OLIVEROS, PAULINE Crone Music (Lovely Music) cd 15.98
"Crone Music" is a 1989 piece composed by Oliveros for her expanded accordion. The recognizable chords of the accordion breathing slowly dissolve by means of four digital delay processors which generate a wide array of electronic drones. The piece was commissioned for a experimental theater production of Shakepeare's "Lear."

OLIVEROS, PAULINE Electronic Works 1965/1966 (Paradigm Discs) cd 16.98
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Wow! Three early live experiments with electronics, which at the simplest level use an array of oscilators and tape loops processed through long delays, for some of the most beautiful and haunting electronic drones to pass through our speakers!

OLIVEROS, PAULINE No Mo / Something Else / Bog Road (Pogus Productions) cd 14.98
Three early electronic compositions by Pauline Oliveros from 1966 and 1967. "No Mo" and "Something Else" were created at the University of Toronto's Classical Electronic Music Studio using "Layfette tone generators, noise source and tape delay." "No Mo" is a 17+ minute track of bursts of white noise that could make William Bennett or Merzbow blush. "Something Else" begins with a low bell like drone and soft white noise and begins to build with increasing layers of electronic whistling and an intermittent pulsing tone that gives the piece and uneasy quality not unlike some of Maurizio Bianchi's works. "Bog Road" was recorded shortly after Oliveros was appointed director of the Mills (as in Mills College) Tape Music Center using a Buchla Series 100 Box. Oliveros claims that the inspiration for "Bog Road" came from a colony of frogs that lived in a pond near the electronic studio, though to me it sounds more like some of the music from Louis & Bebe Barron's soundtrack to Forbidden Planet that accompanies the scary scenes.
RealAudio clip: "Something Else"
RealAudio clip: "Bog Road"

OLIVEROS, PAULINE Primordial Lift (Table Of The Elements) cd 15.98
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Brand new composition from accordionist and experimental composer Pauline Oliveros. Featuring David Grubbs on harmonium, Tony Conrad on electric violin, and a handful of guests on cello, electric cello, low frequency oscillator and of course Pauline on accordion, electronics and vocals. Together they create long, droning soundscapes similar in texture to the works of Organum. And if you're already a fan of Oliveros or Conrad, you'll be mighty pleased with this album. Lovely drone.

OLIVEROS, PAULINE Primordial Lift (Deep Listening) cd 14.98
Finally reissued! Brand new composition from accordionist and experimental composer Pauline Oliveros. Featuring David Grubbs on harmonium, Tony Conrad on electric violin, and a handful of guests on cello, electric cello, low frequency oscillator and of course Pauline on accordion, electronics and vocals. Together they create long, droning soundscapes similar in texture to the works of Organum. And if you're already a fan of Oliveros or Conrad, you'll be mighty pleased with this album. Lovely drone.

OLIVEROS, PAULINE & DAVID GAMPER Live at the Ijsbreker: January 24, 1999 (JDK) cd 15.98
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This recording documents the pinnacle of the collaborations between vangarde accordionist Oliveros (called the 'godmother of ambient' in the presskit) and electronic magician David Gamper. Layers of crystalline drones and gossamer structures emerge from the modified accordion of Oliveros and Gamper's tense electronic vibrations for a mesmerizing listen.

OLIVEROS, PAULINE & REYNOLS The Minexico Connection: Live! At the Rosendale Cafe (Roaratorio) lp 13.98

ORAM, DAPHNE Oramics (Paradigm) 2cd 28.00
BACK IN STOCK! Wow, What a nice and welcome surprise for early electronic music fans! This 2cd anthology is the first re-issued work from one of the most important and unsung heroes of electronic music, Daphne Oram, co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic workshop. Beginning her career in the forties with the BBC as a "music balancer" (an arduous task of syncing recorded taped music with a live performance feed so that broadcasts would remain uninterrupted in case of war-time blackouts), Oram spent most of her nights fascinated with synthetic sounds and experimenting with oscillators and tape machines, as well as composing unperformed orchestral works and sound pieces for film and play commissions. Promoted to music studio manager, she campaigned for the BBC to provide electronic music facilities for composing music and sound effects using electronic music and musique concrete techniques for use in its programming which led to the founding of the Radiophonic workshop in early 1958. However, her desires to compose music and further her studies and development of synthetic music theory, caused her to leave the BBC a year later. Working off two grants from the Gulbenkian foundation in the 1960's, and supplementing her income through advertising work, she developed her most unique contribution, the Oramics composition machine and the drawn sound technique, an elaborate mechanism that allowed her to create pure sound through the transcription of drawn lines. For being the first woman to direct an electronic music studio as well as the first woman to design and construct an electronic music instrument, her legacy remains largely unnoticed in this male-dominated field. She lectured extensively and wrote one of the most philosophical books on electronic music, called An Individual Note of Music, continuing her developments with early Apple computers until a series of two strokes forced her to retire. She died in 2003. Culled from an extensive archive of compositional pieces, film and play commissions, early sound experiments with the Oramics machine, and advertising jingles, this anthology covers material from the late fifties to the early seventies. Fans of Delia Derbyshire, Raymond Scott and early electronic music enthusiasts of all sorts will find lots to love here. Highly Recommended!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Birds Of Parallax"
MPEG Stream: "Lego Builds It"
MPEG Stream: "Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Fanfare Of Graphs"

PAIK, NAM JUNE Works 1958-1979 (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
Five compositions by video artist Nam June Paik. Long before he became famous for his work in the visual arts, Paik had travelled to both Japan and later to Germany (along side Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Westdeutsche Rundfunk's Studio For Electronic Music) to study composition. This cd is the first time these works have been released outside of extremely limited cassette and lp issues and date from as early as 1959 to as late as 1979. The tracks themselves are as varied as one might expect from such an extended period. The first piece "Prepared Piano For Merce Cunningham" (1977) is a solemn 28 minute improvisation on a detuned piano. This piece was originally released in an edited form but is presented here as it was recorded, in its entirety. Three of the pieces were unearthed in Paik's apartment in 1999 while searching through uncataloged films and videos. "Hommage A John Cage" (1959), "Simple" (1961), and "Etude For Pianoforte" (1960) are tape experiments using crude splicings of recorded music, Paik screaming, various recorded noises, all sped up, slowed down, scrambled and otherwise mutilated. "Duett" (1979) is a 25 minute improvised collaboration between Paik on piano and Takis on metal sculpture. Paik drifts between various baroque and classical themes before settling into a slow dirge while humming mournfully as Takis intermittently strikes on large chunks of metal. The piece has a beautifully melancholic yet absurd quality that approaches self-mockery but somehow remains sincere.
RealAudio clip: "Hommage A John Cage"
RealAudio clip: "Duett"

PALESTINE / COULTER / MATHOUL Maximin (Young God) cd 14.98
Charlemagne Palestine has long been one of the pioneers of American Minimalism, tracing back to his '60s performances that rivalled Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Tony Conrad in duration, intensity, and transcendent potential. "Maximin" finds Palestine working with David Coulter and Jean-Marie Mathoul to re-intepret / re-mix / re-iterate (or how ever you care to catagorize it). For the most part, Palestine contributed material from his albums "Jamaica Heinekens In Brooklyn," "Schlongo!!!daLUVdrone," and "Karenina," while Coutler and Mathoul added additional drones, found sound textures, illbient breakbeats, and ethnic instrumentation.
RealAudio clip: "Schlongo!!!daLuvdrone Revisted 1"
RealAudio clip: "Schlongo!!!daLuvdrone Revisted 2"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE A Sweet Quasimodo Between Black Vampire Butterflies (Cold Blue) cd 14.98
Fifty minute single track of classic organ cycle repetitions for fans of Terry Riley, Jon Gibson, Steve Reich.
MPEG Stream: "A Sweet Quasimodo Part One"
MPEG Stream: "A Sweet Quasimodo Part 2"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Continuous Sound Forms (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
Volume 2 in Alga Marghen's "The Golden Research" series of Charlemagne recordings from the late '60s to mid '70s. The self-explanatory "Continuous Sound Forms" features two works from Palestine's archives. "Duo Strumming for Two Harpsichords" (1978) is broken into three excerpted duets between Palestine and Elisabeth Freeman who hammer out a continuous tight arpeggiation on two harpsichords. At predetermined times, the duo altered their tight rhythmic patterns to play indeterminant notes, giving a very playful feel to the piece. The title of "Piano Drone" (1972) is a little misleading as the entire piece doesn't exactly coalesce into an extended drone, rather this is a painterly composition of whimsical piano patterns that are washed out with acoustic effects using the piano's sustain pedal.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Holy 1 & Holy 2 (Alga Marghen) 2lp 37.00
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"The Golden Research" series of previously unpublished works from the Charlemagne Palestine vaults so far comprises two cd volumes and this expensive vinyl item, which features an expanded version of what you get on half of the first cd volume (reviewed elsewhere). The 'late night electronic sonorities' of 1967's "Holy" are here presented in four subtle variations (instead of the two found on the cd version, where the piece is pared with "Alloy"). This piece was based upon creating a drone that harmonized with the din of New York's late night ambience. Using a battery of oscillators that were altered to emit varying degrees of white noise, Palestine generated an effective electric drone device which fluctuates ever so slowly across the two 20 minute variations. Palestine himself described his sound generators as "immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibertan bees." Palestine presents two version of "Holy 1," one version of "Holy 2," and a sound-collage between was commissioned by Gus Solomons for a dance piece at New York University.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Holy 1 & Holy 2 / Alloy (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
"The Golden Research" series of previously unpublished works from the Charlemagne Palestine vaults begins with this volume that documents two distinct bodies of Palestine's work. The first being the 'late night electronic sonorities' of 1967's "Holy" which are presented in two subtle variations. This piece was based upon the creating a drone that harmonized with the din of New York's late night ambience. Using a battery of oscillators that were altered to emit varying degrees of white noise, Palestine generated an effective electric drone device which fluctuates ever so slowly across the two 20 minute variations. Palestine himself described his sound generators as "immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibertan bees." The second half of the cd features "Alloy", which is one of those pieces that qualified Palestine as one of great minimalists from the 1960s. Working with Tony Conrad, Bob Feldman, and Deborah Glaser, Palestine accompanies the electric drones from "Holy" with extended glossalalic vocals, the clatter of various chimes, and Conrad bowing one very long amplified string. An excellent historical document.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE In-Mid-Air (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
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This is one of three separate shards of electronic music history (Ashley, Neuhaus, and Palestine) recently unearthed by Italian audio archaeologists Alga Marghen.
The disc of early Charlemagne Palestine electronic works ("late night recordings" at the NYU Intermedia center on the Buchla 100 and 200 analog synths, done between 1965 and 1970) is probably the most "listenable" of these three reissues. It's also volume 3 in Alga Marghen's "The Golden Research" Palestine archive series. Listenable, yet certainly scarily dark and droney and hissy, conjuring fear and sudden violence, far from the pretty, hypnotic bliss of some of the man's later work. Inspired by everyday refrigerator hum and race car motors, but way more "late night", this material must predate his obsession with cute stuffed animals!
MPEG Stream: "Tymbral For Pran Nath"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn (Barooni) cd 15.98
"Begun in the spring of 1997, this work came out of the idea of traveling with an electronic drone on a ghetto blaster and re-recording it in different situations in many countries. After several months of unsuccessful experiments, I decided to record different situations or soundscapes first and then to superimpose a drone later. I made recordings in 20 different environments including Los Angeles, Paris, Nice, Berlin, New York City, Rotterdam, and Lisbon, but far and away the most impressive, expansive, and sonically interesting was the recording I made on the 5th of September 1997 on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn during the Jamaica Day Parade; the yearly tradition where more than 2 million Island people who live and around the New York City area meet to dance, sing, eat, and drink for an entire afternoon... With a small DAT player and a small stereo microphone, I walked throughout the festival very slowly for several hours to let the ambient sounds of each block naturally change in real time. The 60 minute segment on this record is played without any editing, but superimposed upon this extract I have composed three series of drone textures... All together this work creates a dialogue between pure and mixed electronics of my long continuum tradition and the real-time ambient sounds of a traditional urban ethnographic popular festival. The results have no extra-musical philosophies behind them." -- Charlemagne Palestine

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Music For Big Ears (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
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When just a precocious lad of 15, Charlemagne Palestine began playing the bells in the church tower next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He claims that he played those bells everyday for the next six years, and this physical involvement with the sound of huge church bells paralleled his initial involvement with electronic music in the '60s. Jump forward four decades to find Palestine getting a Staalplaat commission to return to the sonorities of church bells by playing the Daimler-Benz carillon in Berlin. Palestine and Jeffery Bossinb -- the official carilloner for these bells -- tap out an unchanging rhythmic pulse using their four fists and four legs to create a mesmerizing piece of sustained minimalism that certainly fits comfortably alongside the extended work of likeminded composers such as LaMonte Young, Tony Conrad, and John Cale.
What I want to know is who in their right mind would let some 15 year old kid into a church tower to hammer on some incredibly expensive bells everyday for six years!?!?
RealAudio clip: "Music For Big Ears 2"
RealAudio clip: "Music For Big Ears 4"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Schlingen-Blangen (New World) cd 15.98
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NYC drone-pioneer Palestine takes us on a 71-minute trip of shimmering bliss, utilizing not his usual Bosendorfer piano but rather a baroque organ. First realized in 1979, recorded in 1988, and finally now released. "Schlingen-Blangen" is a sustained organ drone in which Palestine manipulates the timbre subtly throughout the piece. Very reminscent of the works of Palestine's contemporary La Monte Young. To be filed under "disembodied organ sonority"!

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Schlongo!daLUVdrone (Cortical Foundation) cd 16.98
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"Schlongo!daLUVdrone" was a Valentine's Day performance that Palestine gave as a part of the Beyond The Pink performance festival held in LA in 1998. His contribution was a pipe organ solo concert at the Hollywood Methodist Church. While Palestine's liner notes do well to explain the process, his grammar sucks: "I began my investigation pipe by pipe creating sonorities putting small folded paper nuggets between the keys a continuous sound object starting with a fundamental then a perfect fifth then the octave above and gradually building enormous sonorities over several hours with tens then hundreds then thousands of overtones interacting with the beats creating a rhythmic fabric of overwhelming complexity." Of course our grammar often leaves something to be desired too... but what are you gonna do?

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE / TONY CONRAD An Aural Symbiotic Mystery (Subrosa) cd 14.98
We think the mystery suggested in the title is why this is the first ever recorded collaboration between these two giants of improvised left-field minimalist drone. Both Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, key figures in early American minimalism and the New York avant-garde of the early seventies had only performed three times together previously and since reuniting in Belgium in 2001, hadn't even seen each other in three decades. What's equally amazing is that neither one fully dominates this extended performance. Palestine's multiple crystalline organ drones graft neatly with Conrad's bowed pulsations from his modified 5 string violin, eventually intensifying with blistering shimmers and burning organic keyboard crescendos before falling into subdued space and void. There the two sweep the dust off and begin to spar with each other all over again, getting into some heated free-music territory culminating in Palestine's delayed vocal drones and Conrad's blissful undulating vibrations. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery 1"
MPEG Stream: "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery 2"

PAN SONIC / CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 15.98
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Sure there's a novelty to a collaborative album recorded by the figureheads from two generations of uncompromising (and at times brutal) minimalism, but this is not your garden variety resuscitation of crotchety '60s minimalism by Jim O'Rourke. When Charlemagne Palestine and Pan Sonic set organs, oscillators, and random noise generators to constantly warble for over an hour, their intentions are far from benevolent. This album of uneasy listening was commissioned by the VRPO Radio in the Netherlands and is limited to 1000 copies. If you blink, you'll probably miss it.

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD Chants Magnetiques (Fractal) cd 22.00
Had Fractal not dusted off this gem of French electronic composition, there's a good chance this disc might have found its way back into circulation through elusive Icelandic cd-r label Creel Pone. Bernard Parmegiani was one of the many composers who cut their teeth at the highly influential INA-GRM studio / label / laboratory of sound, alongside the likes of Pierre Henry, Luc Ferrari, and Xenakis. Favoring an acousmatic strategy that reveals sound in a manner that sublimates its origins, Parmegiani is best known for his grandiose La Creation Du Monde whereby the composer attempts to address the sound that predates the Big Bang, as well as its polyphonous explosion through a constantly spiralling thrum of electronic vibration. Chants Magnetiques (which translates as Magnetic Fields, and Fractal is quick to point out that this album precedes the Jean Michel Jarre album of the same name by several years) is easily the darkest album in Parmegiani's body of work; and perhaps, the paranoiac qualities of Chants Magnetiques were the reason for its obscure status for so long. The opening round of erratic electric squiggles slides into a languid drone of sustained strings, whilst a robotic hammering strikes against what sounds like springloaded doors. Occasionally chipper but usually damaged electronic percolations and atonal blasts of prog organs intermingle with sheet metal cacophony and convulsive buzzings, only to sulk into subterranean layers of sound haunted by mad scientist chords on the organ and spooky atmospherics that never sound cheesy in spite of the references. The entire composition is executed with an incredible precision and complexity, easily positioning itself as a clear influence upon the later work of Autechre. One not to miss.
MPEG Stream: "Vibrations"
MPEG Stream: "Pulsion"

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD Da Natura Sonorum (INA/GRM) cd 21.00
Listening to "Da Natura Sonorum" it's easy to understand where Autechre borrowed their mutable rhythms from. Often cited as a huge influence upon those figureheads of current abstract electronica, Bernard Parmegiani emphasized the "instantaneousness of the ephemeral and the mobility of the repetitive" within his fusionist compositions between musique concrete and live instrumentation. While Autechre took this agenda (and particularly Parmegiani's ping-pong algorithms of granular synthesis) to a post-electro / fractured breakbeat context, Parmegiani is firmly rooted in the traditions of INA GRM electronic music. Over the two distinct suites of "Da Natura Sonorum," Parmegiani couples electronic and tape constuctions with lengthy sustained chords from live instruments at times attaining a Feldman-esque flutter of multiple French Horns, yet the second passage exhibits more fleeting compositions for the orchestral elements in favor of dense collages of electronics.
RealAudio clip: "Conjugaison du Timbre"
RealAudio clip: "Pleins et Delies"

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD JazzEx (Fractal) cd 21.00
We've been a fan of French musique concrete composer, Bernard Parmegiani for awhile now. His sound engineer's background brings forth a stunningly unique view of music-making through which he combines improvisational intuition with an excellent sense of compositional form. JazzEx is a collection of four of his earliest works: "JazzEx" (1966), a composition for electronic tape and Jazz Quartet from the 1966 Festival de Royan; "Pop Eclectic" (1969), an electro-acoustique divertimento that mixes natural and synthetic sounds and was composed for the Peter Foldes movie; "Du Pop a l'Ane" (1969), a plunderphonics sound collage using pop and symphonic sounds; "Et Apres" (1973), an amazing electronic tango composition featuring Michel Portal on bandoneon. This is an important period of Parmegiani's work, noting his first major steps in this eclectic sound language. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Pop Eclectic"
MPEG Stream: "Du Pop a l'Ane"

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD La Creation Du Monde (INA/GRM) cd 21.00
Bernard Parmegiani is a French musique concrete / electronic music composer who has worked extensively with the influential INA GRM recording studio / label. While a number of 20th Century composers avidly footnote their work with dense historical references and conceptual overviews, Parmegiani favors the acousmatic approach (currently espoused by Francisco Lopez) of creating a hallucinatory sound without revealing what caused it. Such a philosophy favoring mystery over intention is perfectly suited to the cosmologically tinged composition "Le Creation Du Monde" (1982-1984). Parmegiani expresses the cosmic beginning through gradual introductions and transformations of dense, yet ephemeral fragments of sound which mutate and coalesce into warm, buzzing timbres and aqueous percolations. While the tonalities to "Le Creation Du Monde" are comparable to Xenakis's "Persepolis" or Stockhausen's "Mikrophonie," Parmegiani's volatile collage aesthetic falls much closer to the non-academic forms of early Nurse With Wound. Good work.
RealAudio clip: "Instant 0"
RealAudio clip: "Jeux De Confrigurations"
RealAudio clip: "Polyphonie"

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD La Memoire Des Sons (INA-GRM) cd 21.00
"Le Memoire Des Sons" collects three pieces from the French musique concrete composer Bernard Parmegiani, including "Capture Ephemere" (1967), "Sons-Jeu" (1987), and "La Memoire des Sons" (2001). As with his previous works including his masterpiece "La Creation Du Monde," Parmegiani follows an acousmatic approach to contextualizing how his heavily processed sounds are to be perceived. Despite the span of 34 years in between all of these recordings, there is a remarkable similarity in how Parmegian fractures the source material into generative particles tumbling, exploding, flanging, dissolving, sparkling, and timestretching into very plastic sound constructions, that clearly follow the strict rules of what musique concrete should be according to the precepts of the French state sponsored institution INA-GRM.
RealAudio clip: "Capture Ephemere"

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD Pop'eclectic (Plate Lunch) cd 14.98
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Odd-ball music conrete from this legendary French composer. This disc presents archival material from 1966-1973, thereby predating the pop cut-ups of Christian Marclay by a good bit. The four pieces here feature a patchwork of styles, at times fused with symphonic elements, or having free jazz musicians play over prerecorded tapes of electro-acoustic music. Important, influential, and a fun listen, too!

PARMEGIANI, BERNARD Violostries (INA-GRM) 2cd 30.00
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PARMEGIANI, BERNARD / FRANCOIS BAYLE Divine Comedie: Enfer / Purgatoire (MFA) 2cd 29.00
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PART, ARVO Kanon Pokajanen (ECM) cd 23.00
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Music inspired by the early Russian Orthodox Church. Graceful and minimal as his music always is. Thick book of liner notes.

PART, ARVO Litany (ECM) cd 15.98
World premiere recording.

PARTCH, HARRY 17 Lyrics of Li Po (Tzadik) cd 16.98
The obi reads: Composer, theorist, inventor of musical instruments, and one of the most colorful characters of 20th century music, Harry Partch broke with Western tradition and forged a new music based on a more primal, corporeal integration of the elements of speech, rhythm and performance. This is the first complete recording of one of Partch's earliest extant compositions. Featuring Ted Mook and Stephen Kalm.

PARTCH, HARRY Collection Volume 1 (New World / CRI) cd 16.98
Seems like it's about time that Harry Partch's recordings should be permanently available and not continually cycle in and out of print. If he hasn't yet been "canonized" in the eyes of academia, he's been so by the rest of the world by now. If all other reasons were eliminated, the mere mention of "builders of unusual instruments" puts Harry Partch at the top of most people's heads. His gorgeously hand crafted and other worldly sounding instruments were built not on a whim, but out of necessity. Which brings to mind the second reason why Harry Partch resides at the top of so many lists: microtonal music. No one before him had a so thoroughly codified and premeditated way of dividing the "octave" into harmonic and melodic divisions. 43 scale degrees is what he eventually settled on, which is why he had to either heavily modify or build from scratch his instruments. But his chosing 43 tones and his handling of them wasn't just for effect, like many of those composers who preceded him. Most of his compositions didn't even use all 43 notes. Instead Partch had developed his own scales and modes -- derived from ancient Greece along as well as from around the globe. His compositions were a veritable hodge podge of influences: American folk music, Chinese classical, African, Greek, Balinese, Javanese, and on and on. To top it off, the musicans performing his works were expected to sing and dance while they played their respective instruments. And while he was a demanding composer with very specific and strongly argued opinions about music (his book Genesis Of A Music is not only an in depth look at his own theories, but a scathing critique of western classical music), his compositions were largely quite accessible. The tracks here were recorded between 1950 and 1953 with the exception of "Ulysses At The Edge" which was recorded in 1958 and originally released on Harry Partch's own Gate Five record label. Oh, that's another thing, he was probably the first DIY record producer / label owner / mail order business. The majority of Partch's instruments were either percussion, in the form of large and varied marimba-like instruments and zithers. One particular marimba, the Marimba Eroica had only two notes, a resonater 8 feet long and was played with huge and heavy padded mallets. You can imagine how that one sounds. And yet all of his instruments are not only unique sounding, but beautiful and haunting as well. The Cloud Chamber Bowls were a set of glass carboys cut in half and tuned to Partch's scale and sounds as close to a glass gong as anything could. But the most fucked up of all is the Chromelodeon, a heavily modified reed pump organ that sounds like the devil itself when it plays clusters of notes or simple chords. Along with Ulysses, Volume 1 of the Harry Partch collection includes Eleven Intrusions, a song cycle utilizing ten of Partch's instruments accompanying voice; Plectra & Percussion Dances, a suite of three unrelated pieces utilizing the entire Partch orchestra of instruments. These newly reprinted CRI editions come with hefty booklets with archival photos and extensive liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "Castor & Pollux"
MPEG Stream: "Ring Around The Moon"

PARTCH, HARRY Collection Volume 2 (New World / CRI) cd 16.98
Four of Harry Partch's earliest compositions, works he later grouped together as The Wayard, comprise the first half of this collection. The four pieces: U.S. Highball, San Francisco, The Letter and Barstow were written between 1941 and 1943 after Partch received a Guggenheim Fellowship. This after he'd spent much of the previous 10 years hoboing around the country, picking up odd jobs as he could get them throughout the depression. It's no wonder then that the topics of these pieces have much, if not everything, to do with his experiences during this period. These are classic Partch, combining social commentary and humor to create odd oratorios (the texts of these pieces are included in the accompanying booklet) that are spoken as much as they are sung and done so with that quintessential vocal style that just smacks of the 50's. I think that's what makes these recordings sound all that much more interesting and odd. You expect the voices you hear to be pitching Listerine or a Chevy Corvair, not kicking it with an iconoclast hobo composer. The final composition here, And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma, is a radical contrast to these earlier pieces and makes for a nice juxtaposition for this collection. Completed in 1966, it's one of the few pieces Partch composed that is strictly instrumental and completely lacking any kind of "program". Further, it utilizes the entire cache of the now fully realized Partch orchestra of instruments.
MPEG Stream: "U.S. Highball"
MPEG Stream: "And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma"

PARTCH, HARRY Collection Volume 3 (New World / CRI) cd 16.98
The choice of Partch works selected for this third volume of his music highlight the corporeal aspects of his art: be it incorporating dance and drama into his compositions or scoring for films. One piece, "Rotate The Body In All Of Its Planes" (1961), was even written for gymnasts while performing at the Collegiate Gymnastics Championship at the University of Illinois Charles Pond and later preserved onto film by Madeline Tourtelot. "Windsong" (1958) is another composition for a film collaboration with Tourtelot. The first piece on the disc, "The Dreamer That Remains" (1972) was Partch's last completed work. Commissioned by long time friend Betty Freeman, The Dreamer was a largely autobiographical work, detailing childhood memories, his hoboing days and even outing himself to the world -- something that caused Freeman some consternation at the time. The final piece, "Water! Water! -- An Intermission With Prologues And Epilogues" (1961), is a satyrical piece of theater postulating that the greatest satisfaction for the audience in any performance was the arrival of intermission when they could finally leave their seats for some refreshments.
MPEG Stream: "The Dreamer That Remains"
MPEG Stream: "Water! Water!"

PARTCH, HARRY Collection Volume 4 - The Bewitched (New World / CRI) cd 16.98
Love him or... don't love him ("hate him" seems a little extreme for a man as benign as Harry Partch), he had to have been the greatest idealist in the history of Western music -- not to mention the greatest iconoclast. It's not enough to disassemble the chromatic scale and build an entirely new harmonic theory around a division of some 43 tones to the octave or assemble an entire orchestra of insanely gorgeous hand built instruments, but he also insisted on a corporeal execution of almost all his works. The Bewitched was the first large scale composition in which the musicians were also expected to sing and dance as they played. Not something that most performers or audiences would balk at today, but this was 1957, not 1967. Even today his music sounds completely unlike anything else. Bewitched begins with just the rumblings of the marimba eroica, the two note bass marimba, which are almost inaudible unless you have some serious subwoofer action. One by one the entire cast of the Partch orchestra chimes in on different melodic themes, and building in counterpoint with one another at each turn. Musically it's an extremely strong composition, with great thematic development, beautiful and haunting melodies (as wonderful as any in his other compositions). One of the greatest aspects of The Bewitched however is Partch's treatment of the human voice. Whether done intentionally to stress the "primitive" aspirations of his music, or for lack of a worthy libretto, all the vocals are wordless chanting and singing. I know a lot of people can't seem to get into Partch's works (like "Revelation In A Courthouse Park" and "Barsto") because they find the lyrics corny. Those who can't get into his music because of this might want to give Partch a second chance with The Bewitched. The voice of the performer playing The Witch, the lead role in The Bewitched, sounds an awful lot like exotica chanteuse Yma Sumac. In fact the whole composition sounds a lot like a more academic Martin Denny scoring an episode of Star Trek (Shatner, not Stewart for all you young-uns) -- what with all the marimba-like instruments. And yet in sections which feature clarinet, piccolo and cello Partch's themes begin to sound surprisingly pastoral, like his antithetical contemporary Aaron Copland. Which is not to make Partch look like some stuffed shirt. I don't think anyone would confuse his music for the creative wellspring of a tenured faculty at some ivy league school. One need look no further than the titles for each scene to see that Partch's sense of humor wouldn't be caught dead in academia. For instance, scene five is titled "Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated Basketball Team in the Shower Room", or scene ten: "The Cogniscenti Are Plunged into a Demonic Descent While at Cocktails". Like the other discs in this Partch reissue series this one comes with a nice fat booklet with historical and biographical notes, photos and detailed descriptions of each scene in the performance (which, by the way, is the original 1957 monaural recording). Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Scene 2 - Exercises in Harmony and Counterpoint Are Tried in a Court of Ancient Ritual"
MPEG Stream: "Scene 8 - A Court in its Own Contempt Rises to a Motherly Apotheosis"

PENDERECKI, KRYSZTOF The Saragossa Manuscript (OST) (OBUH) lp 39.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow. This has got to be the thickest heftiest gatefold lp sleeve we've EVER seen. Not just the kind that cracks and creaks when you open, no, it's the sort of lp that when you do finally crack it open, it's like in the movies when the main character is finally opening the long lost crypt, muscles bulging, tendons straining, sweating and grunting, as it slowly opens with the grinding scrape of metal on concrete... Okay, so maybe it's not quite -that- intense, but heck, EVERY single person who picks it up does a sort of double take and utters something like "Woah, wow... WOW!" Plus the cover images are gorgeous, the front is a stark black and white landscape of gnarled dead trees, the back is a makeshift gallows, occupied by two unlucky souls, with an ominous pile of human skulls in the foreground. Crack it open and inside the gatefold you'll see a acid drenched burnt out kaleidoscopic photo of Krysztof Penderecki behind a huge pile of analog studio gear. Penderecki? Yep, Pendercki! This is the long lost soundtrack to the 1965 classic The Sargassa Manuscript, AKA Rekopis znaleziony w Sarogossie, AKA The Manuscript Found In Saragossa, one of the greatest Polish films ever made, and most definitely one of the strangest, most fucked up visual trips EVER. Think Bunuel, Lynch, Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky, Gilliam and then realize you'd most definitely need to include Sargasso director Wojciech Has. But the sounds are as strange and wondrous as the sights, due in no small part to Penderecki's lovely, haunting and downright bizarre score. Dark delicate piano filigree hovers in wide expanses of barely there ambience, grunts and groans and mumbled vocalisations drift in and out, western steel string guitars play tiny boleros before being overtaken by majestic church organs, snatches of refined chamber music are interrupted by strange soundscapes of what sounds like thunder or trees being felled, hypnotic stretches of No Neck Blues Band-like rattle and clatter, mysterious percussive interludes, woodblocks and rattles and shakers, and surrounding it all, little bits and pieces, scraps of sound, all manner of strange audio delights. A completely intense and intensely strange musical trip, even without the equally bizarre visuals of the film. In fact the images these sounds conjure up in your head, in the dark, with headphones on, might just be even stranger than the movie itself. If that were even possible...
Pressed on INCREDIBLY thick vinyl, and oh, did we mention the sleeve?!?!
And as you might imagine, this vinyl-only Polish import is EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!

PENDERECKI, KRZYSZTOF Stabat Mater (Finlandia/Warner) cd 16.98
Complete sacred works for chorus a cappella 1962-92.

POUSSEUR / MAIN / JECK / OVAL 4 Parabolic Mixes (Sub Rosa) 2cd 19.98
Taking an electronic work first realized in 1972 by Belgian avant-garde composer Henri Pousseur, Sub Rosa have arranged for new mixes to be done by three of today's most talented electronic experimentalists: Robert Hampson (of Main fame), AQ-fave turntable specialist Philip Jeck, and Markus Popp of glitchsters Oval. It's not technically a *re*mix project, it seems, as Pousseur's original piece allowed for multiple, equally valid mixes (or studies). He did eight of 'em himself back in the day (released as a four cd set, now unavailable, on Sub Rosa two years ago) and contributes a new one, done digitally this time, as the first track on disc one here. Hampson, Jeck, and Popp follow with their varying takes on the same material/composition, Popp's maybe being the prettiest, all of 'em very blippy and bloopy -- the original piece(s) having a kind of sci-fi spaceship/upset stomach sound. But of course, Jeck's mix is our favorite, as it brings in some of his trademark warm and crackly, antiqued vinyl-y sounds (adding such is apparently in accordance with Pousseur's open-ended concept for this piece).
MPEG Stream: PHILIP JECK "Third Parabolic Mix"

POUSSEUR, HENRI 8 Etudes Paraboliques (Sub Rosa) 4cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Henri Pousseur is one of the lesser known European avant-garde composers, and has been active since the '50s embracing most of the various trends within the 'academic scene' (dodecaphonic, serial, electronic, aleatoric, etc.). "8 Etudes Paraboliques" finds Pousseur within an electronic mode, and he suggests that "the enthusiast needs only two CD players to be able to realise at home original Paraboles-Mix. If he or she has but one set of records, each study can be combined with six others, those on the disc itself naturally being excluded. This already permits a considerable number of combinations. But it requires only two sets of the records to avoid even this slight limitation." It's up to you if you must own multiple copies of this album, but my guess is that it wouldn't really augment the listening situation all that much. Armed with banks of voltage control oscillators, ring modulators, various parameter filters, and 4-channel construction techniques, Pousseur's 8 studies are real-time compositions of splattering electronic vibrations and unpredictible modulations, that comes close to some of the seminal early work of Morton Subotnik.
RealAudio clip: "Les Ailes D'Icare"
RealAudio clip: "Viva Cuba"

PRITCHARD, DAVID Nocturnal Earthworm Stew (Pacemaker) cd 15.98
Nocturnal Earthworm Stew? Ew. Well, perhaps the French title of this Canadian record will tempt your appetite: Bouillabaisse Nocturne Aux Vers De Terre. Sounds much tastier, eh? Actually as long as you have an appetite for unusual, analog-synth based, musique concrete fashioned psychedelia, you'll find this to your liking! Yes, that Hans Edler album isn't the only weird and wonderful, long lost '70s electronic music artifact that we've been digging here at AQ lately. Lucky us, we also just got in this reissue of an amazing 1976 album from one David Pritchard, a Canadian underground radio DJ who was so into the experimental electronic sounds coming out of Germany at the time (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kluster, Kraftwerk, and the like) that he started collecting the requisite equipment and began writing music that proved well worthy of his overseas influences. Seriously, this could be one of the best Krautrock rarities ever, if Pritchard were German not Canadian. His instrumental compositions feature both an array of analog synths (vintage machines cooler today than ever, the ARP 2600 and EMS AKS) and more conventional instrumentation (violin, guitar, drums, etc.) as well shortwave radio noise / samples and field recordings. All of which you'll hear, for instance, on the fifteen-minute album centerpiece "Thunderpeat", a true tour-de-force of headphone listening, as is the rest of this disc. Quite rhythmically soothing, but with challenging and unusual sonic textures, recalling everything from
Stockhausen to Eno to Dr. Who soundtracks to AQ-fave obscure krautrocker Gunter Schickert. Maybe because of the title, we had expected this to sound like some dark, scary proto-industrial thing, but instead it's remarkably pleasant, full of pretty little melodies -- including a synthesized version of "My Favorite Things". But although Pritchard was the first Canadian artist signed to Island Records, we can't imagine that Nocturnal Earthworm Stew ever hit the pop charts in Canada or anywhere else. It's just too weird and eerie and arcane. Despite how lovely his songwriting can be, this certainly does possess a hefty share of foreboding atmosphere, some of this (tracks like "Evil Orge Interlude / Satan's Seaside Walk" for instance) coming across like an ominous mixture of Tangerine Dream and Italian horror soundtrack masters Goblin. Not a bad thing! This cd reissue includes four bonus tracks and a thick booklet full of photos and informative text, including notes from Pritchard himself. Note to Canadian music nerds: this album also marks the recording debut of none other than Nash the Slash, who guests here on a couple tracks on violin.
MPEG Stream: "The Harry Parchment"
MPEG Stream: "Yellow Stickers"
MPEG Stream: "An Admission Of Guilt"

RAAIJMAKERS, DICK Complete Tape Music Of Dick Raaijmakers (Basta) 3cd 33.00
Three cds worth of vintage Dutch tape music from one of the masters, Dick Raaijmakers! Maybe you remember him from the Popular Electronics box set on Basta. This is the second edition of this collection, nicely presented in a colorful cardboard box, with 124 page booklet with text in English. Raaijmakers was active in the Philips Labs in the late '50s, and this contains material from 1959 all the way up to 1996, mainly from the '60s. Those big into early electronic music will want to check this out, as will anyone who gets turned on to Raaijmakers thanks to the the nifty various artists tribute comp also reviewed this list.

RADIGUE, ELIANE Geelriandre - Arthesis (Fringes) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Off the top of my head, I can think of the Monks, Glenn Branca, and Eliane Radigue as some of the musicians who've admitted that their unwitting discovering of feedback profoundly altered their ways of thinking about music. Similar to Eddie Shaw's epiphany about feedback in his biography about the Monks, Radigue's revelation about feedback might warrant religious proportions, given that her meditative compositions led her to become a disciple of Buddhism. It was in the mid-60s, when Radigue was a protege of musique concrete legend Pierre Henry, that Radigue first stumbled across electronic feedback in the studios of INA-GRM. Unfortunately, Henry (with his unwavering insistance on the Modernist superiority of musique concrete) did not share Radigue's enthusiasm and Radigue parted ways to build her own studio that centered around the technologies of the Moog and the Arp synthesizers.
Composed in 1972 and 1973 respectively (though these recordings were made several years later), "Geelriandre" and "Arthesis" represent some of the earliest work of Radigue's maturation as a minimalist. While neither of these pieces appear to use feedback, Radigue's subtle shifting drones within these pieces mirrors the fluttering complexity that a feedback loop (when carefully controlled) can achieve. "Geerlriandre" for prepared piano and Arp synthesizer ripples with a melancholia through a beautiful chorus of tightly oscillating electric drones occasionally punctuated by the sustained yet muffled resonance of the piano. "Arthesis," using the Moog, is a more ominous affair, whirling back and forth between low end frequencies amidst a glacial progression of bleak ambience.
This album isn't only good for historical documentation, but also is an exceptional precursor to the dronological pursuits of current artists like Jonathan Coleclough, Thomas Koner, and Andrew Chalk. Highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Geelriandre"
RealAudio clip: "Arthesis"

RADIGUE, ELIANE Kyema, Intermediate States (Edition XI) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

REICH, STEVE Four Organs & Phase Patterns (New Tone) cd 21.00
It was a happy day at AQ when we saw that two of our favorite Steve Reich pieces of all time were now finally available again. Both recorded in 1970, one at the Guggenheim in NY and the other at the University Museum in Berkeley. This is electric organ overdrive! Four Organs not surprisingly is a piece played on four electric organs (with Reich playing one as well as his good friend Philip Glass... we hope that someday we can get a cd issue of Glass' "Music in 12 Parts" which is maybe his best ever and has a very similar feel to these two great Reich pieces), while beneath the organs is the repetitious shaking of maracas. The short pulsations of the organ gradually stretch out, lasting longer and longer, creating a totally dynamic tension that evokes standing in a massive and grand church that's empty except for the mesmerizing sounds of the organs lulling you into some sort of a trance. Phase Patterns manages to increase the tension with the four players using identical organs and playing to a precise strategy that Reich has calculated. These pieces predate and predict so much of the minimalist electronic and experimental music to come over the next three decades, and are well worth checking out again!
MPEG Stream: "Four Organs"
MPEG Stream: "Phase Patterns"

REICH, STEVE Music For 18 Musicians (ECM) cd 16.98

REICH, STEVE Phase Patterns / Pendulum Music / Piano Phase / 4 Organs (Wergo) cd 21.00

REICH, STEVE You Are (Variations) (Nonesuch) cd 17.98
Without a doubt Steve Reich is one of the most important composers and music makers of the last quarter century. "Music For 18 Musicians" still stands as one of the most hypnotizing and well exectuted pieces of music we've ever heard. After being credited with being at the forfront of Minimilist composition with the likes of Terry Riley and Philip Glass he has spent the last decades continually composing and collaborating with the likes of Kronos Quartet, exploring textures and sub-texts of Jewish music, scoring for theatre, and working with chamber ensembles. There is no mistaking that you are listneing to Reich here as the record begins and his signature sound of building tension with repitition begins. Using four pianos, mallet instruments and exploring the use of voice as a textural and harmonic focal point for the four part suite that makes up You Are (Variations). The vocals push and sometimes take the already chilling climate of Reich's recent work over the top but for the most part you still give into the polyrhythmic pulses that he so carefully constructs. For us the shining moment of the record comes after the four part suite, on the last track, the latest in his ongoing counterpoint series. "Cello Counterpoint" is Reich at his pinpointed best, stripped away of all elements except the solo cello of Maya Beiser, and its 11 minutes are so stunning.
MPEG Stream: "You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are"
MPEG Stream: "Cello Counterpoint"

RILEY, TERRY A Rainbow In Curved Air (CBS) cd 12.98

RILEY, TERRY Atlantis Nath (Sri Moonshine Music) cd 43.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've only got ONE of these limited edition pressings of Terry Riley's first release on his new label Sri Moonshine Studios. Perhaps you read the (positive) review in The Wire. Well, WE can't say it's all that good, but we can say it's nicely packaged and signed and numbered by the artist! You need to know more? It's a "74-minute seamless journey featuring voices, strings, synthesizer, piano and loops from India" and includes the final scene of Riley's opera "The Crucifixion of My Humble Self". There's got to be one Terry Riley fanatic out there who will want this, right? The less fanatic but still curious might wait for a normal, not-so-fancy, cheaper edition that may surface some day, or not.