elusive: the means of performance are obscure, and they resist conventional analysis. This study reconsiders graphic scores from the perspective of Information Theory, derived from studies of “ergodic” texts: the ergodic score requi…
Absolute tip! In the form of a richly illustrated compendium, Tape Leaders is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in electronic sound and its origins in Great Britain. For the first time a book sets out information on practically everyone active with experimental electronics and tape recording across the country, revealing the hidden history of early British electronic music. With an individual entry for each composer, starting with Daevid Allen and going through to Peter Zin…
Jerry Hunt (1943–1993) has been described as a shamanic figure with the look of a Central Texas meat inspector. One of the most compelling composers in the world of late twentieth-century new music, he made work that combined video synthesis, installation art, and early computers with rough-hewn sculptures, scores drawn from celestial alphabets, and homemade electronics activated by his signature wands and impassioned gestures. Hunt lived his entire life in Texas, eventually settling in a house …
Inside Computer Music is an investigation of how new technological developments have influenced the creative possibilities of composers of computer music in the last 50 years. This book combines detailed research into the development of computer music techniques with nine case studies that analyze key works in the musical and technical development of computer music. The book's companion website offers demonstration videos of the techniques used and downloadable software. There, readers can view …
Published on the occasion of her long-deserved retrospective organized by Muzeum Susch from June to December 2021, this book testifies to the singularity and innovative vision of Italian artist Laura Grisi within contemporary art history. Although her work has mostly been “reduced” to Italian Pop art—if not entirely overlooked—from the outset Grisi worked beyond that category, pertinently intercepting various lines of international artistic research (Conceptual art, Optical art and Kinetic-Progr…
The US ensemble The Hub is one of the pioneers of network music and live coding. The formation consisting of Tim Perkis, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Chris Brown, John Bischoff, Phil Stone, and Mark Trayle emerged from the League of Automatic Music Composers in 1986. They revolutionized electronic music with democratically organized composition and performance processes operating in networks and received the Giga-Hertz Prize from the ZKM | Hertz-Lab. The publication depicts the collective’s work in a…
The festival, which is now 50 years old, was designed from the start to be an alternative concept, one that would refuse to be part of the mainstream. Instead, it wanted to be understood as a major (social) experiment in which the dialogue between musicians and audience formed part of the programme. Perhaps that’s exactly how the book should be written: as a dialogue between musicians and audience, without an omniscient author.
[re]visiting Moers Festival is not a meta-account. [re]visiting Moer…
First publication of new pieces by composer and musician Mica Levi titled ‘star star star’. The collection debuts 7 new works developed over the recent months by Mica and a working group of performers during a residency at Oto. Using written text instructions, speech rhythm techniques and visual cues these pieces are open to players with no previous musical experience, and incorporate elements such as spoken word, light and movement. ‘star star star’ puts the emphasis on the player and the group…
The Destructive Character by the Dutch composer, multimedia artist and theorist Dick Raaijmakers (1930) treats of a subject which, when considered from the aspect of the constant media coverage on destruction -- whether ecological, military, or economical -- should still be our very present and pressing concern. The Destructive Character is a commentary on an essay form 1931 by Walter Benjamin bearing the same title and included in this publication. In his reaction, Raaijmakers focuses on the fa…
528 pages. English Edition. Collection of Interviews, Scores and Writings by American composer Alvin Lucier during the years 1965–1994, offering a wonderfully complete look at Lucier's musical activities through the years. Alvin Lucier (1931-2021) was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included…
Sound American Publications' 27th issue, The Life Issue, proposes a reflection upon the smallness—and largeness—of living amidst a tumultuous, globally-shared moment. The Life Issue contributors include Claire Rousay, who writes about the many cuts accumulated while learning something new; pedal steel superhero Susan Alcorn recounts a battle with injury; composer Jack Langdon offers Sound American's second fiction offering, a story of how the pandemic affects a fictional musician, presenter, and…
**31,3 x 31,3 cm 240 pages ** Flee's new project focuses on the music of the pearl fishermen of the Persian Gulf and aims to honor the memory of the divers, their culture and their music. The pearls of the Gulf have stoked the imagination and desire of people around the world for centuries, their magnificence matched only by the courage of the divers who found them. This project aims to honor the memory of these valiant free-divers, their culture and their music by the means of a 2XLP compilatio…
* 236 pp., thread-sewn softcover * The third issue of the annual publication dedicated to sound and music experimentation, co-published by Shelter Press and Ina GRM – Groupe de Recherches Musicales, around the topic of artificial intelligence. Contributions by Keith Fullerton Whitman, Émilie Gillet, Steve Goodman, Florian Hecker, James Hoff, Roland Kayn, Ada Lovelace, Robin Mackay, Bill Orcutt, Matthias Puech, Akira Rabelais, Lucy Railton, Jean-Claude Risset, Sébastien Roux, Peter Zinovieff. The…
* Hardcover 16,5 x 23 cm 288 pages 67 color and b/w illustrations. German & French * The publication accompanying the eponymous exhibition brings together works by more than 20 international artists that focus on the encounter of multiple voices and sounds. Polyphone deals with perceptual aspects, as well as with the socio-cultural and political dimensions of polyphony. Here, polyphony refers to both the musical term and the linguistic definition according to Mikhail Bakhtin, who points to the a…
* 2021 Stock * Pauline Oliveros s Anthology of Text Scores contains over one hundred pieces that span four decades of creative work. Collected in one comprehensive volume, these individual and group meditations, as well as solo and ensemble performance pieces are invaluable resources for performing musicians, music students, and anyone interested in the life work of one the most unique voices in modern music.
Anthology of Text Scores contains all but 4 of the pieces in Deep Listening Pieces (mi…
* 2021 Stock * Anthology of Essays on Deep Listening, edited by Monique Buzzarté and Tom Bickley, is timed to celebrate the 80th birthday of composer and Deep Listening Institute creator, Pauline Oliveros. Though three previous collections of Oliveros’s writings have already been published, this anthology is the first published presentation of the many voices of the broader Deep Listening community. The historical record of Deep Listening connects back to the early 1970s when Oliveros began an …
** 2021 Stock. English version ** This publication explores the work of the acclaimed Swiss-American artist Christian Marclay (1955), presenting a selection of works focusing on his sound compositions, from graphic scores to video installations. In this artist’s book, he shows the relationship between sound and vision, exploring the ways that sound can be made visually manifest. As the artist himself has said: ‘music runs through almost everything I do’.