Zwei mikroskopische Köstlichkeiten

to kick off our new year in micro-sound proper: 2 tasty teutonic offerings from the late, great Ritornel, slow smoked to perfection and full to the brim with flavor; the one-two punch like dark beer with (vegan?)sausages on a cold winter night, which, to these ears, comprise some of the most sophisticated digital sound design ever commited to record.

VA - Maschinelle Stratageme

Label: Ritornell
Catalog#: RIT 010 CD
Format: CD
Country: Germany
Released: 2000



1 Thomas Meinecke's Framus Waikiki -- Jukebox (3:58)
2 Autopoieses & Peter Fey -- 5m? Circles (4:35)
3 Kim Cascone -- Three Parasites For Deleuze (2:58)
4 Taylor Deupree -- Place (6:01)
5 Oivino Idso -- Shmmr (5:34)
6 Stilluppsteypa -- Unpredictable Drunkness Of Elves (2:01)
7 Sony_Mao -- The Nature Of Operational Research (5:10)
8 Fennesz / Oren Ambarchi / Peter Rehberg / Pimmon & Keith Rowe -- Untitled (3:34)
9 Dean Roberts -- The Cold Clear Surface (7:44)
10 Terre Thaemlitz -- Aunty Eddies's Pussy (5:34)
11 Akira Rabelais -- Saiyan Etude No. 6 (4:26)
12 Christophe Charles -- Verena (7:27)
13 Albrecht Kunze -- Motion Control (6:31)
14 Full Swing -- Flimmer (9:24)
15 Achim Wollscheid -- All (3:16)

http://rapidshare.com/files/9519540/Maschinelle_Stratageme.zip.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/9520408/Maschinelle_Stratageme_2.zip.html

VA - Klangmaschine Soundmachine

Label: Ritornell
Catalog#: RIT 026 CD
Format: CD
Country: Germany
Released: 2002



1 Twerk -- Metamaschine (5:53)
2 Terre Thaemlitz -- Liebesmaschine (5:08)
3 Tim Hecker -- Bildmaschine (5:02)
4 Cordell Klier -- Schreibmaschine (4:32)
5 John Harding -- Sinnmaschine (5:59)
6 Taylor Deupree -- Reproduktionsmaschine (6:41)
7 Alva Noto Menschmaschine (5:43)
8 SND Simulationsmaschine (4:59)
9 Frank Bretschneider -- Kriegsmaschine (5:10)
10 Bizz Circuits -- Klangmaschine (7:43)
11 Marvin Chlada / Markus S. Kleiner -- Betriebsanleitung (7:20)

http://rapidshare.com/files/9519753/
Klangmaschine_Soundmachine.zip.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/9518652/
Klangmaschine_Soundmachine_2.zip.html

Cornelius Cardew - Treatise

Cornelius Cardew - treatise (1963-67)

written in the years immediately preceding his involvement with AMM, this is a beautiful work, in terms of the immediate appeal of its interpreted form to the senses, and its spontaneous yet calculated process of generation out of, not nothing, but an otherwise imperceptible sound world. it is a field of particles free floating in a much larger field of particles.

from Diaries of composer:

What I composed in this piece - the image that hovered in front of my mind's eye - was a 'Musizierweise' (Mode of music-making). I invented a way of making music and limited it to such an extent that musicians without construction ideas of their own are in a position to adopt this musizierweise.

I compose systems. Sounds and potential sounds are around us all the time - they're all over. What you can do is to insert your logical construct into this seething mass - a system that enables some of it to become audible. That's why it's such an orgiastic experience to improvise - instead of composing a system to project into all this chaotic potential, you simply put yourself in there (you too are a system of sorts after all) and see what action that suicidal deed precipitates.

sample pages from the score:






a great animated explanation of the score (thanks to finder Grasp Release):
http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/picturesofmusic/pages/anim.html

treatise workshop videos:
http://www.sfu.ca/~pparviai/treatisevideo.html

the definitive article by John Tilbury:
http://www.users.waitrose.com/%7echobbs/tilburycardew.html

more information and links:
http://spiralcage.com/improvMeeting/treatise.html

download:

http://rapidshare.com/files/9362842/treatise.zip.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/9362934/treatise2.zip.html

Vocal Games

Yeah so consider this my holiday post, as I'll be travelling for the next week+ so here's my send off to 2006.

Jeux Vocaux Des Inuit

90 recordings of Inuit vocal games. These games were made up to pass the time up the colder parts of the world. Basically, you make these silly noise patterns at each other and the one who laughs first loses, so, most of these tracks end with lots of laughing. Because laughter warms you up. Fascinating and fun.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DL78BCAH

Ami Yoshida - Tiger Thrush

I am unsure as to the current commerical availability of this exceptionally unique and often daring recording of short, vocal performance/compositions by Ami Yoshida (she's credited w/voice + computer). 99 bizarre and essential tracks of new vocal improv. hooray.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KHOV68LR

Polynesian Dances of Bellona (Mungiki) - Solomon Islands

Here is the disc that got me all a-twitter about the Polyphonies disc posted last week. It is no coincidence that both recordings were made by the Hugo Zemp in 1974, though additional credit is given to Jane Mink Rossen. The recordings are definitely more raw, but full of life. Of course, these being recordings of ritual dance, we lose the visual practice that these sounds were meant to accompany. This is rare music, the tiniest fragment of what we hear.



Credits: Produced by Jane Mink Rossen , Recorded by Jane Mink Rossen , Recorded by Hugo Zemp
Liner notes:
http://media.smithsonianglobalsound.org/liner_notes/folkways/FW04 274.pdf

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5MK958SX

hey! check the comments for more Polynesian goodness!

Persian Santoor

Behnam Manahedji - Master of Persian Santur [Wergo SM 1508-2, 1993] thanks to the kind Ambrose Bierce

Recorded on March 5th, 1993 at the studios of Sender Freies Berlin.

http://rapidshare.com/files/7245968/Behnam_Manahedji.zip.html

Nasser Rastegar-Nejad - In a Persian Garden - The Santur

http://rapidshare.com/files/7280214/Nejad_Rastegar_Nasser_-_The_S antoor_In_A_Persian_Garden.zip.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/7277968/Nejad_Rastegar_Nasser_-_The_Santoo r_In_A_Persian_Garden_2.zip.html

Ø + Noto - Wohltemperiert

collaboration between Finish musician Mika Vainio, aka Ø, from Pan Sonic and German artist Carsten Nicolai, aka Noto. Recorded between 1998-2000 in New York and Belin. no idea who was responsible for the strange drawing on the cover.

Raster Noton - clear series

http://rapidshare.com/files/7412288/____Noto_-_Wohltemperiert.zip .html
http://rapidshare.com/files/7412049/____Noto_-_Wohltemperiert_2.zip.ht ml

Polyphonies of the Solomon Islands

OK. Been looking for this for a while - some great recordings (ca. 1974) of local musics of Gudacanal and Savo. Like the Fred McDowell below, it goes to show that what you are recording is heavily influenced by the technology and the location. I can't say what equipment was used to record this, but I'm sure conditions were less than ideal. However, these sound great, and in today's often over technologized recording environment, they sound alive. This is a human and complex music, and brings me tons of joy.



recorded by Hugo Zemp, Guadacanal and Savo, 1974

http://rapidshare.com/files/4733092/PDISall.zip

big ups to Arcturus on SFRP for this.

also, does anyone know how well this music is surviving in its locale? I hope that the existence of this recording (and others) make an archival legacy almost certain, but how has this practice survived the last 30 years?

Spectral Special 2 / Re-Ups / Recommendation

7 new items and re-ups of 3 from the previous 13. mega thanks to aporia6, Grasp Release, and Phillip Glass (again, ours, not the cartoon character).

(now all links in original post from 2006/09 are working)

"Iancu Dumitrescu's music is spectral, is electroacoustic, but above all is a coherent totality grounded in a different conception. Of all living composers, Dumitrescu is the one who has most exploded sound. Dumitrescu's work is a negation, from the depths, of everything in contemporary music symptomatic of distraction, of banalization, and of a radical loss of purpose. His music is not a new convolution in the knot of modern music, but an unravelling of the curse."
(intro to the Interview done by Tim Hodgkinson: http://www.furious.com/perfect/iancu.html)

make no mistake, this one is, and i use the following phrase sparingly, carefully, in its exact definition: the shit. - zhao

Iancu Dumitrescu: Edition Modern 1001 (Medium III and other pieces)

http://rapidshare.com/files/2994342/ID_M3_1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/2994043/ID_M3_2.zip

One good article: http://www.furious.com/perfect/iancu.html
The composer's website: http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/utah/549/dumitrescu.iancu.html

Horatiu Radulescu - Streichquartett Nr. 4 opus 33 "Infinite to be cannot be infinite, infinite anti-be could be infinite" for nine string quartets or a string quartet surrounded by an imaginary 128 string "viola da gamba"

Arditti String Quartet

Edition RZ-4002

http://rapidshare.com/files/3809380/Streichquartett_Nr_4_opus_33.mp3.html


Horatiu Radulescu - Intimate Rituals

01 Das Andere opus 49
02 Agnus Dei opus 84
03 Lux Animae opus 97
04 Intimate Rituals opus 63

Sub Rosa (SR248CD)

http://rapidshare.com/files/4005519/Intimate_Rituals.zip.html

Horatiu Radulescu - Khufu's Serpent IV (18 minute track from the Various Artist collection pictured here)

Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles
Jean-Paul Dessy, dir

http://rapidshare.com/files/5120894/Khufu_s_Serpent_IV.mp3.html

Tristan Murail - Serendib/L'esprit des dunes/Desintegrations

01 Serendib, pour grand ensemble (1991-1992)
02 L'esprit des dunes, pour ensemble et électronique (1993-1994)
03 Désintégrations, pour ensemble et bande (1982-1983)

Ensemble Intercontemporain
David Robertson, dir

Accord 465 305-2

http://rapidshare.com/files/5755133/Ensemble_Intercontemporain.zip.htm l

Horatiu Radulescu - Lubiri / Sensual Sky

01 Sensual Sky opus 62 for 9 musicians and tape (Pierre-Yves Artaud, octobass flutes on tape)

02 Iubiri opus 43 for 16 musicians

Ensemble Polychromie
Nvart Andreassian, dir

Adès CD 204482 (France)

http://rapidshare.com/files/6766395/Ensemble_Polychromie.zip.html


[no image]
Dufourt, Ferneyhough, Harvey, Holler
Performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain
Conducted by Pierre Boulez and Peter Eotvos

1. Hugues Dufourt - Antiphysis (1978)
2-3. Brian Ferneyhough - Funerailles, Versions I and II (1977; 1980)
4. Jonathan Harvey - Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco
5. York Holler - Arcus (1978)

go here: http://leroisamuse.blogspot.com/2006/08/dufourt-ferneyhough-harvey-and-holler.html


[no image]
Tristan Murail - Vampyr! (1984) "Vampyr! is one of several works in Murail's catalogue that does not employ spectral techniques. Rather, in the performance notes, the composer asks the performer to play the piece in the manner of guitarists in the popular and rock traditions, such as Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton." - wiki

Wiek Hijmans, electric guitar

http://rapidshare.com/files/4090057/Vampyr.mp3.html

_________________________________
RE-UP

gérard grisey - les espaces acoustiques
http://rapidshare.com/files/7144513/g_rard_grisey_-_les_espaces_acoustiques_1.zip.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/7146365/g_rard_grisey_-_les_espaces_acoustiques_2.zip.html

globokar by globokar
http://rapidshare.com/files/7146785/globokar_by_globokar_1.zip.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/7194152/globokar_by_globokar_2.zip.html

hugues dufourt - the watery star
http://rapidshare.com/files/7146461/hugues_dufourt_-_the_watery_star_1.zip.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/7192988/hugues_dufourt_-_the_watery_star_2.zip.html

_________________________________
RECOMMENDATION:

to anyone new to these spectral and semi-spectral composers, lately I have been head-over-heels in love with this one, and I recommend it as a good place to start - nto a bad way to experience is to put it on headphones and go for a stroll through unknown parts of town.

Gérard Grisey -Vortex Temporum

http://rapidshare.de/files/27349165/vortex.rar.html

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Totally not related to Zhao's last post, just a touch of coincidence. My girlfriend picked this up at the record store last night. hadn't heard of it before but long story much shorter - it is fantastic. beautiful recordings of some of the most unique, yet classic blues I've heard. a great voice, lyrics and stunning backup musicians. There is a lot of blues music out there, and sometimes I've found it hard to get my head through the crap and into vast stylistic differences that some of the greats carved out of a deep template. This is great music.



First Recordings: The Alan Lomax Portrait Series

Fred McDowell (vocals, guitar); Sidney Carter, Rose Hemphill, Annie Mae McDowell, James Shorty (vocals); Miles Pratcher (guitar); Fanny Davis (comb)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CJYM10X0

ENJOY!

btw I flubbed the upload info and the link turns with info for "Fred Malcolm" - sorry....

Prision Songs - Vol. one [new link]

dang. all this high faluttin 'round here. all good n' all but lets get back down to earth for a minute... not just because the 1 out of 4 young African American males locked up at this moment that is on my mind; not just because this is soul stirring music that has been with me through tough times; but simply: what better selection for a monday morning?

Alan Lomax - Prison Songs - Historical Recordings from Parchman Farm 1947 - 48 Vol. 1. Murderous Home

thanks to anonymous:

NEW LINK: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A0WN6AOI

a timely celebration

Graspy and bb, if you fly down to LA for this all drinks are on me. (sorry for super last minute notice but the director of music program didn't email me until today -- but even so, you have atleast a couple of hours to pack, get some sleep, and hop on a plane first thing in the morning)

a pair of Lacy's

Steve Lacy Four - Morning Joy

Steve Lacy - Soprano Saxophone
Steve Potts - Alto & Soprano Saxophone
Jean-Jacques Avenel - Bass
Oliver Johnson - Drums

http://www.sendspace.com/file/l1hlu8

Steve Lacy Three - N.Y. Capers & Quirks

Steve Lacy - soprano saxophone
Ronnie Boykins - bass
Dennis Charles - drums

http://www.sendspace.com/file/r49xbw

JAMES TENNEY 1

Since I've been pseuding out on SFRP, let me spare you the verbiage here [EDIT: this is a lie. I got carried away, and there is much ink/bytes spilled below. If you want to stick to the music, skip this. But don't say I didn't try to tell you.] and simply say that Tenney would be a postworthy giant without a death to commemorate. Mere death is too little an accomplishment to acknowledge; this man was giant in and throughout his life, and even though he received a bit of the Jacques Derrida treatment upon his passing just recently (he died from lung cancer just this past August 24th), albeit from a more loving and dedicated group of admirers, no doubt knowledgeable of his work and sympathetic, but in providing a retrospect of his accomplishments, perhaps more than a little apologetic--that is, in more than a couple accounts, the "difficulty" of his music, its theoretical rigor and the primacy of theoretical work to the music, etc--again, even though he received this pulling of his own punches by those surviving him, even in the championing, I'm not sure if familiarity with the theoretical edifice behind his compositions is necessary to meet their seductions face-to-face, and to reckon with them.

Not to say that I have any kind of handle on what is at work in Tenney's theoretical apparatus, in any of his pieces. However, his small book META-HODOS gave me ways into what I sought in music that only looked like woodpaths at first glance, even though that "first glance" was a rather painstaking and slow slog, at least at the time. That's the thing about theory that seems to be lost on even/especially the most elaborate hackery: theories are ways, hence that "hodos" business that's "method"'s family name. No way without a where, without a what, without a why: but a why that can't be posed like a vindication or a known-in-advance, not merely, whether posed like the vindictive a-ha! before the fact or after. It's an unfolding, unfolding, unfolding.

An acquaintance of mine visited CalArts just a few years ago or so, and was hanging out in the halls, waiting for some attention, a tour of the facilities, an appointment, something. Tenney apparently spotted this young man, and not knowing him from Adam, invited him into a room where he was in the painstaking process of preparing a piano to his own satisfaction, in order to play the Cage Sonatas. The warmth in the midst of distraction, or rather, intense concentration, was something that stuck with my acquaintance. None of this music seems like bag-carrying (to borrow a term applied by one savvy commentator---Archie Shepp? I wish I could remember---to the opportunist hacks who scraped off a little of the surface-effects of Coltrane's later approach but reached nowhere near as deep as that giant, not in terms of only of risk or demands placed upon oneself in a groping toward the surface, as though for air, as though one's life depended on it: that serious), and maybe not even like that ever-popular encomium, world-creation (can we be over this heritage, already?). I don't know what this stuff is. I don't know what this stuff is. Have you had experience with, in, the cinema, at the movies? Have you been like me in watching Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, and seen people fighting a fire at night, or a young girl running down the street, and not known what you're seeing? Have you ever not known what you're seeing?

James Tenney, you ripple-inducer. You peeled back a corner. You traced a stain. You guttering wick. I heard the rain, listening to your music.
NOTE: included below are four recordings: The Solo Works for Percussion, Pika-Don, Music for Violin & Piano, and Bridge & Flocking. All are highly recommended. I'd be really interested to know what you think of them, and which one(s) you consider good ways in to Tenney's ways, and what they make you think. The most valuable for me, for the moment, is probably Bridge & Flocking, not least because what seem to be pointy and hard-to-love hypermodernist post-serial type piano music, gradually seems to involve more than that, and to be obsessed with, among other things, obsession: it doesn't seem like music that preaches, even if it knows what it's doing.

If you've never heard his music before, I tentatively suggest getting this stuff downloaded, and waiting just a little while for me to get the second Tenney post up and operating. In that post will be the Forms series, which at the very least (and it's not a mere little) is a gorgeous soundworld to visit (ok, so I use that language....bah): I mean it's killer. After hearing that, Bridge & Flocking meant more to me, and after hearing Bridge & Flocking at that point, Stockhausen's Klavierstucke (some of which I shall also eventually post, in a performance by David Tudor) meant more to me, and then Cage's Music of Changes, then Boulez's fearsome Guitar Center Sonatas (beholdbeholdtheawesomepower). But here's the thing: I don't think any of those composers, apart from Tenney, was particularly concerned with what I thought of their piece: it was dropped into the world aged, sagely, and gray, ready for the beholding, ready to flatten me, even if its system of means needed me (Cage). So what I'm saying is: James Tenney, he cares what you think. Never mind all this nonsense I'm saying.

James Tenney: THE SOLO WORKS FOR PERCUSSION
(Hat[now]ART 111, released 1998; performed by Matthias Kaul)

Part 1: http://www.filefactory.com/file/ebaab1/ (123.987 MB)
Part 2: http://www.filefactory.com/file/5ffc5e/ (145 MB)
(ripped to ALAC, then APE, then RAR)





James Tenney: BRIDGE & FLOCKING(hatART CD 6193, 1996)

Bridge (1984)
01. Part 1, Section 1
02. Part 1, Section 2
03. Part 2

04. Flocking (1993)

first recordings by
Thomas Bachli, piano;
Erika Radermacher, piano;
Gertrud Schneider, piano;
Manfred Werder, piano

http://rapidshare.com/files/5508113/Tenney_BridgeFlocking.zip (download at 192)

James Tenney: PIKA-DON
(hat[now]ART 15

http://rapidshare.com/files/5508289/Tenney_PikaDon_1of2.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/5507619/Tenney_PikaDon_2of2.zip
(VBR ~240)




James Tenney:
MUSIC FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO
(hat[now]ART 120, 1999)

http://rapidshare.com/files/5558532/Tenney_MusicViolinPiano.zip

01. Ergodos II with instrumental responses (1964)
02. 3 Pages in the Shape of a Pear (1995)
03. Diaphonic Toccata (1997)
04. Chorale (1974)
05. Koan (1971)
06. Diaphonic Trio (1997)

first recordings by
Mark Sabat: violin, Stephen Clarke: piano

recording March 11-13 1998 at the Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto
recording producer: David Jaeger
recording supervisor: David Quinney
Produced by CBC Radio 2 for broadcast on the CBC radio program Two New Hours


More to come.

lowercase winter

Here's more lowercase music, with a certain winter theme. Two subtle, unpretentious works, with a feeling for winter's lightness. Both are out of print.

Pieces of Winter by John Hudak & Stephan Mathieu


A small album for sure. simple and clean, spacious mixes with generous silence in between tracks. obviously a winter album, but the title holds some influence there. some tracks are so digital, but the source recordings radiate an easy warmth. both these artists tend towards a straightforward, unadorned approach to digital processing, which is certainly in evidence here.

The album begins with Hudak's contact-mic-under-ice-whilst-it-snows field recording, continues through collaborative tracks, and ends with Mathieu's warm composition of manipulated pump organ and ocarina. The collaborative tracks are very digital and spare, maybe "cold" but that is pushing the metaphor real hard, yeah?

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=93Y7K8OS

duul_drv - Fade With Consequence

an excellent entry into the quiet digital composition/field recording genre. another favorite of mine that I had thought I had lost. then I recommened it to a friend a realized I had to find it. found it!

hushed, clean and maybe melodic. crisp field recordings, hovering bass tones and little bits of DSP finding the space in your head where they need to be.

not only is this OOP, but duul_drv (pronounce it! dare!) does not seem to be producing much music these days. put out another album dude!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7J2LQJ85
-------

also, yeah I'm giving megaupload a spin.

also also, moving on from the lowercase for a spell...

Music For The Gods - The Fahnestock South Sea Expedition Indonesia

this was literally the first gamelan disc I bought, includes a wide range of styles. was hooked roughly 10 seconds into the first track.

"This classic of ethnomusicology was originally recorded in 1941 by the Fahnestock brothers, Bruce and Sheridan, on what was then state of the art aluminum discs. The music is amazing both for the quality of the sound and the beauty of the performing gamelans -- the sound is rich and clear; individual notes hang shimmering in the air like rainforest hummingbirds. The enclosed booklet tells the story of the expedition that the Fahnestocks organized to capture these sounds, recorded just before the creeping invasion of Western influence. The journey included shipwrecks and lugging the unwieldy recording equipment through impenetrable jungles. It reads like a possible musical adventure for a future Indiana Jones flick." -- j. poet

and Mickey Hart likes to stress his involvement / make things sound like he's mainly responsible for them:

"Music for the Gods, the Fahnstock Expedition was one of my Endangered Music Project recordings that I curated and released on the World Series for Rykodisc in the 90’s.The Fahnstocks were recording the Indonesian archipelago in 1939-1940 as spies for President Roosevelt. He was searching for information about his great uncle’s adventures in Indonesia. This is a fantastic story. I found this collection at the Library of Congress and digitized it, not really knowing the far-reaching implications that were to arise from its rediscovery. When I visited Bali about 4 years ago I brought my recording equipment with me. I was on the track of the rarest of gamelon music, the iron gamelon. When I arrived in Bali, I went to the Institute for Music in Denpasar and met with Pak Dibia the leading ethnomusicologist on the peninsula.
He was the most knowledgeable ethno on gamelon and all of its sub-sets. I asked him if he would give me 5 of the most important works or examples of gamelon music that he knew of. He handed me 5 recordings; one of them was Music for the Gods. He was not aware that I curated and produced this CD. So this music had made the round trip; it had worked its way back into their culture and was now considered the finest example of post war gamelon. This music was long forgotten, but was now being played by the many large ensembles scattered across the island. We were all overjoyed by this discovery and I was from then on treated like family wherever I went. They were given back their greatest treasure that the war ripped away from them and they saw it in those terms. It was like a prisoner of war or a long lost relative that had returned from battle." -- Mickey Hart

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xeacxb
or
http://rapidshare.com/files/5626397/Music_For_The_Gods__The_Fahnestock_South_Sea_Expedition__Indonesia.zip.html