Electronic Music Cartoons (1977)

OK, are you up for some more educational stuff? Visual Art Week @ Orpheus Records.

Note: Just click the images for larger versions.

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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Steve Reich: Lost Pieces 1966-2002 / Updated 25 July

Update 25 July 2007 (link in comments):

I've added the sensationally rare tape beast My Name Is as performed 1970 in Berkeley (original source: web stream on http://www.archive.org/ courtesy of http://www.radiom.org/ - I've used Replay Media Catcher to record the audio stream 1:1 to MP3). I never thought I would ever be able to listen to this track as it lis isted as "manuscript only" in Reich's official list of works. It's a little bit too casual for my taste but it definitely has its moments as its speech samples were recorded and transformed live in concert.

Also added, from the same session in Berkeley, are two unusual performances of Violin Phase and Phase Patterns. Technically speaking these two bonus tracks are not "lost" pieces as you can find them on regular ECM/Wergo releases, but these previously unreleased performances are interesting and historically important nonetheless.

Original post 8 June 2007:

This generic release (which is assembled from several sources and not commercially available) unearthes some "lost" pieces by fabulous American "minimalist" Steve Reich. 1st Piece: Melodica is Reich's legendary "lost" tape piece from 1966, featuring heavy tape phasing for, yes, a melodica. It has only been released on the 3 LP release Music from Mills - which, in my opinion, is justified, as it is certainly not among Reich's better works. The second piece, Reed Phase (1967), though being available on CD (Ulrich Krieger: Walls of Sound II) is, surprisingly, not part of Reich's official work list (the reasons for which are not known to me). The third piece is the DVD-audio track from Act I: Hindenburg from Reich's video opera Three Tales (released 2002). Ulrich Krieger's heavy version of Pendulum Music from 1968 is added as bonus track.
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Pierre Henry: Machine Danse (1972)

Machine Danse simply contains some of the finest music ever composed by Pierre Henry, even by his very own high standards. The late Sixties/early Seventies deserve to be called his golden era, with releases such as the two Cortical Arts (find them on Creel Prone), his collaboration with Urban Sax, and, well, Machine Danse. Here, Henry displays a yet unmatched sense for rhythmic sound/language, e.g. on Exorcisme or on the second half of Erotica. I can't think of any music which so excitingly blends introspection & extroversion. Pierre Henry's music is complex and never boring.

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Pierre Henry: Maléfices (1962)

Pierre Henry - the legend, the wizard, the hermit, the guru, the best of the best. It is a shame that there is so little music available by the father of musique concrete and an even bigger shame that most of it are vinyl-only releases. Such as this short yet wonderful musique concrete soundtrack Maléfices, composed in 1962 at his Studio Apsome (if I'm not mistaken). Sorry, no tracklist is available here - we have to accept this little shortcoming in exchange for some simply amazing timbres, almost an electronic lullaby...

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Luigi Nono: Musica-manifesto (1969)

Today we are discussing a great tapework by Luigi Nono which is (to my knowledge) not available yet on disc:

Musica-manifesto per nastro magnetico a quattro canali/for 4-channel magnetic tape (1969)

Part 1: Un volto, del mare [Text by Cesare Pavese]

Part 2: Non consumiamo Marx [based on documentary texts]

It was recorded on April 24, 2004 at the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik (Soprano: Petra Hoffmann; Speaker: Isis Krüger; Sound supervision: Bryan J. Wolf - who is, by the way, Karlheinz Stockhausen's assistant). Sorry for the short mobile phone distortion in the first track!
E.g. like Vangelis' "Fais Que Ton Rêve Soit Plus Long Que La Nuit" this piece is dealing with the student riots in Paris in 1968. Like most of Nono's tape pieces this is wonderful, ethereal musique concrete, using a lot of pre-recorded elements. Make sure to also get Nono's recently released "Complete Works for Solo Tape".

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