This CD premieres ten works from David Lee Myers, the “Darwin of electromagnetic lifeforms."
The album’s content spontaneously emerged
from Myers’ self-designed, hand-built conglomerations of elaborately
interconnected sound processing devices, with no external audio input.
Some call the results “sounds from the ether” (hence this album’s
title).
The CD’s music is distinctive and enticing. We hear an hallucinatory
trip to a Martian jungle; irregular bongos overlaid with frog-croaked
arpeggios; a rapidly sputtering, helium-inhaling synthesizer; a demented
organ, gasping for life; all concluding with the placid atmosphere of dorsal streaming, tinged with calming panpipe-like chuffing.
"My sound works are the result of capture,
selection, processing and combination. Essentially, I do not create
sounds or compose, but allow latent or unseen forces and processes to
present themselves via simple technologies. I select the methods, set
the stage, and as the phenomena emerge I of course introduce my own
aesthetic judgements to the mix. Therefore the sounds which are
presented are neither completely random science nor the gesture of an
artist's hand, but something between the two, and I believe this to be
the most effective approach toward evoking meaningful impressions of
unseen worlds."
Collaborations with other artists
have included Asmus Tietchens, Tod Dockstader, Ellen Band, Marco
Oppedisano, Thomas Dimuzio, Gen Ken Montgomery, Alexander Ross, and
VidnaObmana.
Renaldo & The Loaf are long established purveyors of odd yet strangely listenable music. Formed in 1979, they signed to
Ralph
Records in the US and also recorded for Some Bizarre UK. After a long
break they reformed and now release their music through Klanggalerie.
They are also currently working with Psychofon, Editions Mego, Secret
Records and blocGlobal.
Born 1934 in Berlin.
Nurse, physiotherapist, masseur, escort of the dying, composer, writer,
poet foto-collage-artist, producer, curator. He is a pioneer in the
field of the exploitation of electrically generated tones, sounds and
noises, and belongs to the founders of contemporary popular electronic
music. His discography lists about 80 releases. In 1968 he was the
founder member of the artslab Zodiak and of groups such as Geräusche,
PlusMinus, Kluster, Cluster, Harmonia etc
Collaborations/co-productions with artists around the globe such as
with: Konrad Plank, Brian Eno, Holger Czukay, Dieter Moebius, Michael
Rother, Conrad Schnitzler, Peter Baumann, Felix Jay, Tim Story, Morgan
Fisher and many others.
About 1500 compositions including text and poetry.
Almost uncountable concerts / performances / readings all over Europe
and in main cities of Japan, Australia and the United States.
The Nature Singer: His Complete Issued Recordings, February 1915 to January 1919
Released May 17, 2020
"Love - the absolute circle of trustfulness - that's the secret of it
all. I love the birds, the snakes, the society person, the academic, and
the baby - all creatures of the universe are alike, and they will never
harm you unless you fear them."
"Vespers"
This recording was made in 1969 with the Environ-Ears Recording System,
an integrated acoustical labyrinth and microphone assembly which
duplicates the localization and noise-reducing functions of the human
ear. The system consists of a pair of ears mounted on a tube containing
two miniature high-quality microphones which record the actual physical
positions of sounds in three dimensions. Both the Sondols™ and the
Environ-Ears system were designed by Listening Incorporated, Arlington,
Massachusetts.
"Chambers"
Environmental recordings by Alvin Lucier. Recorded at The Coffehouse,
Middletown, Connecticut, in 2002; Michael Arafeh, engineer.
Following his retirement in 1998, composer and founding figure of
cybernetic music Roland Kayn (1933-2011) did not relax the pace of his
output. On the contrary, his oeuvre grew exponentially, and some of his
most expansive works were to take shape at his home studio in Nieuwe
Pekela in the Dutch province of Groningen. Through the late 1990s and
early 2000s, several of these compositions were released on CD on the
composer’s own label, Reiger-records-reeks, which was revived in 2019 by
his daughter Ilse for the momentous release of ‘Scanning’ (1982-83).
However, the Lydia-und Roland-Kayn-Archiv holds dozens of these works,
many of them as ambitious in scope as classics such as ‘Tektra’ and
‘Infra’, which have earned Kayn a loyal following among the current
generation of electronic music enthusiasts.
In 2003 alone, Kayn produced 15 pieces. One of these – the
hitherto-unheard ‘The Man and the Biosphere’ – now forms the first
release for an exciting new Bandcamp page dedicated to works from the
archive.
Pascal
Comelade was born in Montpellier, France. After living in Barcelona for
several years, he made his first album, under the name of Fluence,
influenced by electronic music and by the group Heldon. Since 1980
Comelade releases music under his own name. Ever since, his music has
become more acoustic and is often characterised by the sounds of toy
instruments, used as solo-instruments or as an integral part of the
sound of his group, the Bel Canto Orchestra. Marc Hurtado is one half of
the experimental French duo Étant Donnés. Active since the end of the
1970s, the group has released several albums, also collaborating with
people like Alan Vega, Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira or Genesis P-Orridge.
Hurtado has also released several solo albums under his own name, again
collaborating with various artists, and has toured with Lydia Lunch
celebrating the music of Suicide. Larme Secrete is the first time that
Comelade and Hurtado have collaborated. Larme Secrete is the sound of an
electric shock , the sound of two hearts beating at the same rhythm,
united in the pulsating and hypnotic music of Pascal Comelade melted in
the fire of the celestial poems of Marc Hurtado. Synthesizers, guitars,
drums, organ, piano, sound loops, whispering, flying, screaming voices
transport you in a blazing sonic dream."
Pauline Oliveros' "Thirteen Changes" (1996) performed by Claire Chase,
flutes, and Rand Steiger, signal processing.
Recorded in Brooklyn, NY
and San Diego, CA during quarantine. Dedicated to the loving memory of
Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) on her 88th birthday, May 30, 2020!
“The concept of the compilation itself was very plain. Together with
Dmitry, we’ve asked artists befriended with our record label ’Dronarvim’
for a composition which would be truly unique and still not released
anywhere. Apart from the permanent composers connected with our record
label, a few new names appear, for example of two Polish artists. The
premise of the compilation is that the whole amount from the sale will
be donated to WHO in order to counteract the effects of the Covid-19
pandemic.”
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO & TAYLOR DEUPREE - Live In London
12K, June 5, 2020
The long-awaited digital release of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Taylor Deupree's concert at St. John's Cathedral in London in 2014.
Originally released as a double LP in 2016by Thirty Three Thirty Three,
in two editions, "Live In London" had yet to see a wider,
digitally-distributed release as the LP editions did not come with a
download option.
Good news for all you Residents fans: we have two new great items out
today: first, the long-awaited collaboration between Czech postpunk
legend Uz Jsme Doma and Randy, singer of The Residents, recorded at a
one time meeting in Moravia. Second, the never before collected Eyeful
album - all the tracks that were released online online by The then
residents blog called The Bog. Both can be found on the website in the
catalogue section. We have one more exciting item coming up later this
month, a new album by Charles Hayward called Crossfade Estate . . .
Following his retirement in 1998, composer and founding figure of
cybernetic music Roland Kayn (1933-2011) did not relax the pace of his
output. On the contrary, his oeuvre grew exponentially, and some of his
most expansive works were to take shape at his home studio in Nieuwe
Pekela in the Dutch province of Groningen. Through the late 1990s and
early 2000s, several of these compositions were released on CD on the
composer’s own label, Reiger-records-reeks, which was revived in 2019 by
his daughter Ilse for the momentous release of ‘Scanning’ (1982-83).
However, the Lydia-und Roland-Kayn-Archiv holds dozens of these works,
many of them as ambitious in scope as classics such as ‘Tektra’ and
‘Infra’, which have earned Kayn a loyal following among the current
generation of electronic music enthusiasts.
In 2003 alone, Kayn produced 15 pieces. One of these – the
hitherto-unheard ‘The Man and the Biosphere’ – now forms the first
release for an exciting new Bandcamp page dedicated to works from the
archive.
released June 19, 2020
The first track of the 4 track album MULTIPLEX SOUND-ART - CD 004, "Requiem pour Patrice Lumumba".
Patrice Émery Lumumba was the first Prime Minister of the independent
Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Republic of the Congo), but was
murdered by his opponents, with the complicity of the Belgian
government, the United States and the UN.
Kayn first heard of these events from his friend, conductor Andrzej
Markowski. He had never before written a requiem, and elected to make
Lumumba his subject.
'Requiem pour Patrice Lumumba' was previously released on the ‘Multiplex
Sound-Art’ CD in 2004 (Reiger-records-reeks, KY-CD 004-1/2). The
recording has now been remastered and rereleased upon the occasion of
Bandcamp’s Juneteenth stand for racial justice and equality.
Thanks for the update on the Kayn. I guess I won't be able to hear the other works until the discs arrive in the mail. Hey! It's kinda like the "old" days!
- "I wanted to make a piece in two sections both drawn from the same small
sample set, but each with its own unique pacing and style. A model
vaguely in my mind would have been like a prelude and fugue - each half
capable of standing alone, but complementing each other when played
together.
The full title is Ganci & Figli, named after an amazingly scaled,
24-hour rosticceria panineria in the city of Palermo, kindly introduced
to me by composer/saxophonist Gianni Gebbia after our shared performance
in that city a few years ago.
All music made using the programming language MAX, from Cycling74, as always."
Not
long after the release of their GurdyHurding album, Renaldo and The
Loaf set a competition called Gurdy Wording, for fans to write some
lyrics or to devise a song idea for the band.
In early 2017 a winner was announced, Song of the Lungfish by
Eggoddleo Jones. There was always the thought that RATL would one day
record the song but, as is usual for their material, RATL gave no
timescale.
The lungfish itself is a result of an extended period of evolution
and so it was with the creation of these final Lungfish recordings which
were started in 2017 and completed in 2019.
The four tracks….
Song Of The Lungfish
Sacred Shore
Lungfish Hornpipe
Song Of The Lungfish Dreaming
….are simultaneously jolly and yet sanguine – the fish being content to dance as they mournfully recall their long lost past.
50 years of Logos, 50 years of experiment' is a collection of anecdotes,
photographs, articles and sound clips that do not intend to be complete
- they form a retrospective of the evolution of Logos since 1968.
Logos Foundation
Belgium Flanders' unique professional organisation for the promotion
of new music and audio-related arts by means of new music production, concerts, performances, composition, technological
research and other activities related to contemporary music. This organisation has been founded in 1968 by Godfried-Willem Raes.
Authors Dirk Moelants, Douglas Quin, Jacques Rémus and Warren Burt
talk about their experiences as musicians and artists with Logos.
Jean Paul Van Bendegem writes about his first musical steps in the
"werkgroep" (working group), as it was then called. Moniek Darge
publishes a report of the concert tour of the Logos Duo to Rwanda.
These texts, together with the introduction by Laura Maes, outline
the different aspects of the former collective and the current Logos
Foundation. . . .
Regarding my VARIABLES-I, normally I compose sound. Here I was intrigued by the probability process to create different tonal forms. I used feedbacked Delay lines to repeat, or dense, emotions. This album you can find not only at iTunes but also here and at others like: https://www.qobuz.com/nl-nl/interpreter/roland-emile-kuit/download-streaming-albums
The EP follows on from Memory Streams, their fifth studio album and
second for Gondwana Records which was released in October 2019.
Sonically it explores a similar world to the full-length album, but
where Memory Streams focused on a punchier live sound, WWT explores
modern classical and ambient textures.
We Welcome Tomorrow features, the duo Fran and Flora (Francesca Ter-Berg
cello & Flora Curzon) on strings, but also builds looped
saxophones, drums and synths parts into a rich tapestry of sound. Odd
time signatures underpin a surprisingly emotional build that resolves in
richly layered strings. . . .
Michael Gregory Jackson - guitar, vocal, composer (solo 3),
Stephen Haynes - trumpet (solo intro), Chuck Langford - saxophone (solo
2), John Livermore - keyboard, Joe Fitzpatrick - drums, Chris Murch -
bass, Tamsen Fynn, Eva Fierstein and Sara Lazare - background vocals.
NOTES ON THIS RECORDING
I have pondered this release for a number of years. I wondered if it
would be possible to make a piece of music that never repeated the same
note and a different instrument was assigned for each note.
I thought about methods of achieving this and have had a few trial runs
at creating the concept. Mostly these have been unsuccessful.
Firstly, I used a random approach to the instrumentation which did not
work at all. In short, it sounded a complete mess. The second attempt
created an incoherent rhythm with little, if any, tonal quality. Also,
due to the massive amounts of processing required, the technology at my
disposal was just not up to the task.
After several attempts I discovered the tones used needed to be in some
way sympathetic to one another. I also figured out that, in terms of the
volume of processing power involved, the piece of music created needed
to be divided up into smaller parts, then 'glued' together.
The following pieces are predominantly abstract. Due to the nature of
the human condition and desire for organisation and repetition, popular
music is heavily dependent on recognisable and repeated motifs. These
compositions offer little in the way of 'hooks' for the listener to hold
on to and the notation is largely random.
My impulsive nature to hear results immediately has dispensed of the
want for harmonic predictability and form. Maybe I will return to this
technique at a later date and construct something that utilises all the
notes, but those notes will be organised in a formal structure and
harmonically complimentary fashion. . . .
Is that you? Is a sound piece in three parts, examining a person's
journey of losing itself in the process of change. The soundscape is
created solely from a handful of recordings of Julie’s voice, asking
herself among other questions “is that you?”. Throughout the work the
voice is distorted and disintegrated, processed to such a point, that
the human identity is lost. Only occasionally the voice reveals itself,
but gradually becomes more mechanical and unfamiliar.
Is that you? Is originally created for 20 sculptural speakers, installed
for the audience to walk, sit, stand and lay between. The Installation
was exhibited both as a self-running soundinstallation and performed as a
live concert, spatialized to create sonic movements throughout the
space.
-"Scanner (British musician Robin Rimbaud) has been inventively active in
Electronic Music since 1991 and been involved in a bewildering range of
musical activities covering sonic art, concerts, installations,
recordings and dance scores. His impeccable sonic credentials have seen
him work with such luminaries as Bryan Ferry, Michael Nyman & Laurie
Anderson. . . .
. . . The nine tracks form a musical
journey ranging from gentle ambient interludes through to pulsing
machine like rhythms. There’s always a sense of detail in the sonic
backdrop which is just out of reach. A sense of yearning that opens the
album with the track “The Ascent” and flows through to the beautiful
calm ending of the final track “Counterpointe”.
This is an inspiring album from this totally unique British artist and
one that may have never come in to existence if it wasn’t for the
strange times we live in."
John GREAVES played with the following groups : HENRY COW (1969-76), NATIONAL HEALTH (1978-80), SOFT HEAP
(1979-88), PETER GORDON'S LOVE OF LIFE ORCHESTRA (1981), MICHAEL NYMAN
BAND (1985), MICHAEL MANTLER BAND (1987,1996-97). In his solo records he
combines influences of his different musical experiences into a mixture
of Jazz, Jazz-Rock, R.I.O, Traditional Songwriting, Absurd Theatre,
Chanson Française and more.
Alvin Lucier - Works ForThe Ever Present Orchestra
Black Truffle’s documentation of the prolific recent work of legendary
American composer Alvin Lucier continues with Works for the Ever Present
Orchestra. This is a very special release for the composer, as it
presents pieces written for the thirteen-member Ever Present Orchestra,
formed in 2016 exclusively to perform Lucier’s works. At the heart of
the ensemble are four electric guitars, an instrument Lucier began
composing for in 2013 with Criss-Cross (recorded by two core members of
the Ever Present Orchestra, Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O’Malley, for whom
it was composed, on Black Truffle 033). Through the use of e-bows, the
guitars take on a role akin to the slow sweep pure wave oscillators
heard in many of Lucier’s works since the early 1980s, but with added
harmonic richness. Like much of Lucier’s instrumental music, the pieces
recorded here focus on acoustic phenomena, especially beating patterns,
produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches. The work
presented here is some of the richest and most inviting that Lucier has
composed. Though all of the pieces clearly belong to the same continuing
exploration of the behaviour of sound in physical space and make use of
related compositional devices, each takes on a strikingly different
character. Titled Arc, for the full ensemble of
four guitars, four saxophones, four violins, piano and bowed
glockenspiel inhabits a world of sliding, uneasy tones, punctuated by a
single piano note. Where Double Helix, for four guitars, rests on a
pillow of warm, low hum, EPO-5, for two guitars, saxophone, violin, and
glockenspiel possess a limpid, crystalline quality. Accompanying the
four new compositions are two adaptations of existing pieces for
radically different instrumentation, demonstrating Lucier’s excitement
about the new possibilities suggested by this dedicated ensemble. Works
for the Ever Present Orchestra is an essential document of the current
state of Lucier’s continuing exploration, as well as offering a
seductive entry-point for anyone who might yet be unacquainted with his
singular body of work.
The Ever Present Orchestra is dedicated
to the presentation of the exceptional work of the American composer
Alvin Lucier. The orchestra attempts to make Lucier’s
beating-pattern-focused instrumental music approachable to a wide
audience with its uncommon instrumentation of 4 electric guitars, 3
saxophones, 4 violins, and a piano. Along with classical musicians, the
presence of prominent Lucier interpreters such as experimental guitarist
Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O’Malley from Sunn O))), allows for the
ensemble to appeal to a wider audience than the conventional
contemporary music scene. The Orchestra was founded by Bernhard
Rietbrock after the 85th Birthday Festival of Alvin Lucier at the Zurich
University of the Arts, as a part of the Swiss National Research
Council project Reflexive Experimental Aesthetics after Alvin Lucier
(Reflexive Experimentalästhetik nach Alvin Lucier).
With the Ever Present Orchestra, Joan
Jordi Oliver has had the opportunity to tour Lucier’s music around
Europe (Zürich, Berlin, Paris, Köln, Chur, London), the United States
(New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago), Canada (Montreal) and Asia
(Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kyoto, Tokyo).
Comments
David Lee Myers: feedback matrices and sound mangling at Pulsewidth studio, Black Spring day one
Born 1934 in Berlin.
Nurse, physiotherapist, masseur, escort of the dying, composer, writer, poet foto-collage-artist, producer, curator. He is a pioneer in the field of the exploitation of electrically generated tones, sounds and noises, and belongs to the founders of contemporary popular electronic music. His discography lists about 80 releases. In 1968 he was the founder member of the artslab Zodiak and of groups such as Geräusche, PlusMinus, Kluster, Cluster, Harmonia etc
Collaborations/co-productions with artists around the globe such as with: Konrad Plank, Brian Eno, Holger Czukay, Dieter Moebius, Michael Rother, Conrad Schnitzler, Peter Baumann, Felix Jay, Tim Story, Morgan Fisher and many others.
About 1500 compositions including text and poetry.
Almost uncountable concerts / performances / readings all over Europe and in main cities of Japan, Australia and the United States.
"Vespers"
This recording was made in 1969 with the Environ-Ears Recording System, an integrated acoustical labyrinth and microphone assembly which duplicates the localization and noise-reducing functions of the human ear. The system consists of a pair of ears mounted on a tube containing two miniature high-quality microphones which record the actual physical positions of sounds in three dimensions. Both the Sondols™ and the Environ-Ears system were designed by Listening Incorporated, Arlington, Massachusetts.
"Chambers"
Environmental recordings by Alvin Lucier. Recorded at The Coffehouse, Middletown, Connecticut, in 2002; Michael Arafeh, engineer.
However, the Lydia-und Roland-Kayn-Archiv holds dozens of these works, many of them as ambitious in scope as classics such as ‘Tektra’ and ‘Infra’, which have earned Kayn a loyal following among the current generation of electronic music enthusiasts.
In 2003 alone, Kayn produced 15 pieces. One of these – the hitherto-unheard ‘The Man and the Biosphere’ – now forms the first release for an exciting new Bandcamp page dedicated to works from the archive.
Gap In Time (charity compilation) by Various Artists
€1 EUR or more
Michel Banabila - Scripts of the Lagoon - Exploratorium 2020
Liquid House - The Weeping Horns (with Marco Lucchi)
Liquid House : Moog and electronics
I guess I won't be able to hear the other works until the discs arrive in the mail.
Hey! It's kinda like the "old" days!
Carl Stone - Ganci & Figli
The full title is Ganci & Figli, named after an amazingly scaled, 24-hour rosticceria panineria in the city of Palermo, kindly introduced to me by composer/saxophonist Gianni Gebbia after our shared performance in that city a few years ago.
All music made using the programming language MAX, from Cycling74, as always."
Not long after the release of their Gurdy Hurding album, Renaldo and The Loaf set a competition called Gurdy Wording, for fans to write some lyrics or to devise a song idea for the band.
In early 2017 a winner was announced, Song of the Lungfish by Eggoddleo Jones. There was always the thought that RATL would one day record the song but, as is usual for their material, RATL gave no timescale.
The lungfish itself is a result of an extended period of evolution and so it was with the creation of these final Lungfish recordings which were started in 2017 and completed in 2019.
The four tracks….
Song Of The Lungfish
Sacred Shore
Lungfish Hornpipe
Song Of The Lungfish Dreaming
….are simultaneously jolly and yet sanguine – the fish being content to dance as they mournfully recall their long lost past.
Logos Foundation
Belgium Flanders' unique professional organisation for the promotion
of new music and audio-related arts by means of new music production, concerts, performances, composition, technological
research and other activities related to contemporary music. This organisation has been founded in 1968 by Godfried-Willem Raes.
Authors Dirk Moelants, Douglas Quin, Jacques Rémus and Warren Burt
talk about their experiences as musicians and artists with Logos.
Jean Paul Van Bendegem writes about his first musical steps in the
"werkgroep" (working group), as it was then called. Moniek Darge
publishes a report of the concert tour of the Logos Duo to Rwanda.
These texts, together with the introduction by Laura Maes, outline
the different aspects of the former collective and the current Logos
Foundation. . . .
For Karin Schomaker.
Roland Kuit - Kyma.
Roland Emile Kuit - KYMA
We Welcome Tomorrow features, the duo Fran and Flora (Francesca Ter-Berg cello & Flora Curzon) on strings, but also builds looped saxophones, drums and synths parts into a rich tapestry of sound. Odd time signatures underpin a surprisingly emotional build that resolves in richly layered strings. . . .
Stephen Haynes - trumpet (solo intro), Chuck Langford - saxophone (solo 2), John Livermore - keyboard, Joe Fitzpatrick - drums, Chris Murch - bass, Tamsen Fynn, Eva Fierstein and Sara Lazare - background vocals.
I have pondered this release for a number of years. I wondered if it would be possible to make a piece of music that never repeated the same note and a different instrument was assigned for each note.
I thought about methods of achieving this and have had a few trial runs at creating the concept. Mostly these have been unsuccessful.
Firstly, I used a random approach to the instrumentation which did not work at all. In short, it sounded a complete mess. The second attempt created an incoherent rhythm with little, if any, tonal quality. Also, due to the massive amounts of processing required, the technology at my disposal was just not up to the task.
After several attempts I discovered the tones used needed to be in some way sympathetic to one another. I also figured out that, in terms of the volume of processing power involved, the piece of music created needed to be divided up into smaller parts, then 'glued' together.
The following pieces are predominantly abstract. Due to the nature of the human condition and desire for organisation and repetition, popular music is heavily dependent on recognisable and repeated motifs. These compositions offer little in the way of 'hooks' for the listener to hold on to and the notation is largely random.
My impulsive nature to hear results immediately has dispensed of the want for harmonic predictability and form. Maybe I will return to this technique at a later date and construct something that utilises all the notes, but those notes will be organised in a formal structure and harmonically complimentary fashion. . . .
Is that you? Is originally created for 20 sculptural speakers, installed for the audience to walk, sit, stand and lay between. The Installation was exhibited both as a self-running soundinstallation and performed as a live concert, spatialized to create sonic movements throughout the space.
Scanner - An Ascent