Friday 23 November 2007

Various Artists: Music from Mathematics (1962)

This comes in addition to our series of Early Computer Music last month:
A great (out of print; vinyl-only) compilation of tracks played on the IBM 7090 Computer, released in 1962 (sic!). Get ready for some ancient switched-on folk songs (Frère Jacques) & great HAL 9000 type smashits (Bicyle Built for Two).

01 - Anonymous: Frère Jacques
02 - Orlando Gibbons: Fantasia
03 - Max Mathews: Bicycle Built For Two
04 - John Robinson Pierce: Molto Amoroso
05 - John Robinson Pierce: Variations In Timbre And Attack
06 - John Robinson Pierce: Stochatta
07 - John Robinson Pierce: Five Against Seven (Random Canon)
08 - John Robinson Pierce: Beat Canon
09 - John Robinson Pierce: Melodie
10 - Max Mathews: Numerology
11 - Max Mathews: The Second Law
12 - Max Mathews: May Carol
13 - S.D. Speeth: Theme And Variations
14 - David Lewin: Study No.1
15 - David Lewin: Study No.2
16 - Newman Guttman: Pitch Variations
17 - James Tenney: Noise Study
18 - Max Mathews: Joy To The World

This is what our History Department came up with:
The IBM 7090, announced in 1958, was a transistorized version of the vacuum-tube-logic 709 and the first commercial computer with transistor logic (the first such computing device, according to [53], was the IBM 608, but that was not a general-purpose stored-program computer). The 7090, like the 700 series it superseded, was intended mainly for scientific computing, but it was also suitable for business and administrative use.

These folks are composing a 2 sek ritardando:


Sharebee
Pass (I'm not sure if I set any, just in case) = orpheusmachine

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not a comment on this particular post. I just want to thank you for a fantastic blog. Some amazing rarities here. Talking of which, could you possibly re-up the second part of the ANS compilation, since the file seems to be corrupted in some way and I'm dying to hear the Artemiev 'Cosmos' piece. Like may others, I'm sure, my first encounter with the wonderfully far-off sounds of the ANS was Artemiev's Solaris soundtrack, which still sounds amazingly fresh. I didn't know that Sofia Gubaidulina, for example, had worked with the ANS.
Discovering blogs like this is a small joy in what are fairly dismal times.

Adam Eleven said...

@ halvemaen

Thanks four encouraging comment. As both sharebee links are still working I guess you're having trouble unpacking the files. This might be due to the relatively long file names (I usually try to squeeze title/composer/year into the filename). Then all you have to do is unpacking the file in a lower level(not c:/wwwww/xxxxx/yyyyy/myfiles/ans.rar) but the root folder or one level up. Let me if this doesn't solve your problems.

Anonymous said...

wow. The melancholy feeling to this recording is really sitting well with me. What else is like this?

Oh by the way, In my humble, possibly meaningless opinion there is a feeling of care to your blog that is unequaled.

Thanks

Sincerely,
William falls

Unknown said...

Hello,

Wow, this was a great one! Some of it reminded me of what Raymond Scott was doing at the same time. Five against seven is super.

Always finding amazing stuff here, thanks a lot.

Keith Lo Bue said...

One of my favorites from my own collection. Bears a real simlarity in spirit to "The Sounds and Music of the RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer" LP from 1955. I can provide you with this recording direct from my LP for your excellent blog if you'd like it. Keep up the great work, Adam!

Anonymous said...

The file's failing CRC check, with corrupt headers for each of the mp3's. Thought you'd like to know...

Thanks
Mike