Tracks 1 - 18 constitutes "Strange Worlds In My Mind (Space Poetry Volume One)"
And tracks 19 - 26 is "The Outer Darkness (Space Poetry Volume Three)"
- "Avant jazz, with plenty of offbeat and exotic touches, and some weird electronics too but over the music, there's also vocals on every track some recited by Ra himself, with a focus on his more poetic lyrics some delivered by the enigmatic Yochanan, or vocalist Roy Stubbs. Tracks are shorter than usual Saturn album tracks making us guess that some of these were intended for singles, although a number of cuts here are from unreleased tapes and rehearsals, too. Included here are two longer numbers with Ra telling these cool little stories over music, "I Gotta Get Away" and "Know What It's Like On My Planet" both richly illustrated not only by the backings, but also by his vivid narration surprisingly dramatic at times, with a bad-rapping feel that's almost funky! Also here are two versions of "The Outer Darkness" one with a repeated text by Wisteria, over weird electric backings the other with June Tyson over even wilder electronics! Other tracks are from a 1977 on-air performance in Philly very spiritual numbers that include "Black Holes In Space", "This Is My Day", "A Better World", and "The Scheme Of Words" with Ra up front and lots of weird voices over organ in the back."
- "Hermann Nitsch (born 29 August 1938) is an Austrian artist who works in experimental and multimedia modes.
Born in Vienna, Nitsch received training in painting during the time he studied at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt. He is called an "actionist" or a performance artist. He is associated with the Vienna Actionists, and like them conceived his art outside traditional categories of genre. Nitsch's abstract splatter paintings, like his performance pieces, established a theme of controlled violence, using bright reds, maroons, and pale greys that communicate organic mutilation. In the 1950s, Nitsch conceived of the Orgien Mysterien Theater (which roughly translates as "Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries" or "The Orgiastic Mystery Theater"), staging nearly 100 performances between 1962 and 1998.
Nitsch's work, which can be considered both ritualistic and existential, first drew attention in the early 1960s when he exhibited a skinned and mutilated lamb. The lamb was crucified against a white fabric-covered wall, with the entrails removed and displayed below a white table, splashed with blood and hot water. This was accompanied by Nitsch's "Geräuschmusik". Nitsch's subsequent work has incorporated many similar elements, often combining slaughtered animals, red fruits, music, dancing, and active participants. Nitsch juxtaposed slaughtered animal intestines with quasi-religious icons such as staged crucifixions, satirizing and questioning the moral ethics of atavistic religion and sacrifice. Currently his work is often discussed in the context of our culture's fixation with violence seen on the news, movie screens, and in popular video games. Correlations have also been drawn to many instances of the intersection of violence and culture.3 These performance works, which have become known as "actions" have become more and more elaborate over the years. This highly elaborate work is exemplified by the 6-Day Play, which Nitsch considered to be his pinnacle piece.
In 1998, Nitsch staged his 100th performance (named the 6-Day Play after its length) which took place at his castle in Austria, Schloss Prinzendorf. In 2004, he held an abbreviated (2-day) version of the work.
By 1995 Nitsch had been so sufficiently embraced by the establishment, that the Vienna State Opera invited him to direct and design the sets and costumes for Jules Massenet's opera Hérodiade.
Nitsch continues to publish articles and release CDs.
In 2009 Nitsch was the central guest of the Incubate festival in Tilburg, Netherlands.
In May 2010 Nitsch held his 130th Action in Naples, Italy at the Museo Nitsch (Morra Foundation). A 12 hour long piece, this was Nitsch's first performance in Naples since 1996, and also first using the new museum facility dedicated to his work. The action proceeded from the museum, with a full procession through the streets, to the San Martino Vineyard overlooking the city and the Bay of Naples. The action coincided with the Nitsch/ Caravaggio show at the Pio Monte della Misericordia, where Caravaggio's Seven Works of Mercy is held.
On February 15th and 16th 2011, Nitsch held his first ever live painting action (60th Malaktion)in the United States at the Mike Weiss gallery in New York City." - Wikipedia
- "(From the CRI LP Archives). Originally released by CRI in 1985, this CD re-issue from New World Records makes available nine text-sound works by composer, poet, percussionist, and Other Minds Executive & Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian. A leading exponent of text-sound composition, Amirkhanian has since 1965 used speech as the primary element in his music. His quixotic and often non-syntactical use of American English treats words as percussion objects, revealing in its intense rhythms the composer's background as a drummer. Humor and irony abound as well, and in performance Amirkhanian uses his tapes as accompaniment for added live vocal lines while enveloped by the moving image projections (films and slides) of visual artist Carol Law."
From the composer's liner notes to Mental Radio: - "The title of this album is borrowed from a book by Upton Sinclair, the socialist writer and novelist whose nearly-successful candidacy for governor of the state of California in 1934 took the West Coast establishment by surprise. Sinclair's Mental Radio is a volume of non-fiction on the subject of mental telepathy. The writer had always been fascinated with books on subjects in the realm we now term 'parapsychology.' He then married a woman who had exhibited what he assured his readers was an indisputable ability to perform telepathic information retrieval. This the book documents in some 239 pages, published by Albert and Charles Boni (New York, 1930). Mental Radio remains one of Sinclair's forgotten volumes, and when I recently encountered it by surprise in a collector's bookshop I realized that the title, in reference to my forthcoming LP, struck a particular resonance because of my long service in the field of radio broadcasting and because of the interior, close-up qualities of word and voice which make these works particularly suited for radio presentation. In concert, the pieces are performed live by me with tape accompaniment, and often with slide projections by the visual artist Carol Law. The result is a theatrical environment such as the one seen on the front cover of this album - a performance photograph of Maroa."
- Other Minds
- "An unreleased album of ambient cues and themes from Brian Eno, pressed as a promo-only CD for The Standard Music Library an organization that licenses music for television programming and films. Eleven of the tracks are unreleased, while the 10 others are variations of recordings (with new names) that were released on Music For Films III, The Shutov Assembly and Neroli. A Wiki reader has supplied the source titles. Composers Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois are also on board. You can pretty much imagine any of this stuff floating behind barren landscapes on the BBC, or some National Geographic slo-mo underwater exploration, which are the types of clients this CD was designed to attract. You cant buy this in stores. Theres more Eno in the archives." Wiki
- "The Ondes Martenot is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin. The sonic capabilities of the instrument were later expanded by the addition of timbral controls and switchable loudspeakers.
The instrument's eerie wavering notes are produced by varying the frequency of oscillation in vacuum tubes. The production of the instrument stopped in 1988, but several conservatories in France still teach it.
In 1997, the Ondéa project began designing an instrument based on the ondes Martenot. Since the Martenot name is still protected, the new instrument is called Ondéa, but has the playing and operational characteristics of the original ondes Martenot. In 2001, a completed prototype was first used in concerts. These instruments have been in regular use since 2005.
Since 2008, Jean-Loup Dierstein, with the support of Maurice Martenot's son, has been developing a new, officially named ondes Martenot instrument based on the model used when production stopped in 1988.
The ondes Martenot has been used by many composers, most notably Olivier Messiaen. He first used it in the Fête des Belles Eaux for six ondes, written for the 1937 International World's Fair in Paris and then used it in several of his works, including the Turangalîla-Symphonie and Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine. His opera Saint-François d'Assise requires three of the instruments. The composer's widow, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen arranged and edited four unpublished Feuillets inedits for ondes Martenot and piano which were published in 2001. The ondes Martenot has also been used occasionally in transcriptions: Leopold Stokowski used the instrument in his ethereal orchestration of Buxtehude's Sarabande and Courante ("Auf Meinen Lieben Gott").
Other notable composers who have employed the ondes Martenot in their works include Charles Koechlin, Edgard Varèse (as a replacement for two theremin instruments in his work Ecuatorial), Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Cemal Re?it Rey, Maurice Jarre, Sylvano Bussotti, Giacinto Scelsi, Marcel Landowski, Karel Goeyvaerts, Pierre Boulez, Tristan Murail, Henri Tomasi, and Frank Zappa. André Jolivet wrote a prominent concerto for it in 1947. Bohuslav Martin? authorized the adaptation of his Fantasie to the use of the ondes Martenot when it proved difficult to perform on the Theremin, for which it was originally written." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondes_Martenot
- "Tibor Szemzö (born 1955, Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian composer and flutist. He was a founding member of the Hungarian new music ensemble Group 180 (1978-1990) and writes primarily in the minimal style. His current group, The Gordian Knot, was formed in 1998.
Szemzö is also known for creating the musical soundtrack for a documentary on Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The musical piece, in its entirety, is entitled Tractatus. . . .
. . . beginning his musical studies at the Kodály method school at the age of six, graduated at the Hungarian Academy of Music. Szemzö formed his own trio (later a quartet), and in 1979 he founded the minimalist ensemble Group 180. It was a profoundly influential ensemble, renowned for its performances of Hungarian minimalism; it also performed works by John Cage and Steve Reich. Embarking on a solo career in 1983, Szemzö began integrating spoken word and visual elements into projects otherwise dominated by flute and live electronics, and in 1987 he issued his first solo recording, Snapshot from the Island. The downfall of Hungary's communist rule allowed him to began collaborating with various artists throughout Europe and beyond, and in 1998 Szemzö also formed a new chamber ensemble, the Gordian Knot. Other notable works include Ain't Nothing But a Little Bit of Music for Moving Pictures (the score to a collection of black-and-white home movies compiled by friend Péter Forgács), The Conscience (a trilogy of narrative-based chamber compositions) and Tractatus (a half-hour piece inspired by the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein). In recent years Szemzo's interest has increasingly turned to film as well. His award winning feature A Guest of Life (intermixing documentary footage, animation, and Super 8mm film stock) was shot in Tibet."
-- Wiki
Recorded November 1981 at Rutgers Church, New York, using the JVC Digital Audio System (DAS-90).
LP released by Nonesuch Records 1982
- "Four Saints in Three Acts" is an opera with words by Gertrude Stein and music by Virgil Thomson. It was written in 1927 and 1928 in France and first performed at the Hartford Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, by an organization with the resounding name of The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music From there it went to Broadway where it played some sixty nights not much for a hit musical, but a lot for an opera and became a legend. It has been performed since, notably Friday the 13th, November, 1981 in Carnegie Hall, New York, a performance which honored the composer's eighty-fifth birthday and became the basis for this recording."
Excerpted from an enclosed essay by Eric Salzman.
- "Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts. It was ground breaking for form, content, and its all-black cast, with singers directed by Eva Jessye, a prominent black choral director, and supported by her choir.
Thomson suggested the topic, and the libretto as delivered can be read in Stein's collected works. The opera features two 16th-century Spanish saintsthe former mercenary Ignatius of Loyola and the mystic Teresa of Avila as well as their colleagues, real and imagined: St. Plan, St. Settlement, St. Plot, St. Chavez, etc. Thomson decided to divide St. Teresa's role between two singers, "St. Teresa I" and "St. Teresa II", and added the master and mistress of ceremonies (Compère and Commère- literally, the "godparents") to sing Stein's stage directions."
The solo trance music of early Velvet Underground drummer Angus MacLise (1938 - 1979) - "The best available recorded documentation of MacLise's work has imperfect fidelity and sketchy details about the five tracks, recorded between 1968 and 1972. It does, however, reveal multiple facets of the percussionist's adventurous music, and firmly establishes him as a significant force in experimental sound in projects not at all related to the Velvet Underground. The most powerful and ambitious of the five cuts is the 39-minute title song, an improvised soundtrack to Ira Cohen's avant-garde film of the same name. MacLise's polyrhythmic hand drum anchors a spooky, hypnotic piece in which organ, tanpura (both played by his wife Hetty MacLise), flute, guitar, dulcimer, and disturbing vocal chants ebb and subside like a Halloween dream soundscape. Although it's not detailed in the liner notes, ghostly reverb seems to be employed on both the flute and vocals, adding to a otherworldly ambience in which psychedelia, shamanistic rhythm, avant-garde drone, and Indian music weave shifting prisms around each other. The other four selections are a real mixed bag, in the best sense of that expression. "Shortwave-India" is a one-minute blast of radio static and white noise; "Heavenly Blue Pt. 4 & 5," credited to the Universal Mutant Repertory Company, is another combination of drum and drone that puts a greater accent on Indian and Asian music influences; and "Blastitude" is a more rhythmic construction that might remind some listeners of Moroccan trance music, with periodic unascribed orgiastic yelps and sighs. The concluding "Humming in the Night Skull," featuring MacLise on song bells, Hetty MacLise on harmonium, and others on flute and guitar, is a soothing combination of tones (punctuated by a couple of baby cries), demonstrating that Angus was not entirely devoted to angst." Allmusic
- And:
Congas [Barrel] Angus MacLise
Flute [Song], Voice Henry Flynt
Recorder, Voice Jackson Mac Low
Strings - [Limp String] Tony Conrad
Tambura [Tanpura] Hetty MacLise
Angus MacLise (March 4, 1938 - June 21, 1979) - "Was a percussionist, composer, mystic, shaman, poet, occultist and calligrapher. He is probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground, but had an intriguing career outside of that group.
MacLise was a member of La Monte Youngs Theater of Eternal Music, with John Cale and Tony Conrad. He was also an early member of The Velvet Underground, having been brought into the group by flatmate John Cale. MacLise played bongos and hand drums during 1965 with the first incarnation of the band. Although the Velvets regularly extemporised soundtracks to underground films, MacLise never officially recorded with them, and is often considered something of a shadowy, legendary figure in their history. When the opportunity of the bands first paying gig at a New Jersey high school in November 1965 arose, Maclise promptly quit, suggesting the group had sold out.
Maclise was replaced by Maureen Tucker, resulting in the classic lineup of The Velvet Underground. In 1966 when Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed was in hospital with hepatitis, MacLise rejoined the group for a few performances. By this time the Velvet Underground had found some notoriety (if not great financial success) and MacLise was anxious to rejoin the group, but this was explicitly refused by Reed.
After leaving the Velvet Underground for good, Angus traveled around between North Africa, India, Greece, the Middle East and finally finding his place in Nepal."
- Last.fm
Alto Saxophone Ornette Coleman (tracks: 4)
Bass Al MacDowell
Cello Abdul Wadud (tracks: 8)
Engineer Jon Fausty
Engineer [Assistant] Shawna Stobie
Guitar Bern Nix
Percussion [Acoustic/Electric], Coordinator [Musical] Denardo Coleman
Producer, Voice, Written By [Poetry] Jayne Cortez
Tenor Saxophone Charles Moffett Jr.
Direct Metal Mastering. Recorded at Sound Ideas Studio, New York City, on 10 September 1986.
- "When I first heard the New York guitar music on this I DONT WANNA album just eighteen months ago, I was gobsmacked and derailed by the agitated attack of Henry Flynts bluegrass-meets-hillbilly-meets-R&R guitar sound, and the manner in which he took Troggs-simple riffs and upended them into dustbowl dances for tigers on Vaseline. Where had this horseless rodeo been all my life? Contained within these Flyntian grooves was a dehydrated atmosphere of such simultaneously Biblical ancientness and futurist heathenism that it appeared as though some petty sub-Jehovah had chosen to install our man Flynt unfairly and squarely into the darkest episodes ever torn from the pages of J.F.K.s A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS; if this guy owned a car, it was a kaput Model T drawn by mules for shit damn sure; if this guy owned a chicken coop, it was most likely that same Model T. Furthermore, the manner in which Flynt commandeered his own riffs or even whole tracks for crooning new songs over at a later time (Missionary Stew IS Uncle Sam Do) really blew my mind - especially as the artist himself (hardly yet out of adolescence) looked like a cross between Stork from ANIMAL HOUSE and Napoleon Dynamite. Moreover, brothers and sisters, this guy was a true Zelig of the underground an everywhere and nowhere baby whose name cropped up time and time again in articles about the American Civil Rights Movement, the modern New York art world, and the new Socialist philosophies being thrown up at the cusp of the 50s/60s. And although no real articles appeared to have been written about Henry Flynt, from the various snatches of info that I could discover from biographies of his more celebrated contemporaries, I gleaned that Flynt had always been considered a heavy conceptual artist, nay, for some people THEE original conceptual artist. But even for the few souls who knew Henry Flynts work, he never was a guitarist but a violinist, and a musical theorist to boot. Indeed, in an essay written for Yoko Onos 1992 boxed CD set ONOBOX, The New York Times rock critic Robert Palmer referred to Henry Flynt as a composer, violinist, and the theorist who coined the term concept art. Palmer went on to include Flynt in his list of the very earliest of the Fluxus artists John Cage, Yoko Ono, La Monte Young, Richard Maxfield whose art was so named by the gallery owner George Macunius for having been permanently in a state of flux; that is, forever at the moment of becoming
And yet the difference between Henry Flynt and most other conceptual artists of his time is that the more you play I DONT WANNA, the more you need to hear it. I know Flynt initially conceived this album in a flurry of post-EPI excitement, probably as nothing more than an adjunct to his more serious violin drone music. But for listeners who get the picture, repeated plays soon become an emotional and cardiovascular necessity. You wanna steep yourself in his hip spikey yokeldrones and his catch-all pop-art lyrical take on the protest movement, and you wanna blast the fucking world to rights. Flynts formulaic approach is the difference between the obnoxious and obsessively listenable genius of Takeshisa Kosugis majestic 1975 proto-Martin Rev Ur-drone CATCH WAVE and the excessively intellectual violin-tapping non-muse of that same artist on his LIVE IN NEW YORK album five years later. Or the difference between Bill Nelsons barely contained and primal 70s guitar tantrums with Be Bop Deluxe and his pale David Byrne-worshipping World Music-isms of the following decade. And in terms of being a truly Intuitive Non Career Mover, Henry Flynt really did take the fucking cake, limiting his releases to a few private cassettes from time to time, indeed refusing proper releases for any of his works until the beginning of the 21st century. But while I rant and rave about the epic quality of this music, lay back awhile and let The Insurrections burn a few holes on your Inner Carpet, whilst I relate to yall how Mr Flynt reached this magically (and timelessly) funky place. Hell, motherfuckers, as George Clinton noted on Funkadelics ELECTRIC SPANKING OF WAR BABIES Funk can sit and sit and never go sour. Well, Beloveds, this Insurrections stuff is almost 40 years old and (like Captain Scotts bully beef) its still as fresh as the day they laid it down "
- "Something of a legend in Seattle circles, both for his material and his suicide three years before a more notorious self-killing by a former labelmate, Bernstein's posthumously assembled record can actually be considered a collaboration between himself and Northwest music figure Steve Fisk. Fisk had only completed musical accompaniment for one full track before Bernstein's death, but had already won approval from the spoken word artist to continue with the rest. The end result is stunning and unnervingly appealing, arguably superior to the similar, higher profile collaboration between Bill Laswell and William Burroughs (the latter of whom Bernstein admired deeply; a photo of the two appears in the album artwork). Fisk's varying arrangements match Bernstein's drawling, quietly threatening tales perfectly, alternately sprightly and disturbing as his readings continue. Even the most relative ambient backings, such as the low rumblings and keyboards on "More Noise Please," have an undertone of unease. Given Bernstein's lack of input in the arrangements, things should feel more stilted than they are, but Fisk never forces the rhythm to Bernstein's readings. Sometimes things take a jazzier tip, thus the opening "No No Man (Part One)" and "This Clouded Heart." More often Fisk conjures up dark, threatening funk/hip-hop not that far from what Tricky would eventually be famous for. "Morning in the Sub-Basement of Hell" is particularly fierce, Bernstein describing a thoroughly scuzzy domestic situation in such detail that Charles Bukowski would appreciate while the beats and bass charge on. At points Fisk treats Bernstein's vocals with echo or distortion for effect, but most often he lets the speaker's voice through clearly, his often violent images cutting straight through to the listener even as the music might be getting the listener moving. The most chilling moments come on "Face" -- Fisk introduces only very subtle elements as Bernstein pitilessly details a humiliating, horrifying series of childhood incidents." http://www.allmusic.com/album/prison-mw0000086178
This is for people who likes extreme vocalists such as David Moss and Ghedalia Tazartes
Live album recorded in Cremona, Italy on September 21, 1978, with Demetrio Stratos on vocals and Lucio Fabbri on violin.
Originally released in vinyl LP format and published in Italy by Cramps; re-released in 2007 in CD Sized Album Replica, Gatefold, Limited Edition format and published in Japan by Strange Days.
- And from 1976:
Album by Gaetano Liguori, Giulio Stocchi and Demetrio Stratos, featuring Concetta Busacca, Pasquale Liguori and Roberto Del Piano.
- And there's more on the same page to dig in to . . .
This record has received the "Grand prix international du disque Académie Charles Cros." - "Sigma" (1963) for a large orchestra. - "Miniatures Pour Lewis Carroll" (1964) for flute, violin, harp and percussions. - "Cantate Pour Elle" (1966) for soprano, harp and tape. - "Dahovi" (1961) for tape.
About the label:
Prospective 21e Siecle was established by Philips in 1967 to release Musique Concrète, electro-acoustic and electronic music. The imprint was short-lived with many releases only produced in limited numbers. The label’s distinctive covers were printed using metallic inks. The suggestive abstraction of each design hints at an elemental, mysterious future that is a perfect foil for the music it presages. The designer is uncredited and remains to date unknown.
- Released by Materiali Sonori in 1992. Recordings from a summer of 1992 music festival in Florence, Italy dedicated to John Cage, with Cage in attendance.
- "This was the first nova musicha collection release.
The CD contains five John Cages compositions for "prepared" piano, played and performed by various artists: Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti, Gianni-Emilio Simonetti and Demetrio Stratos. In these perfomances, the sound of the piano was altered by placing objects (preparations) between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers. Toy pianos and radio systems were used too. The most famous composition is 433 which represents a turning point for Cages experience and for contemporary music. Demetrio Stratos performed Sixty-two mesostics Re Merce Cunningham.
- "Registered at Center for Contemporary Music of Mills College in Oakland, California, Cheap Imitation is a piece for solo piano by John Cage, composed in 1969. It is an indeterminate piece created using the I Ching and based, rhythmically, on Socrate by Erik Satie; it consists almost exclusively of a single melodic line, with occasional doublings, as an imitation of original score.
Never heard of this but sounds amazing. via @WFMU:
All 27 Issues of NYC's Legendary Music / Mail Art Cassette Magazine "Tellus," 1983-1993 [MP3s] http://is.gd/iIaQYN
Launched in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus cassette series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting edge music, documenting the New York scene and advanced US composers of the time - the first 2 issues being devoted to NY artists from the downtown scene. The series was financially supported along the years by funding from the New York State Council of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts...
The series included some landmark sound works now regarded as historical: Louise Lawler's 'Birdcalls' (Tellus #5-6), Christian Marclay 1982's 'Groove' (Tellus#8), Lee Ranaldo 'The Bridge' (Tellus#10), Alison Knowles 'Nivea Cream Piece' (Tellus#24), etc. Tellus always championed women and gay composers, which was very needed in the macho experimental music sphere of the times. Curatorial policy has proved very efficient as well - asking specialists to compile a program in their own field insured state of the art results.
As always on eMusers, so much to listen to, so little time!
Comments
Tracks 1 - 18 constitutes "Strange Worlds In My Mind (Space Poetry Volume One)"
And tracks 19 - 26 is "The Outer Darkness (Space Poetry Volume Three)"
- "Avant jazz, with plenty of offbeat and exotic touches, and some weird electronics too but over the music, there's also vocals on every track some recited by Ra himself, with a focus on his more poetic lyrics some delivered by the enigmatic Yochanan, or vocalist Roy Stubbs. Tracks are shorter than usual Saturn album tracks making us guess that some of these were intended for singles, although a number of cuts here are from unreleased tapes and rehearsals, too. Included here are two longer numbers with Ra telling these cool little stories over music, "I Gotta Get Away" and "Know What It's Like On My Planet" both richly illustrated not only by the backings, but also by his vivid narration surprisingly dramatic at times, with a bad-rapping feel that's almost funky! Also here are two versions of "The Outer Darkness" one with a repeated text by Wisteria, over weird electric backings the other with June Tyson over even wilder electronics! Other tracks are from a 1977 on-air performance in Philly very spiritual numbers that include "Black Holes In Space", "This Is My Day", "A Better World", and "The Scheme Of Words" with Ra up front and lots of weird voices over organ in the back."
- Featuring David Byrne, Lou Reed, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Debbie Harry, Arto Lindsay, Lee Renaldo, Joey Ramone and many more. . .
Charles Amirkhanian - Mental Radio
- "(From the CRI LP Archives). Originally released by CRI in 1985, this CD re-issue from New World Records makes available nine text-sound works by composer, poet, percussionist, and Other Minds Executive & Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian. A leading exponent of text-sound composition, Amirkhanian has since 1965 used speech as the primary element in his music. His quixotic and often non-syntactical use of American English treats words as percussion objects, revealing in its intense rhythms the composer's background as a drummer. Humor and irony abound as well, and in performance Amirkhanian uses his tapes as accompaniment for added live vocal lines while enveloped by the moving image projections (films and slides) of visual artist Carol Law."
From the composer's liner notes to Mental Radio:
- "The title of this album is borrowed from a book by Upton Sinclair, the socialist writer and novelist whose nearly-successful candidacy for governor of the state of California in 1934 took the West Coast establishment by surprise. Sinclair's Mental Radio is a volume of non-fiction on the subject of mental telepathy. The writer had always been fascinated with books on subjects in the realm we now term 'parapsychology.' He then married a woman who had exhibited what he assured his readers was an indisputable ability to perform telepathic information retrieval. This the book documents in some 239 pages, published by Albert and Charles Boni (New York, 1930). Mental Radio remains one of Sinclair's forgotten volumes, and when I recently encountered it by surprise in a collector's bookshop I realized that the title, in reference to my forthcoming LP, struck a particular resonance because of my long service in the field of radio broadcasting and because of the interior, close-up qualities of word and voice which make these works particularly suited for radio presentation. In concert, the pieces are performed live by me with tape accompaniment, and often with slide projections by the visual artist Carol Law. The result is a theatrical environment such as the one seen on the front cover of this album - a performance photograph of Maroa."
- Other Minds
Wikipedia biography:
Tracks 1 and 2:
A host of pop and not so pop artists, including Messiaen, Zappa, Pink Floyd, Stravinsky, Doors, Who Else?
Track 3:
J.-L. Chautemps, Bernard Vitet, Gilbert Rovère, Charles Saudrais
Track 4:
Michel Portal
- There's some quite funny Lennon/McCartney covers here . . .
Momus (Nick Currie) - Timelord (1993)
All Music bio
- and 5 more albums by Momus from Creation Records.
- "An unreleased album of ambient cues and themes from Brian Eno, pressed as a promo-only CD for The Standard Music Library an organization that licenses music for television programming and films. Eleven of the tracks are unreleased, while the 10 others are variations of recordings (with new names) that were released on Music For Films III, The Shutov Assembly and Neroli. A Wiki reader has supplied the source titles. Composers Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois are also on board. You can pretty much imagine any of this stuff floating behind barren landscapes on the BBC, or some National Geographic slo-mo underwater exploration, which are the types of clients this CD was designed to attract. You cant buy this in stores. Theres more Eno in the archives."
Wiki
The instrument's eerie wavering notes are produced by varying the frequency of oscillation in vacuum tubes. The production of the instrument stopped in 1988, but several conservatories in France still teach it.
In 1997, the Ondéa project began designing an instrument based on the ondes Martenot. Since the Martenot name is still protected, the new instrument is called Ondéa, but has the playing and operational characteristics of the original ondes Martenot. In 2001, a completed prototype was first used in concerts. These instruments have been in regular use since 2005.
Since 2008, Jean-Loup Dierstein, with the support of Maurice Martenot's son, has been developing a new, officially named ondes Martenot instrument based on the model used when production stopped in 1988.
The ondes Martenot has been used by many composers, most notably Olivier Messiaen. He first used it in the Fête des Belles Eaux for six ondes, written for the 1937 International World's Fair in Paris and then used it in several of his works, including the Turangalîla-Symphonie and Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine. His opera Saint-François d'Assise requires three of the instruments. The composer's widow, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen arranged and edited four unpublished Feuillets inedits for ondes Martenot and piano which were published in 2001. The ondes Martenot has also been used occasionally in transcriptions: Leopold Stokowski used the instrument in his ethereal orchestration of Buxtehude's Sarabande and Courante ("Auf Meinen Lieben Gott").
Other notable composers who have employed the ondes Martenot in their works include Charles Koechlin, Edgard Varèse (as a replacement for two theremin instruments in his work Ecuatorial), Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Cemal Re?it Rey, Maurice Jarre, Sylvano Bussotti, Giacinto Scelsi, Marcel Landowski, Karel Goeyvaerts, Pierre Boulez, Tristan Murail, Henri Tomasi, and Frank Zappa. André Jolivet wrote a prominent concerto for it in 1947. Bohuslav Martin? authorized the adaptation of his Fantasie to the use of the ondes Martenot when it proved difficult to perform on the Theremin, for which it was originally written."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondes_Martenot
- "Tibor Szemzö (born 1955, Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian composer and flutist. He was a founding member of the Hungarian new music ensemble Group 180 (1978-1990) and writes primarily in the minimal style. His current group, The Gordian Knot, was formed in 1998.
Szemzö is also known for creating the musical soundtrack for a documentary on Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The musical piece, in its entirety, is entitled Tractatus. . . .
. . . beginning his musical studies at the Kodály method school at the age of six, graduated at the Hungarian Academy of Music. Szemzö formed his own trio (later a quartet), and in 1979 he founded the minimalist ensemble Group 180. It was a profoundly influential ensemble, renowned for its performances of Hungarian minimalism; it also performed works by John Cage and Steve Reich. Embarking on a solo career in 1983, Szemzö began integrating spoken word and visual elements into projects otherwise dominated by flute and live electronics, and in 1987 he issued his first solo recording, Snapshot from the Island. The downfall of Hungary's communist rule allowed him to began collaborating with various artists throughout Europe and beyond, and in 1998 Szemzö also formed a new chamber ensemble, the Gordian Knot. Other notable works include Ain't Nothing But a Little Bit of Music for Moving Pictures (the score to a collection of black-and-white home movies compiled by friend Péter Forgács), The Conscience (a trilogy of narrative-based chamber compositions) and Tractatus (a half-hour piece inspired by the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein). In recent years Szemzo's interest has increasingly turned to film as well. His award winning feature A Guest of Life (intermixing documentary footage, animation, and Super 8mm film stock) was shot in Tibet."
-- Wiki
ETA: Discogs and Amazon cover:
Recorded November 1981 at Rutgers Church, New York, using the JVC Digital Audio System (DAS-90).
LP released by Nonesuch Records 1982
- "Four Saints in Three Acts" is an opera with words by Gertrude Stein and music by Virgil Thomson. It was written in 1927 and 1928 in France and first performed at the Hartford Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, by an organization with the resounding name of The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music From there it went to Broadway where it played some sixty nights not much for a hit musical, but a lot for an opera and became a legend. It has been performed since, notably Friday the 13th, November, 1981 in Carnegie Hall, New York, a performance which honored the composer's eighty-fifth birthday and became the basis for this recording."
Excerpted from an enclosed essay by Eric Salzman.
- "Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts. It was ground breaking for form, content, and its all-black cast, with singers directed by Eva Jessye, a prominent black choral director, and supported by her choir.
Thomson suggested the topic, and the libretto as delivered can be read in Stein's collected works. The opera features two 16th-century Spanish saintsthe former mercenary Ignatius of Loyola and the mystic Teresa of Avila as well as their colleagues, real and imagined: St. Plan, St. Settlement, St. Plot, St. Chavez, etc. Thomson decided to divide St. Teresa's role between two singers, "St. Teresa I" and "St. Teresa II", and added the master and mistress of ceremonies (Compère and Commère- literally, the "godparents") to sing Stein's stage directions."
- "The best available recorded documentation of MacLise's work has imperfect fidelity and sketchy details about the five tracks, recorded between 1968 and 1972. It does, however, reveal multiple facets of the percussionist's adventurous music, and firmly establishes him as a significant force in experimental sound in projects not at all related to the Velvet Underground. The most powerful and ambitious of the five cuts is the 39-minute title song, an improvised soundtrack to Ira Cohen's avant-garde film of the same name. MacLise's polyrhythmic hand drum anchors a spooky, hypnotic piece in which organ, tanpura (both played by his wife Hetty MacLise), flute, guitar, dulcimer, and disturbing vocal chants ebb and subside like a Halloween dream soundscape. Although it's not detailed in the liner notes, ghostly reverb seems to be employed on both the flute and vocals, adding to a otherworldly ambience in which psychedelia, shamanistic rhythm, avant-garde drone, and Indian music weave shifting prisms around each other. The other four selections are a real mixed bag, in the best sense of that expression. "Shortwave-India" is a one-minute blast of radio static and white noise; "Heavenly Blue Pt. 4 & 5," credited to the Universal Mutant Repertory Company, is another combination of drum and drone that puts a greater accent on Indian and Asian music influences; and "Blastitude" is a more rhythmic construction that might remind some listeners of Moroccan trance music, with periodic unascribed orgiastic yelps and sighs. The concluding "Humming in the Night Skull," featuring MacLise on song bells, Hetty MacLise on harmonium, and others on flute and guitar, is a soothing combination of tones (punctuated by a couple of baby cries), demonstrating that Angus was not entirely devoted to angst."
Allmusic
- And:
Congas [Barrel] Angus MacLise
Flute [Song], Voice Henry Flynt
Recorder, Voice Jackson Mac Low
Strings - [Limp String] Tony Conrad
Tambura [Tanpura] Hetty MacLise
Angus MacLise (March 4, 1938 - June 21, 1979)
- "Was a percussionist, composer, mystic, shaman, poet, occultist and calligrapher. He is probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground, but had an intriguing career outside of that group.
MacLise was a member of La Monte Youngs Theater of Eternal Music, with John Cale and Tony Conrad. He was also an early member of The Velvet Underground, having been brought into the group by flatmate John Cale. MacLise played bongos and hand drums during 1965 with the first incarnation of the band. Although the Velvets regularly extemporised soundtracks to underground films, MacLise never officially recorded with them, and is often considered something of a shadowy, legendary figure in their history. When the opportunity of the bands first paying gig at a New Jersey high school in November 1965 arose, Maclise promptly quit, suggesting the group had sold out.
Maclise was replaced by Maureen Tucker, resulting in the classic lineup of The Velvet Underground. In 1966 when Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed was in hospital with hepatitis, MacLise rejoined the group for a few performances. By this time the Velvet Underground had found some notoriety (if not great financial success) and MacLise was anxious to rejoin the group, but this was explicitly refused by Reed.
After leaving the Velvet Underground for good, Angus traveled around between North Africa, India, Greece, the Middle East and finally finding his place in Nepal."
- Last.fm
Alto Saxophone Ornette Coleman (tracks: 4)
Bass Al MacDowell
Cello Abdul Wadud (tracks: 8)
Engineer Jon Fausty
Engineer [Assistant] Shawna Stobie
Guitar Bern Nix
Percussion [Acoustic/Electric], Coordinator [Musical] Denardo Coleman
Producer, Voice, Written By [Poetry] Jayne Cortez
Tenor Saxophone Charles Moffett Jr.
Direct Metal Mastering. Recorded at Sound Ideas Studio, New York City, on 10 September 1986.
- And from 1976:
- Released by Materiali Sonori in 1992. Recordings from a summer of 1992 music festival in Florence, Italy dedicated to John Cage, with Cage in attendance.
Released by Cramps Records in 1974
Released by Cramps Records in 1977.
A new addition to the UbuWeb film series.
Here's Kurt Schwitters' own original version of Ursonate from somewhere between 1922-32.
I'm not sure it's the right cover ( got it from Emusic)
(in 192 kbps cbr , the version that once was on emusic is about the same in vbr.)
All 27 Issues of NYC's Legendary Music / Mail Art Cassette Magazine "Tellus," 1983-1993 [MP3s] http://is.gd/iIaQYN
As always on eMusers, so much to listen to, so little time!