The End: Possibly Maybe?

Bloggerland is like a meadow; flowers come and go every day. I have to switch this short-lived blog into (permanent?) hibernation.

Our Electronic Music Time Machine is running out of plutonium: I recently moved to a remote area and only have a stone age dial up connection at hand. With this bush telegraph it takes ages uploading new music (the recent files took me several days, including a good number of failed upload attempts). That's really no fun. Others may have better patience than me. Sorry for that and thanks to all who commented so far (very few, by the way: Pierre Henry's Machine Danse, for instance, was downloaded 334 persons but only one of them left a comment. Excursus: Blogging is part of the "social" web 2.0 because it's supposed to be interactive - but I've always tolerated the free riders and would have continued this blog anyway, with a faster connection).

I might upload new posts whenever I come across a faster connection (see please keep my RSS feed, just in case).

The good news: I updated all posts, so get everything while it lasts.

Good Bye or see you soon.

Luc Ferrari: Interview (1972)

I don't have to say a lot about Luc Ferrari, have I? This is another audio stream to MP3 conversion from www.archive.org/www.radiom.org.

Original Liner Notes:

Host of KPFA-FM's Ode to Gravity series Charles Amirkhanian,interviewed French composer Luc Ferrari at his home in Paris in Juneof 1972. The night before the interview, Ferrari had a world premiereperformance of his "Monologos I" at the Opera Comique. Ferraridiscusses his compositional practices and experiments in voice andtape delay that developed into Monologos I. The two also talk aboutFerrari's activities since 1970 which included the writing of his book"Les réalisable et le journal d'un autobiographe", a work of textcompositions and part autobiography; and creating the first sonicchapter of his "ecological" series in observation, "Allô ici la terre". Theinterview also takes a philosophical turn as Ferrari describes the nonexistenceof "truth" or any correct "system", political or otherwise, andhow we must devise many different ways of going about the act ofliving.

Musical selections during the program include:

• Monologos I [live recording]Performers: Luc Ferrari, electronics; Elise Ross, voice
• Music Promenade
• Presque Rien, 1

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George Russell: Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature (1968)

Thanks to American pianist George Russell Jazz turned electr(on)ic before the much talked about wah-wah organ of Miles Davis. In this REAL milestone recording Russell hooked up with young jazz prodigies Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Manfred Schoof, Jon Christensen and Red Mitchell, and also went to the Electronic Music Studio of the Swedish Radio to produce musique concrete sound scenes that link the improvised jazz parts...jazz concrete, you may say. Complete liner notes included, so I stop waffling here.
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Terry Riley: You're No Good (1967 or 68)

Saturday Night Fever at Orpheus Music. That's why our mighty Electronic Music Time Machine travels back to the summer before the summer of love (=1967 or was it 68?) and materialises in this obscure North American discotheque which had just commissioned this weirdo tape manipulation by Terry Riley. The sexy original by Harvey Averne is included too. Super duper disco dance, poppy like no other. Move your ass - and then check out the wonderful label Cortical Foundation, where you can find more rare Terry Riley releases.
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Rüdiger Rüfer: Musik aus Urklang (1971-1985)

Rüdiger Rüfer, born 1933 in Berlin was sound engineer at the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universtität Berlin (where he assisted e.g. Boris Blacher) and later (from 1974) professor for electroacoustic Media at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover (Germany). This largely unknown CD compiles some of his tape pieces composed between 1971 and 1985, and probably the only electronic music available from the Electronic Music Studio in Hannover. Complete liner notes (in German) included.

Technical note (added 11/2007): Please rename the second part [Rufer2.part2] to Rufer1.part2 before unpacking.
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Tom Zahuranec: Radio Event No. 13 (1971)

OK, you probably knew already that the San Francisco Tape Music Center aka the Mills College Electronic Tape Music Center were among the very best sources of psycho mutant tape experiments (much more interesting IMHO for example than the much better known WDR Studio Cologne) . Unfortunately very little of their output has been released commercially so far (just a few Pauline Oliveros and two Ramon Sender LPs). So it's indeed high time to bring to you Tom Zahuranec's Radio Event No. 13: Bucket - Ful [sic] Mercury Walk from 1971 as presented by US-American composer/moderator Charles Amirkhanian on http://www.radiom.org/ (audio stream recorded from http://www.archive.org/). Never heard of Tom Zahuranec? Me neither. Do it now.

Liner notes from http://www.archive.org/:

Broadcasted live from the Mills College Electronic Tape Music Center via a remote portable transmitter, Tom Zahuranec's "Bucket-Ful Mercury Walk" invited listeners at home to drive to Mills and assist in creating sounds using various electronic equipment including Moog and Buchla synthesizers. Guests discovered and experimented with their manipulated voices while others helped turn nobs on the instruments. Charles Amirkhanian reports live from the event where over two hundred people attended, as well as Don Buchla who brought in one of his new model synthesizers of the time. The program features over 45 minutes of analog sounds for listeners to bathe themselves in. From a series of audience participation radio programs in which artists were given air time to create situations that physically involved the listening audience.

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John Adams: Heavy Metal (1970)

Yep, this early piece for two-channel tape has indeed been electronically created by American maverick "minimal" composer John Adams, whom you may know from such chartbusters as Harmonium or Nixon in China. Here, Adams indulges in a heavy metal oscillator/tape feast. I found this rare (and yet unpublished?) tape blast as audio stream on on www.archive.org (courtesy of www.radiom.org) and recorded it 1:1 by using Replay Media Catcher.

NB: The Klaus Schulze & Thomas Hamilton links are finally up (still owe you the Steve Reich & Frank Zappa ones). Sorry for my slow release schedule, I recently had to switch from University super LAN to dial up. Each upload takes several hours and this way it's really no fun continuing this blog.

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Next releases in the pipeline

• Rüdiger Rüfer: Musik aus Urklang
• George Russell: Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature (1968)
• Terry Riley: You're No Good
• Tonto's Expanding Head Band: Feat. Malcom Cecil
• Various Artists: Electroacoustic Music Vol. IV: Archive Tapes. Synthesiser ANS (1964-1971)
• Luc Ferrari: Interview (1973)

Coming in the next couple of weeks - as soon as we've fixed our upload problems.

Thomas Hamilton: Pieces for Kohn (1976)

Added: 23 July 07: Link in comments

One of my all-time favourites of spaced out electronic music. Recorded at the Washington University Electronic Music/Recording Studio in 1976 and never officially released on CD. The inofficial CD-R re-release on Creel Pone was stopped after just a few copies (10 or so) were sold. Luckily I managed to get one of them.

From the liner notes:
Thomas Hamilton is the director of the washington university electronic music/recording studio. he was born in 1946 and received early musical training from thelma taglin and thom davis mason. he attended the university of wisconsin and studied there with john downey. he holds an m.a. from washington university and studied composition with robert wykes. his favorite food is cheese.

Bill Kohn is a ainter and printmaker who teaches at the washington university school
of fine arts. the original tapes were performed at the opening of bill kohn’s exhibit at the terry
moore gallery in st. louis, in january, 1976. the recording was supported by a research grant from washington university. bill schulenburg assisted the re-mix and did the mastering.

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Klaus Schulze: Das grosse Identifikationsspiel (1973)

Link in comments (added 23 July 07).

Klaus Schulze has not always been the mainstream electronica sunnyboy (forgive my blasphemy) who's repeating his one and only d minor Minimoog chord & eight step sequence for more than 30 years now. In his formative years he's shown a bit more explorative and daring approach, as can be witnessed in this EMS Synthi A tour de force from 1973. It's a weird, noisy journey into the possibilities of synthesized sound, and even 34 years after its making it is big fun listening to this beast in one go, on headphones. Go and do it. NB: The piece has been composed for a German radio play by Alfred Behrens, which features an equally weird Sci-Fi plot. Worth to learn German for it!

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Frank Zappa: Reel Zappa

Update 26 July 07: http://sharebee.com/a4f97e03

Notoriously hyperactive Frank Zappa has left his footprints in a whole bunch of musical styles, be it Contemporary Classical, Jazz, Blues, and even Pop. This generic Orpheus Music release (put together by myself) pays tribute to Zappa's relatively uncommon journeys into electronic music/musique concrete. As I'm not a Zappa expert I'm sure I've missed some of his electronic oeuvre. Anyway, Reel Zappa (glad I found this matching pic) is an invitation to explore some of his electronic endeavours, and should not be mistaken as a complete and properly curated anthology. Sources: The first two tracks have been taken from two common albums (Freak Out & Weasals Ripped My Flesh), the third is an unreleased studio (?) bootleg that appeared on an unknown music blog a while ago (sorry that I can't properly credit the author as I forgot from where I downloaded it - was hidden inside a 300MB chunk of Zappa bootlegs).

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