La légende d'Eer

Iannis Xenakis - La légende d'Eer

CD released 2003

La légende d'Eer (diatope) 8-channel electronic tape

Played by Electronic Studio Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln

From the back cover:

Minimalist and wild, incisive and graphic, La légende d'Eer unfolds to the rhythm of the crackling of merging timbres in ductile electronic sound. Associated with a lighting device calling for one thousand six hundred and eighty flashes and four lasers, their beams reflected by four hundred mirrors, La légende d'Eer, ('Diatope') is an aural and visual experience - an epic score, a gesture of light and sound, in which the listener is invited to immerse himself in the 'corps sonore', as the composer suggests: 'I was thinking of someone in the middle of an Ocean. The elements are all around him, sometimes raging, sometimes calm.'

From a rough Google Translate translation of the liner notes:

Composed in 1977, The Legend of Eer is one of the longest electroacoustic scores of Iannis Xenakis.
To date, the composer wrote fourteen works of this kind, many of which have been designed in relation to the site of their release. For some, like Persepolis or Mycenae Alpha, this is a historic site open which was invested; for others, such as The Legend of Eer, Iannis Xenakis also imagine the place as a framework has broadcast. Imagine the place - in this case to the square in front of the Beaubourg Centre Georges Pompidou - and the band and light device that are associated with it Diatope meet the terms of a variety of polytope, a term that the composer used to denominate its musical and light installations. The Diatope Beaubourg represents a culmination in the series polytopes. In the inside of a shell whose plans were traces the composer, one thousand six hundred and eighty flashes are willing and four hundred mirrors variously reflect the rays of four lasers, and eleven speakers. In this show, the music and the lights are independent. The bright interventions and the course crees by displacements of lights are automated programs, but the meetings that occur with music - fixed, too, in its development - are fortuitous and each has different diffusion.

From notes by Richard Toop:

La Légende d'Eer [1977] marks a further stage in the alliance of music and architecture. In an interview to be found at the very end of Olivier Revault d'Allonnes' 1975 book on Les Polytopes, Xenakis is asked where he would like to locate his next 'spectacle', and he replies: "In the heavens and on the earth. Perhaps at Bonn or Paris (in the Beaubourg square). Remember the Myth of Er the Pamphylian (Plato's Republic, Book 10) and his column of light. As well as Poimandres (Hermes Trismegistus' Hermetics, Book 1), and the 'illuminations', the revelations of the Byzantine ascetics up to Gregory Palamas. As well as those of the Chinese and Japanese buddhists (Zen)."

In practice, it was the 'Beaubourg vision' that came good: Xenakis was asked to create a new 'polytope' on the square outside the Pompidou Centre, to celebrate the opening of the latter in 1978 (in the event, the premiere had to be delayed for several months). Though the resulting Diatope picked up some architectural threads from the Philips Pavilion of two decades before, there was at least one significant difference: here, for the first time, Xenakis was creating a space and the music for it, hand in hand, and seeking an architectural form (based on hyperbolic paraboloids) equally amenable to the reflexion of light and sound.

The title, The Legend of Eer, comes from the final pages of Plato's The Republic. Since so much of Xenakis' musical thinking has links back to his wartime experiences - to the mass movements of people and machines in the darkness, and to the extraordinary play of searchlights over cities under bombardment - it's hard to overlook Nouritza Matossian's parallel between the fate of Er, whose body returns to life after ten days, and that of Xenakis, who was initially assumed to be unsaveable after sustaining severe facial wounds. However, Xenakis insists he was "not inspired by the legend" and though he appended parts of Plato's text to his notes for the first performance (significantly omitting the passage on the Harmony of the Spheres!), he gave equal emphasis to other texts: Pascal contemplating Infinity in his Pensées, Hermes Trismegistus, and Jean-Paul Richter, as well as a recent [1976] Scientific American article by Robert P. Kirschner on supernovas.

Tracklisting:

1.  La legende d'Eer  {45:24}

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Sun Ra Arkestra- Media Dreams (Saturn Records,1978)

Sun Ra Arkestra- Media Dreams


Here's the last of my Saturn Records, which I am posting to celebrate the 90th birthday today of Marshall Allen, alto saxophonist and electronic wind instrument player, current leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra- still going strong!

On a personal note:
I had the opportunity to play with Marshall Allen on the 15th in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Sun Ra's birth. Also in attendance was Danny Ray Thompson, playing flute on this occasion, and I had a very fine time, one high point being at the rehearsal where Marshall took the mic and a few of us had a sing-along, Arkestra-style, to the tune of Fate In A Pleasant Mood, which Marshall also seemed to enjoy very much.
 
Marshall has a penchant for saying things like- "You've gotta do what you can while you can with what you've got", and "You've got to take hold of this one life"; things you hear often enough nowadays.
But when you consider that, the day after playing this gig with the Ratchet Orchestra, Marshall and Danny were off to Italy, and from there all around Europe,to Turkey, Japan, Croatia, and all with only a day's rest here and there (see Sunraarkestra.com for the tour dates) you know this man LIVES by these words.I have little doubt that it is precisely this attitude which is at least partially responsible for his amazing energy and longevity.

I can only say "keep saying what you've got to say while you can say it" , and
"Happy Birthday, Marshall Allen!"

About the record:
This is a weird one,
MysterRa plays a keyboard with an "auto-arpeggio" feature (a2) and gets downright goofy with it, getting it to arpeggiate clusters and the like.
There is also some very celestial synthesizer work (a1,a3) and piano (b2) and a couple of fine solos from John Gilmore on Tenor (a2,b2) and Michael Ray on funky Trumpet (a2).
Altogether a very fine and varied record, from Bop and Ballad to the outer limits, and with good sound quality and presence.

Sun Ra Arkestra- Media Dreams

a1- Saturn Research (3:10)

a2- Constellation (13:52)

a3- Yera Of The Sun (4:39)

b1- Media Dreams (13:54)

b2- Twigs At Twilight (7:30)

b3- An Unknowneth Love (4:43)
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Sun Ra And His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra-Journey Stars Beyond (Saturn 1981)

Today is Sun Ra's 100th birthday.

Here is another of the Saturn Records which Ra and the Arkestra released independently.
These records are very often entirely unique, with the hand-made artwork sometimes being silk-screened stickers, sometimes magic-marker scribbles, and sometimes both or neither.
This one, as you can see, has magic-marker scribbles on the front cover and on one side of the l.p. center label, which I have presumed is side one.
Both center labels bear the suffix "b" after the serial number, which is almost certainly* the recording date: 72881- July 28th, 1981.
 
On the one occasion when I met Sun Ra, I brought this and my other two Saturn Records (and a postcard of Saturn) and asked him to sign them.
He said "These record covers are meant to be looked at under different colored lights" just as I was pulling out a bunch of different colored large-tipped felt markers, so I said "choose your colors, then".
Thus the very pale blue signature on the back: Le Sun Ra.
(These, along with a signed copy of The Residents' "Mark Of The Mole" are among my most treasured records- not for sale at any price).

Anyway- I have not split the tracks on this record, which alternate between solo synthesizer improvisations and duos with trombone or trumpet, and (on side two) an extended solo with a brief Arkestra explosion as well as an hilarious moment of commentary on Ra's excursions by (I think) John Gilmore and the rest of the band.

From what I can glean from info about the cd release of (among other concurrent work) side two of this l.p. by the Art Yard label, the personnel
(not all of whom are heard on this l.p) is:

Sun Ra And His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra:

Sun Ra { synth, organ, vocals }
John Gilmore { tenor sax, percussion, vocals }
Marshall Allen { alto sax, percussion }
Michael Ray { trumpet, vocals }
Danny Thompson { baritone sax, flute, percussion }
Noel Scott { alto sax, vocals }
June Tyson { vocals }
Tyrone Hill { trombone, vocals }
Eloe Omoe { bass clarinet }
Craig Harris  { drums }
Tommy “Bugs” Hunter { drums }
Al Evans { flugelhorn }
Jaribu Shahid { bass }
Samarai Celestial  { drums }
Vincent Chancey { french horn }
Francisco “Ali” Mora { drums, percussion }
Tani Tabbal { drums, percussion }
Bright Moments { congas }
The Bell Brothers { bells }
John Ore { bass }
James Jacson { vocals,  Ancient Egyptian
Infinity Lightning Drum }

Recorded at the Detroit Jazz Center**

(*note: It may be the production or release date and not the recording date-info on this and similar matters is often sketchy or downright contradictory.)

(**The date problem makes this uncertain.)

Put on your Outer-Space
flac
jacket!

The Moog Strikes Bach

Hans Wurman - The Moog Strikes Bach...To Say Nothing of Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Paganini and Prokofieff

LP released in 1969

This is one of those "switched-on" (classical music performed using Moogs or other synthesizer) LPs that were released on the coattails of the popularity of Walter (Wendy) Carlos's Switched-On Bach record. I often find these hit-or-miss. The LP featured in this post is one that I enjoy more than most of the others.
I'm sure this has made the rounds on various blogs in the past (as can be said for almost everything nowadays). I found this copy a couple of months ago. I thought perhaps this could brought back in circulation.

We are witnessing the birth of a new instrument - awesome to contemplate. The Piano, with all the inspiration it provided for composers in the 100 years after its invention, is so limited compared to the Synthesizer that one cannot even hazard a guess as to what effect the latter will have on the course of composition and performance in years to come. (Hans Wurman)

Hans Wurman is a classically trained musician, a pianist basically, but also an organist, cellist and conductor. His musical interests range wide, and perhaps the best demonstration of the fact is that, at this writing, he is both director of musical activities for one of the large Chicago religious organizations and music director of the Chicago company of the hit revue "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris." He has the classical musician's discipline coupled with the popular musician's imagination and flexibility.
...
The music chosen for this disc consists mainly of transcriptions, but it also includes a composition written specifically for the occasion.
Chopin's "Black Key" Etude (the right-hand part is played entirely on the black keys of the piano in the original) retains all its fleet-fingered charm as the Moog adds a light countermelody to the rapid melodic line. The Wurman Mooged version of Mozart's Turkish March (originally the final movement of the Sonata in A, K. 331, for piano) brings us the added dimension of bell and percussion effects (created synthetically), such as Mozart and Beethoven used in some of the "Turkish" music they wrote. The Rachmaninoff Vocalise was originally a wordless vocal piece, later transcribed by the composer for strings and since by many others for many combinations of instruments. Note how the Moog can alter the tone character of the melodic line as it moves along. Next comes the Prokofieff Prelude, Op. 12, No. 7, a piece originally written for piano or harp; those glissandos in the middle section of this charming, all-too-seldom-heard piece have never before had quite the treatment that Wurman brings to them!
Hans Wurman speaks of his Variations on the Paganini theme as having been specifically composed for Moog and four-track recorder. In writing them he joins such illustrious company as Liszt, Brahms, Schumann, Rachmaninoff and the contemporaries Blacher and Lutoslawski, all of whom have composed variations on the same theme, itself originally written as the basis for a set of variations in the last of Paganini's 24 unaccompanied violin caprices.
The towering Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, no doubt the best-known of the composer's organ pieces, here receives a performance which particularly displays both the performer's and the instrument's improvisatory capabilities in its concluding pages. The final selection is Mozart's delightful serenade, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, heard in adventurous new sounds that give transparency to the four voices, originally written as string parts.
It's marvelous music, imaginatively realized and beautifully played. And it's great fun, too.  (Norman Pellegrini from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1.  ''Black Key'' Etude, Op. 10, No. 5  {1:33}
Chopin

2.  Turkish March  {3:22}
Mozart

3.  Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14  {6:17}
Rachmaninoff

4.  Prelude, Op. 12, No. 7  {1:54}
Prokofieff

5.  Thirteen Variations on a Theme of Paganini  {10:04}
Wurman

Side 2

1.  Toccata and Fugue in D Minor  {7:15}
Bach

2.  Eine kleine Nachtmusik: I. Allegro  {5:23}
Mozart

3.  Eine kleine Nachtmusik: II. Romanze: Andante  {5:36}
Mozart

4.  Eine kleine Nachtmusik: III. Menuetto: Allegretto  {2:27}
Mozart

5.  Eine kleine Nachtmusik: IV. Rondo: Allegro  {2:48}
Mozart

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CAPAC Musical Portraits #3

Here is another installment in the CAPAC Musical Portrait series posts.

This one features the Larry Lake record missing from the post of January 14,2013 (featuring the work of the other members of the Canadian Electronic Music Ensemble).At the time of that post, I was missing the record from the sleeve and I promised to post it if I ever found it.

Well,it's been a stretch but, (ahem)-
PRESTO! here it is- compliments (once again) of my father, who is much better these days at finding records than I am.

He is also responsible for finding the other two records in this post; part of a collection of some 60 or so Musical Portraits which he managed to find. These were among the duplicates,many of which he sent to me.

Thanks, Daddy-O!

I focused my attention here on records containing electronic music although acoustic instruments are also in evidence, both in the Bruce W Pennycook and in the Rudolf Komorous.

Larry Lake- Musical Portrait QC-1287
 
a1-Sonata (excerpt)
 
a2-Face (excerpt)

b1-Le Bord Du Son (excerpt)

b2- Cavatina (excerpt)


Bruce W Pennycook- Musical Portrait  (Series 3) QCS-1497

a1-gr,RR (excerpt)

b1-August Suite No 3; Intermezzo

b2- Three Complaints for Flute* and Countertenor
3- The Trouble With Geraniums

b3- Three Miniatures for Harp Flute and Clarinet
2- In Strict Tempo

b4- The Yonge Street Variations No 1 and 2

*(Note-The trouble with "The Trouble With Geraniums" is that the Flute is much too Guitar).-Dr E


Rudolf  Komorous- Musical Portrait QCS-1192

a1-York/1967/ (excerpt)

a2-part of a canon from Anatomy Of Melancholy/1974

b1-Rossi/1974-75/ (excerpt)

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Micheline Coulombe Saint Marcoux-Musical Portrait (ca.1977)

 

Here is my second multi-disc installment in the Composers,Artists and Publishers Association of Canada's "Musical Portrait" series.

The first (three records) featured composers from Ontario.These three feature composers from Quebec, including work from one of the most highly respected and best-known of contemporary Canadian composers, Bruce Mather.
Also noteworthy is the inclusion of a complete work- "Atmospheres" by Nicole Rodrigue, and (excerpts from) some very good electronic works by Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux,which hearken back to the sounds of the classic era of electronic music, and should definitely appeal to many of you.


Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux- Musical Portrait (ca.1977)

side one:

a1-excerpts from Assemblages (4:31)
Christina Petrowska,piano

a2-String Quartet no.2, 3rd Movement (3:02)
Classiquue de Montreal(?)

side two:

b1- 3 excerpts from Zones (electronic music) (3:34)

b2- 3 excerpts from Trakadie (for percussion and tape) (4:21)
Guy LaChapelle,percussion

























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CageCentennial: In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of John Cage's Birth (Collections 3 & 4)

various artists compilation -  CageCentennial: In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of John Cage's Birth (Collections 3 & 4)

The week of Cage is near the end. This week went by really fast. There may be one or two more posts later today. In the meantime, the third and fourth collections arrive. For those who stumbled on this post, all of the background information for this compilation is mentioned in the previous post.

Collection #3 Tracklisting:

1.  Sonic Youth - Four6  {29:59}
from CD Goodbye 20th Century ; composed in 1992 ; released in 1999

2.  American Composers Orchestra - Seventy-Four Version I  {12:14}
from CD The Seasons ; composed in 1992 ; released in 2000

3.  Jonathan Faralli - Cartridge Music  {5:18}
from CD Percussion XX ; composed in 1960 ; released in 1999

4.  Gentle Fire - Music for Carillon 2  {1:25}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1952; released in 1974

5.  Bertram Turetzky - 26'1.1499" for a String Player  {16:05}
from LP The Contemporary Contrabass ; composed in 1955

Collection #4 Tracklisting:

1.  The Kroumata Percussion Ensemble - Second Construction  {6:51}
from CD The Kroumata Percussion Ensemble ; composed in 1940 ; released in 1983

2.  Sonic Youth - Six 3rd take  {3:03}
from CD Goodbye 20th Century ; composed in 1991 ; released in 1999

3.  Karen Phillips - Dream  {6:54}
from LP Viola Today ; composed in 1948 ; released in 1974

4.  Mieko Kanno - Freeman Etude # IX  {4:33}
from CD metaCage: Essays on and Around Freeman Etudes, Fontana Mix, Aria (accompaniment to book of the same title) ; composed in 1977-1980 ; released in 2009

5.  Victoria Looseleaf - In a Landscape  {11:58}
from LP Harpnosis ; composed in 1948 ; released in 1984

6.  Gentle Fire - Music for Amplified Toy Pianos  {11:57}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1960 ; released in 1974

7.  Cathy Berberian - The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs  {2:29}
from CD Magnificathy: The Many Voices of Cathy Berberian ; composed in 1942 ; re-released in 1988

8.  The Brandeis University Chamber Chorus - Solos for Voice 2  {12:36}
from LP Extended Voices ; released in 1967

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CageCentennial: In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of John Cage's Birth (Collections 1 & 2)

Hope everyone is enjoying the week-long Cage fest so far. There's only two days left. I also hope everyone had a great Cage centennial on Wednesday.

I was planning to post this on Wednesday, but I was delayed by other activities that required my attention.

I put together a compilation or collection of recordings of performances of Cage's compositions. Many of these tracks will come from compilations and performers' albums that I posted and some will come from albums that I never posted. I thought this would help to have most of the Cage tracks in one place. This would also be ideal for those who may be new to the blog and/or Cage's music. The compilation is not quite comprehensive. In fact, it is a small humble collection. There are thousands of recordings of Cage's music.

I used chance operations to determine the order of the tracklisting. I didn't really feel like organizing them anyway. It doesn't really matter where the tracks are ordered. They don't have to be played in the order I ended up putting them in. It would probably be more fitting if one were to put whatever player is being used into shuffle or random mode.

I broke the compilation/collection into separate or smaller collections so that each collection will be a manageable file size where the file won't be too large rather than putting all of the tracks in one huge file.

Today the first two collections are posted here. Tomorrow, I believe about two more will be posted.

Collection #1 Tracklisting:

1.  Gentle Fire - Music for Carillon 3  {1:28}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1952 ; released in 1974

2.  Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - A Flower  {3:46}
from CD Open Percussion ; composed in 1950 for voice and piano

3.  John Cage - Fontana Mix  {11:14}
from LP Electronic Music [compilation]

4.  Gentle Fire - Music for Carillon 1  {6:55}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1952 ; released in 1974

5.  London Sinfonietta - First Construction in Metal  {8:59}
from recording of Warp Records + London Sinfonietta at Ether 2004 ; composed in 1939

6.  Richard Bunger - The Perilous Night  {10:06}
from LP The Perilous Night (and Other New Sounds in American Music) ; composed in 1943-1944 for prepared piano

7.  Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs  {3:05}
from CD Open Percussion ; composed in 1942 for voice and piano

8.  David Tudor - Music for Piano No. 52-56  {13:20}
from CD Piano Avant-Garde (Recordings 1956-60) ; composed in 1956-1957

Collection #2 Tracklisting:

1.  John Cage - Williams Mix  {5:44}
from CD OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music [compilation] ; also originally released on The 25th Year Retrospective Concert of the Music of John Cage ; composed in 1952

2.  Richard Bunger - TV Koln  {1:37}
from LP The Perilous Night (and Other New Sounds in American Music) ; composed in 1958

3.  Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Atlas eclipticalis  {14:18}
from CD Cage/Carter/Babbitt/Schuller ; conducted by James Levine ; composed in 1961 ; recorded in 1990 & released in 1994

4.  Sonic Youth - Six 4th take  {2:10}
from CD Goodbye 20th Century ; composed in 1991 ; released in 1999

5.  Comma - Song Books  {7:08}
from CD (voices) ; recorded in 1997 ; released in 1998

6.  Richard Bunger - Bacchanale  {9:49}
from LP Prepared Piano: The First Four Decades [compilation] ; composed in 1940 ; recorded in 1979 ; released in 1983

7.  Max Neuhaus - Fontana Mix-Feed  {10:07}
from LP Electronics and Percussion: Five Realizations by Max Neuhaus ; released in 1968

8.  Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 1  {1:35}
tracks 8-12 from CD Daughters of the Lonesome Isle ; composed in 1948 ; recorded in 1993 ; released in 1994

9.  Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 2  {1:41}

10. Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 3  {1:34}

11. Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 4  {1:24}

12. Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 5  {1:04}

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Edgar Froese - Aqua (1974)

  



Edgar Froese - Aqua (1974)

There are no liner notes to speak of on this album cover.

This is Edgar Froese's first solo album.
If you like Tangerine Dream's "Phaedra" (released within
the year preceding this release) you will enjoy this.

It was apparently released in two versions with different edits and track order.
I have no idea what the differences are but might hazard a guess that "NGC 891" could have the different edits, as there are a few ungainly edits between sections in this release.(The sequencer stutters between repeats of a long passage once or twice and one interpolation in particular is somewhat jarring.) However-
The "flaws" in this early sequencer/synthesized music (Phaedra may be the first album to use sequencers) are, to my ears, what makes this music so interesting and idiosyncratic, and when Tangerine Dream "perfected" the use of such technology is about when I stopped listening.

With this type of live electronic music (one gets the sense of a sort of "live in the studio" sensibility in a lot of this music) The sense that the music being built up and manipulated, layer by layer, could break down at any moment, and lose coherency (which it often did seem to do) is what made a lot of the music interesting, and probably had a lot to do with some of the less predictable musical choices made in the early years of Tangerine Dream's music.
The use of improvisation (when it doesn't descend into noodling) gives their music a dynamism which calculation probably couldn't, these musicians almost certainly being less thoughtful than, say, Stockhausen or Ilhan Mimaroglu.
I've  always liked the Virgin albums by Tangerine Dream and I think this solo album by their founder (and only current member) is a fine example of what is good in this genre: Moody, pulsating, atmospheric,  vaguely menacing soundscapes par excellence. 


 
 
Edgar Froese- Aqua 

Side One:

a1-Aqua

a2-Panorphelia

Side Two:

b1-NGC 891

b2-Upland

 

Edgar Froese on loan from Tangerine Dream.
Thanks to Chris Franke for Moog sounds on NGC 891.
Recorded in Berlin, November 1973 - March 1974

To appreciate fully the revolutionary Artificial Head System developed by Gunther Brunschen listen to side two on stereo headphones.
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Syrinx-LONG LOST RELATIVES (1971)

The first Syrinx album attracted enough positive interest here that I've decided to post the second one.
While I personally prefer the first one, this album is more ambitious, better recorded (the percussionist can be clearly heard this time), and adds a choir,a classical percussionist with batterie and a string section to the basic instrumentation of Synthesizers,Amplified and Processed Alto Saxophone and Hand Percussion.
Everything is more refined on this album - compare this album's reprised treatment of "Field Hymn" with the first album's version and you'll hear what I mean.

Some excerpted notes from the gatefold (enclosed):

(...)There's a touch here and there of the Columbia-Princeton kind of electronic composition in Mills-Cockell's romantic approach to his music.
He likes textures- at any time there might be two or three different distances, the music and the echo of the music simultaneously.
Pringle...fits neatly into this web: He sounds -to me- something between King Curtis and Sonny Stitt,with a few tricks of his own, but Wells's playing is more elusive.It's there- always. If you can't hear it, you can sense it.And like any good drummer, he seems to contain the other's music, etc, giving it a framework(...)
-Peter Goddard












Syrinx-Long Lost Relatives (1971 True North)

Side One:

1-Tumblers To The Vault
2-Syren
3-December Angel

Side Two:

4-Ibistix
5-Field Hymn (Epilogue)
6-Tillicum
7-Better Deaf And Dumb From The First
8-Aurora Spinray























John Mills-Cockell: Arp Synthesizer,Moog Synthesizer,Keyboards
Doug Pringle: Saxophone,Guiro,Bongos,Bells
Alan Wells: Congas,Tympani,Gongs,Tambourines

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Bernd Alois Zimmermann- THE NUMBERED/IMPROVISATIONS,TRATTO (ca.1972) Heliodor/Wergo

Today would have been Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 94th birthday. He died in 1970, aged only 52 years.Excerpt from the (enclosed) notes to Tratto:

The experimental stage in the history of electronic music is not yet closed, and everything is pressing so toward the stormy further development that, for the time being, only technical novelties are expected in the way of progress. But technical progress says nothing at all about the state of composing. There are electronic compositions which,from a musical point of view,are far behind Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, Op.16. To put it otherwise, it is not the technical manipulation of the new sound medium that is decisive, but the question as to whether the specific characteristics of the new medium have been understood and can be used profitably for musical composition.
And so, I asked myself if it would be right to neglect using sine vibrations as a basic material,and if the fact that this doubtless pure electronic fabric has til now proven to be not very flexible nor expressive could be explained by the way it has been treated til now. The conviction that there are still undiscovered possibilities led to the point of departure in composing "Tratto"(...)

Excerpt from the (embarrassing) notes to "The Numbered/Improvisations":

What attraction does jazz have to the composers who do not directly stem from it?
If one wants to imply that such an attraction can - with very few exceptions - be generally observed, then one can say perhaps the attraction that is to be seen is that of naturally talented people who make music together. But talent for what?
First of all, for a completely spontaneous way of playing certain instruments, which is not necessarily to be learned in the school,but which somehow functions like doors or gates through which something wishes to exit...



Side One:
The Numbered (Ode to freedom in the form of a dance of death from the music to the radio play "The Numbered" by Elias Canetti)Improvisations (on the jazz episode from the second act,second scene of the opera "The Soldiers").
Performers: The Manfred Schoof Quintet

Side Two:

Tratto (Composition for electronic sounds in the form of a choreographic study) 1966





















It is unclear exactly how the two pieces listed on side A are divided as it is not labeled precisely.
discogs labels the pieces as track one and track two, but there is no visible or audible separation to merit this.
I believe that the two pieces alternate back and forth for the duration of side A.
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Ilhan Mimaroglu-TWO COMPOSITIONS FOR ELECTROMAGNETIC TAPE (1976) Folkways

Another great record from Ilhan Mimaroglu, who celebrates his 86th birthday today.

Notes excerpted from the insert (enclosed):To Kill A Sunrise
Although this is a piece of program music, the listener needs no program text as what is meant to be said is said in plain words which are part of the music....I wish to avoid, however, one possible misinterpretation. The piece is a dirge, a "song of mourning" for those who are murdered by the lackeys of the ruling class. It is not a criticism of the killers. I am not saying to them "you shouldn't have done what you've done to all those people who who wanted to change the world and and overthrow what you represent," or it would have been like saying to the enemy general "you shouldn't have killed our soldiers." such a criticism would amount (to) changing sides and trying to come to terms with those who are fought against.
The piece was composed in September through December, 1974, and first heard publicly in one of the evenings of electronic music given by the Ripert Center at The Kitchen, NYC, January 29, 1975(...)La Ruche
The piece is titled after a famous Paris building where such painters and writers as Picasso, Modigliani, Mac Orlan and Appolinaire had lived and worked.
At the time I was proceeding with the first experiments on on a new piece commissioned by the GRM, I learned that this historic building, still used as working and living quarters by many artists was facing demolition, to be replaced by a high-rise. My nocturnal visits to the environs soon turned into near-pigrimages, and the music I was composing developed under the influence of that place described as "unwonted, mysterious,phantom, a castle of mists(...)
Ilhan MimarogluIlhan Mimaroglu - TWO COMPOSITIONS FOR ELECTROMAGNETIC TAPE (1976) Folkways Records
Side One:
To Kill A Sunrise (A Requiem For Those Shot In The Back)
Composed in the studios of the Columbia-Princeton Center For Electronic Music, New York, 1974

Side Two:
La Ruche
Composed in the studios of the Groupe De Recherches Musicales,ORTF, Paris, France, 1975
(Jacques Wiederkehr-Cello
Michel Merlet-Harpsichord
Martine Joste-Piano)






















Please Note:
I am offering this record in two separate files,as La Ruche has some
distracting and persistent crackle in some sections; If you are annoyed by such vinyl artifacts, I suggest that you do not grab this particular file (#2).

If anyone can identify any of the music used for punctuation in "To Kill", (other than Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band's "Sun Zoom Spark") I'd appreciate it.
Dr I

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Syrinx-SYRINX (True North 1970)

Syrinx-SYRINX (True North) 1970

The birth pangs of electronic music within pop were often tentative affairs. Bands like the Fifty Foot Hose and the Silver Apples had to absorb such obtuse luminaries as Karlheinz Stockhausen or Morton Subotnick and then attempt to incorporate their complex ideas into the rather simple guitar/bass/drum rock idiom. By the seventies the more portable and affordable mini-moog would become a vehicle for that post-Hendrix obsession with virtuosity, replacing the guitar in extended, self-indulgent wankfests - think ELP, Edgar Winter or Head East. Still others, such as Walter Carlos, reworked classical themes, thus establishing a veneer of respectability for the instrument. Often ignored are those Germans - Popol Vuh or Cluster come to mind - who were unencumbered by the rockist protocol of rhythm/chords/solo, coaxing spacy meandering "head music" from their synths. The overlooked Syrinx falls somewhat into this camp.

Syrinx is essentially the brainchild of songwriter/multi-instrumentalist John Mills-Cockell, who had previously helped found the Mind Excursion Centre in Montreal, a sort of free-form art space existent at the end of the 1960s. A resultant LP soundtrack to an installation there, the privately pressed Free Psychedelic Poster Inside, was released under the name Intersystems (a precursor it would appear to Stereolab's Music for the Amorphous Body Centre, the accompanying music for a Charles Long exhibit at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York in 1995.).

On their eponymous debut here - only the second release on the indie True North label - the trio of Mills-Cockell on moog, piano and organ, along with Doug Pringle on electric saxophones and Alan Wells on hand drums and gongs, meld the artificial textures of synthetic sound with placid, pastoral themes, especially on extended tracks like 'Appalosa-Pegasus' (11:34) and 'Chant for Your Dragon King' (10:22). After a short opening track, the eerie, pulsating moog of 'Melina's Torch', the record moves to a decidedly more cosmic tone. The aforementioned 'Appalosa-Pegasus', with Mills-Cockell weaving whirling synths around the subtle staccato rhythms of Wells' hand drums, soars to the interstellar regions in an almost nostalgic sort of way, and 'Chant for Your Dragon King' is loopy and meandering, predating Tangerine Dream's trippy pieces by several years. The ultimate effect on Syrinx is like a less edgy, more bucolic Music for Films.

Mills-Cockell and Syrinx pushed on throughout the seventies, with a minor hit on their follow-up LP Long Lost Relatives (True North), the pithy 'Tillicum', better known as the theme to the CTV series Here Come the Seventies. Mills-Cockell would ultimately find success writing scores for the theatre, dance, radio and TV before finally decamping to quieter pastures on that hoary hippie resting place, Vancouver Island. Doug Pringle, locks shorn and attitude sharpened, would eventually team up with future wife Michaele Jordana in Toronto new wave/punk act the Poles, who scored locally in 1977 with their ode to T.O.'s famous phallus, 'CN Tower'
Michael Panontin














Syrinx-SYRINX (True North) 1970

Side One:

1-Melina's Torch (2:59)
2-Journey Tree (4:48)
3-Chant For Your Dragon King (10:22)
4-Field Hymn (1:46)

Side Two:

5-Hollywood Dream Trip (5:15)
6-Father Of Light (2:14)
7-Appalosa - Pegasus (11:34)

Composed By – John Mills-Cockell
Synthesizer [Moog], Piano, Organ – John Mills-Cockell
Saxophone [Electric] – Doug Pringle
Drums [Hand], Gong – Alan Wells

Recorded at Baroka Studios (Vancouver) and Bay Recording in Toronto.
Mixed at RCA, Toronto.
All selections Windfall Music Inc., BMI.

























Engineer – Frank Bertin, Rollin Newton
Engineer [Mix] – George Simkew
Painting [Front Cover] – Gerald Zeldin
Photography – Bart
Producer [For Windfall Music Enterprises Incorporated] – John Mills-Cockell

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Sun Ra and his Arkestra-HORIZON (Saturn 121771) 1972

Sun Ra and his Arkestra - HORIZON (Saturn Records 1972)

Sometime in the mid-late 1980's I was lucky to be in attendance for a talk and performance
by Sun Ra and his Arkestra in front of a small audience.After the talk I went along to a private
party for the Arkestra, where I was fortunate to sit (literally) at the feet of the Master.
At one point during this heady day, I reached into my napsack and pulled out 3 original Saturn l.p.'s and asked him to sign them- as soon as he saw them he said "These are meant to be looked at under different colored lights" while I was in the process of gettingout a handful of different colored hi-lighters. So I said "Then please choose the right colors".
I then pulled out a postcard of Saturn (from where he had claimed to have been borne) and asked-
"Can you send me a message from space?"
He replied- "That's beautiful- No one wants messages from space anymore." And he signed the postcard.
Ungrateful wretch that I was, I was a tad disappointed that he hadn't given me something more profound - a Message, that is...



A Dream (ca. June 1, 1993)

I have been dropped off by a flying machine of unknown origin on to the top of a high-rise building. I don't remember if it was daytime or nighttime.
I am in the city of Philadelphia.
I want to see Sun Ra's house. As I remember from a documentary, his address is 5626 Morton St.
I notice suddenly that I am not alone up here-there is a woman, dressed in Black, with a black hood almost entirely covering her face. She is facing away from me, and seems to have no interest in me at all.
I ask her if she knows where Morton Street is. Though it is dark, I am shielding my eyes, trying to look out into the distance as I ask her. She either says "no" or shakes her head
to indicate "no"- I forget which.
I then ask her if she knows which way is East, not that I know in which direction Morton Street lies.
She says "no" in some fashion, and the scene
fades away to...

Upon waking, I went into the kitchen, where my father, who is visiting me, is reading
the newspaper. He looks up and says:
"Sun Ra died."
...

So- It seems I got my message from space after all.


Horizon: Sun Ra and his Astro-Intergalactic-Infinity Arkestra, forming part of the documentation of their first visit to Egypt.

Recorded at the Ballon Theatre, Cairo.

In various editions, the record has sometimes been known by the other title of "Starwatchers"














Side One:

1- Starwatchers/Theme of the Stargazers
Discipline 2
Shadow World

Side Two:

2- Third Planet
Space is the Place
Horizon
Discipline 8























Personnel

John Gilmore - tenor saxophone
Danny Davis - alto saxophone, flute
Marshall Allen - alto saxophone, flute, oboe
Kwame Hadi - trumpet, conga drums
Pat Patrick - baritone saxophone
Elo Omoe - bass clarinet
Tommy Hunter - percussion
Danny Thompson - baritone saxophone, flute
June Tyson - vocal
Larry Narthington - alto saxophone, conga drum
Lex Humphries - percussion
Clifford Jarvis - percussion
Hakim Rahim - alto saxophone, flute
Sun Ra - organ, Mini Moog, piano

Tam Fiofori - Engineer
Live album by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
Released 1972
Recorded December 17, 1971









5626 Morton St, Philadelphia-Sun's House

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Architect's Office-CASWALLON THE HEADHUNTER (1986)

Architect's Office - Caswallon The Headhunter (1986) Silent Records
(Cover illustration is a frame from "Fireloop" by Stan Brakhage)












Today is Stan Brakhage's birthday.
He would have been 79.
It's hard to believe he passed away almost 9 years ago at the age of 70 years,2 months.
It seems like a year ago, maybe two.
I was fortunate to have met him when he
came to my city a couple of years before
his passing, for two days of screenings of his work.
I didn't want to take up too much of his time, as he
was in precarious health, and his appearance itself had truly been more than enough. Anyone who ever heard him talk or has seen video of his lectures knows what I am talking about.

For those who don't:
Stan Brakhage was a film-maker of the most personal mind and universal scope.
He was also one of the last great pedagogical links with the classic American Avant Garde- Having known virtually everybody who created art since 1930.(He went to school with James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, and Larry Jordan, for starters).
Listen to his radio broadcasts titled "The Test Of Time" (a title referring to an episode where Carl Ruggles was playing the same chord over and over again, incessantly, studiously, aggresively on the piano, When asked what he was doing, Ruggles replied "I'm giving this chord the test of time.")
In those broadcasts one can hear first-hand stories of some of the great artists of the last century, many of whom he knew personally.
Brakhage's interests encompassed the entire history of art and life, and he managed to put as much of it into his films as he was given time to do: His opus numbers some 400 films.

Well, to continue my story-
I did, however, mention to him when I met him that I owned a couple of films which I offered to put on vhs tape (to transfer from 16mm prints: Two about Jack Chambers (a Canadian artist-filmmaker whom he admired) plus his first film - "Mosaic", and also the Jackson Pollack film where Pollock is shown at work) and promised to send these to him. He said he'd send me a print in return.
Unfortunately, my package surely arrived too late, and he never got to see them. I've always felt bad about that.

I am posting this a little bit hastily (I was only reminded this morning about his birthday) : I would like to present the cover of MY copy of this record, ehich he signed for me,(instead I post the signature alone) and I would like to say something a bit more profound about this artist who was truly one of the greatest of the 20th century, and whose reputation will surely only grow to match his (mostly unaknowledged) influence as time passes.

But Time ties my tongue.So:

To borrow a sign-off from a postcard he sent me, simply:

Blessings, Stan.

Dr I











Side One:

A1- Prelude 326.0
A2- Prewar 329.1-2
A3- War 327.3

Side Two:

B1- Exhausted 329.4
B2- Party/Party 327.5
B3- Poslude 327.6


(This post is a birthday gift for someone who shares Stan's birthday. I hope he enjoys it.)
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