IDM Mailing Archive

On Tuesday, 26-May-98, KaisrSolze wrote [about (idm) Stockhausen vs. RDJ, Plastikman, Scanner, pemberton]:

quoted 2 lines Check out this link to a 1995 Wire article

>Check out this link to a 1995 Wire article >http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jkandell/music/stock/ks_inter.html

quoted 5 lines I think the whole thing is really funny. Can anyone recommend some

>I think the whole thing is really funny. Can anyone recommend some >Stockhausen and other important 20th century European classical to me? For >Stockhausen, I'm under the impression that Kontakte and Hymnen are damn >important, and that he and Boulez, Varese and Xenakis are the major European >composers of this century... Any help would be appreciated.

hm.. Stockhausen made a lot of early strange things... somewhat like Eno and Jean Michel Jarre, but he was a bit different.. like there was one track that was just 3-4 minutes of white noise or something.. I've never heard any of his stuff personally, just heard of it. __ __\ \ / /_\ \ \_____/ "..in whatever you do, if you can't break new ground, what's the point?" - James Cameron

On 26 May 98, GamePrg. wrote re: Re: (idm) Stockhausen

quoted 2 lines like there was one track that was just 3-4 minutes of white noise

> like there was one track that was just 3-4 minutes of white noise > or something..

I remember when I was at school our music teacher bringing in something by Stockhausen (no idea what it was called) and it was just short-wave radio crackles, like somebody looking for incoming signals late at night and turning the selector dial and getting lots of static and squeaks and hiss. I thought it was utter crap :-) Not very helpfully yours.... I * ~~ incomplete without surface noise ~~ [Ae]

On Mon, 25 May 1998, KaisrSolze wrote:

quoted 2 lines Can anyone recommend some

> Can anyone recommend some > Stockhausen and other important 20th century European classical to me?

One of my favorites is Ligetti (Lih-gi-tee). If you have seen the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (IMHO, the greatest movie of all time) then you have heard some of Ligetti's vocal work in the parts where the pre-human people (and later astronauts) encounter the monolith. Lontano is considered one of his best works. ______________________________________________________________________________ . . ..a n a g r a m a t c a t s d o t u c s c d o t e d u.. . . . . ..h y p e r t e x t t r a n s f e r p r o t o c o l.. . . ..u s e r s d o t c w n e t d o t c o m s l a s h a n a g r a m..

quoted 1 line I think the whole thing is really funny.

>I think the whole thing is really funny.

yeah. esp. the part where stocky claims that aphex et.al are "stuck in the african tribal rhythm mode" or something. and aphex inviting him around. would love to listen in on that meeting of minds...

quoted 2 lines Can anyone recommend some

>Can anyone recommend some >Stockhausen and other important 20th century European classical to me?

for stockhausen, hymnen and gesang der junglinge are the two killer electronic pieces. unfortunately neither are availabe on a domestic (US) CD. vinyl is scarce and the stockhausen-verlag issues are still incredibly overpriced. Also check out: for electronics: henry/schaefer/varese (esp. poeme electronique) for the classics, also the columbia/princeton stuff (ussachevsky/luening/max matthews). bayle/ferarri/xenakis (esp bohor) for the midperiod. pomassl for current day (IMHO comparable to all of the former...) for orchestral/chamber/solo: ligeti (who did do some electronics, i.e artikulation), kagel, haba, lachenmann, feldman, dumitrescu, etc...

quoted 1 line And who's Daniel Pemberton?

>And who's Daniel Pemberton?

I beleieve he was one half of 2 player w/ jon tye. real young at the time, sort of a wunderkind...

quoted 4 lines One of my favorites is Ligetti (Lih-gi-tee). If you have seen the movie

>One of my favorites is Ligetti (Lih-gi-tee). If you have seen the movie >2001: A Space Odyssey (IMHO, the greatest movie of all time) then you have >heard some of Ligetti's vocal work in the parts where the pre-human people >(and later astronauts) encounter the monolith.

agree w/ lontano. brilliant stuff. also st.luke's passion, threnody for the victims of hiroshima. cheers- hrvåtski. ___________________________________ Reckankreuzungs Klankewerkzeuge & Company PO Box 382864 Cambridge, MA 02238 - 2864 is online @ http://www.tiac.net/users/sheket

quoted 2 lines bayle/ferarri/xenakis (esp bohor) for the midperiod. pomassl for

>bayle/ferarri/xenakis (esp bohor) for the midperiod. pomassl for >current day (IMHO comparable to all of the former...)

a good place to start to get an overview of Xenakis's electronic side would be to pick up the EMF/INAgrm disc, "Electronic Muisc". it got released last year i believe and it has stuff from three of the four "groupings" of his music. btw, it has the aforementioned "Bohor" as well. i noticed that the Columbia/Princeton axis got mention - i dunno', personally, i'm not too down with it, but if you're interested, Ussachevsky is probably the best place to start. there's a so-so introduction-type disc to the Columbia/Princeton sound off of CRI called "Pioneers of Electronic Music". it has Ussachevsky, Smiley, Alice Shields, etc...

I would recommend anything by Penderecki. To me, his works represent the height of experimental orchestral music. "St. Lukes Passion" and "Polish Requiem" knock most experimentalist diddlers flat on their backs. Transcendant in the purest sense of the word. Related tangent: The Wire article is similar in spirit to the Option piece where the writer played Orb, mu-Ziq, Aphex Twin and a few others for Steve Reich and Phillip Glass to get their feedback. For the most part, both artists disliked everything they heard. Of course, Phillip Glass sung the praises of his version of "Icct Hedral." This is not surprising since anytime Glass does an orchestration of someone else's works, he manages to make it sound exactly like something he wrote. At 11:14 PM 5/25/98 EDT, KaisrSolze wrote:

quoted 14 lines Check out this link to a 1995 Wire article

>Check out this link to a 1995 Wire article >http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jkandell/music/stock/ks_inter.html > >I think the whole thing is really funny. Can anyone recommend some >Stockhausen and other important 20th century European classical to me? For >Stockhausen, I'm under the impression that Kontakte and Hymnen are damn >important, and that he and Boulez, Varese and Xenakis are the major European >composers of this century... Any help would be appreciated. > >And who's Daniel Pemberton? > >Sam > >

-------------------------------- Rodney Perkins (mailto:rdperkins@earthlink.net)

quoted 4 lines And who's Daniel Pemberton?

>>And who's Daniel Pemberton? > >I beleieve he was one half of 2 player w/ jon tye. real young at the time, >sort of a wunderkind...

he also did a brilliant remix of MLO's Whimborne on Rising High, and a cd on FAX called Bedroom (me thinks) I believe he was about 15 when he did the mlo remix. Seem to remember that no one would tell him how good he was until he finished school for fear he'd quit, bu who knows... he's got a web page out there somewhere... check hyperreal... q

and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage?

On Tue, 26 May 1998, David Hodgson wrote:

quoted 1 line and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage?

> and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage?

Indeterminacy - multi-record set with Cage reading stories chosen and read at speeds determined by chance, with David Tudor doing excellent staccatoey noise music sndefx similarly generated on top of it. Folkways record, not sure of the CD label. This is one of the only Cage records I can (and do) regularly just put on and listen to for fun, other than the prepared/toy piano tracks.. solenoid@europa.com <------+

quoted 3 lines and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage?

>>and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage? >good thread. >for electronics: for merce cunningham

On a tangent, music for modern dance might be an interesting thread. Cage was Merce Cunningham's musical director for years and years, but I've also seen a recent Cunningham piece with music by Jim O'Rourke and Thurston Moore and a Japanese guy—noisy stuff, amazingly good, had all the old ladies covering their ears. DJ Olive from We collaborated with some small NY dance company for Central park Summerstage lasty year, that was pretty good, he DJed and played stuff live. Stephen Petronio opened for Diamanda galas at Summerstage last year too... I wasn't ready for her music and i left after a few songs, but the new live album Malediction and Prayer on Asphodel is really good, not IDM at all. Anyway, are there any other notable electronic/dance collaborations? Sam

quoted 1 line and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage?

>and whilst we're at it - can someone recommend the essential John Cage?

good thread. for electronics: for merce cunningham (a recording w/kosugi comes to mind)/indeterminacy (classic pairing of cage reading 90 one minute texts in one room and tudor doing various 'klangfarben' in another w/electronics)/variations iv(another cage/tudor pairing)/europeras 3&4 (w/parts for multiple 78 rpm record players...) chamber/ensemble/solo: any&all solo piano works/roaratorio (most have a hard time w/celtic leanings but...)/the later numbers pieces (for x number of players. start around 14 for a little denser variation). the truly adventurous can go for the 8CD spoken diary. stay away from the hatart recordings w/blum though. some of his renditions are a little dry... hope this helps ___________________________________ Reckankreuzungs Klankewerkzeuge & Company PO Box 382864 Cambridge, MA 02238 - 2864 is online @ http://www.tiac.net/users/sheket

quoted 5 lines i noticed that the Columbia/Princeton axis got mention - i dunno',

>i noticed that the Columbia/Princeton axis got mention - i dunno', >personally, i'm not too down with it, but if you're interested, Ussachevsky >is probably the best place to start. there's a so-so introduction-type >disc to the Columbia/Princeton sound off of CRI called "Pioneers of >Electronic Music". it has Ussachevsky, Smiley, Alice Shields, etc...

i mention this stuff for historical reasons. they were by no means the first, but they did some astounding stuff all around (my best experience with it is a bunch a flexi-discs that came with a 60's book on the new electronic revolution in compostion). where as the revolutionary pieces of schaeffer and henry are more high-art-leaning, the columbia-princeton stuff has more of that kid-next-door kind of fascination with sound and dwells on the simple concept of being able to slow down and speed up time/sound. after meeting max matthews some time back, i realised that they were working almost completely independently of the whole ina/grm and darmstadt packs. the cri cd is a good representation as is the original columbia 'music from columbia-princeton electronic music center' lp that should still be around. Also the wergo "historical cd of digital sound synthesis" has some stuff on it that i swear could be rephlex, only it's from 1956... pretty staggering. -Hrvatski. ___________________________________ Reckankreuzungs Klankewerkzeuge & Company PO Box 382864 Cambridge, MA 02238 - 2864 is online @ http://www.tiac.net/users/sheket

On Tue, 26 May 1998, Hrvatski wrote:

quoted 5 lines i noticed that the Columbia/Princeton axis got mention - i dunno',

> >i noticed that the Columbia/Princeton axis got mention - i dunno', > >personally, i'm not too down with it, but if you're interested, Ussachevsky > >is probably the best place to start. there's a so-so introduction-type > >disc to the Columbia/Princeton sound off of CRI called "Pioneers of > >Electronic Music". it has Ussachevsky, Smiley, Alice Shields, etc...

Yeah, this is a entertaining record set (Music From Columbia/Princeton... box) and has great pictures of giant rack-mount ring-modulators in the book inside to scratch your head and go "I wonder what all those cool boxes do?"

quoted 7 lines i mention this stuff for historical reasons. they were by no means the

> i mention this stuff for historical reasons. they were by no means the > first, but they did some astounding stuff all around (my best experience > with it is a bunch a flexi-discs that came with a 60's book on the new > electronic revolution in compostion). where as the revolutionary pieces of > schaeffer and henry are more high-art-leaning, the columbia-princeton stuff > has more of that kid-next-door kind of fascination with sound and dwells on > the simple concept of being able to slow down and speed up time/sound.

great observation! I foolishly avoided the college lab stuff for a couple of years thinking that it was going to be more boring, now I'd trade my so-so Xenakis tracks for it any day...

quoted 7 lines after meeting max matthews some time back, i realised that they were

> after meeting max matthews some time back, i realised that they were > working almost completely independently of the whole ina/grm and darmstadt > packs. the cri cd is a good representation as is the original columbia > 'music from columbia-princeton electronic music center' lp that should > still be around. Also the wergo "historical cd of digital sound synthesis" > has some stuff on it that i swear could be rephlex, only it's from 1956... > pretty staggering. -Hrvatski.

Another really enteraining CD set related on the more modern vein: there is a great Swedish(?) Text-Sound Poetry reading cd of tracks from the whole 60's-70's poetry art sub-genre where syllables are cut up, run through synths, vocoded w/distortion, and every gamut of tape slicing and tape echo is used. sorry I can't remember the label...

quoted 1 line PO Box 382864 Cambridge, MA 02238 - 2864

> PO Box 382864 Cambridge, MA 02238 - 2864

------------- Hometown of e.e.cummings! Solenoid solenoid@europa.com <------+

KaisrSolze wrote:

quoted 1 line Anyway, are there any other notable electronic/dance collaborations?

> Anyway, are there any other notable electronic/dance collaborations?

I'll 2nd that this is definitely an interesting thread here. I'd suggest some of Bruce Gilbert's works, such as "Bloodlines" from _Insiding_, which was commissioned by the Royal Ballet and performed in London in 1990 at the Royal Opera House (according to liner notes). The track has a clunky experimental feel that I see Autechre heading towards in a way -- Gilbert's sound (on this particular track) is more freeform, less percusive (although Gilbert creates a "beat" part way through using a sample of a shot from a gun with a silencer) and more "organic" sounding than Autechre, but the similarity is quite noticable. Also his track "Angelfood" commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet from _This Way To The Shivering Man_ (a joining of his albums _This Way_ and _The Shivering Man_), which is more of an ambient piece with a whispery female vocal and massive reverb. Speaking of Bruce Gilbert, what is he up to now? Still spinning as DJ Beekeeper and performing in tool sheds? And we Americans are considered crazy... ;) _____________________________________________ E r i c F r a n s :: epf@internetconnect.net [cellular] http://www.internetconnect.net/~kdkates/epf [so-cal idm] http://www.internetconnect.net/~kdkates/epf/scidm [si-{cut}.db] http://www.internetconnect.net/~kdkates/epf/benford "If you ever discover that what you're seeing is a play within a play, just slow down, take a deep breath, and hold on for the ride of your life." -- Jack Handey

Speaking of CRI discs, two that are readily available are "The McLean Mix & The Golden Age Of Electronic Music" by Barton and Priscilla McLean, and Alwin Nikolais' "Electronic Dance Music". The McLeans disc is comprised of analogue pieces from 1972 - 1982 using Synthi 100s, Arp 2600s, and an ElectroComp 101. This is choice work that also uses tape manipulation and other sound effects. It is quirky and sometimes abstract, but that's the way I like it. An essential disc. The Alwin Nikolais disc is a fascinating collection of twenty one pieces for dance, many of which he composed using the first synthesizer ever sold by Bob Moog. I quote from the liner notes, "...insisted that Nik visit the electronic fair currently being held in NY. Nik did so and met Bob Moog. He was completely taken by the new machine and after making some suggestions to Moog, which Moog made (sic), Nik bought the inventors first machine, through the aid of a Guggenheim Fellowship." "This machine was later acquired by the Museum Of Musical Instruments at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor as the first Moog synthesizer." This is a truly great disc, and very eclectic. The relative brevity of the pieces and the dance orientation makes them lively and contemporary sounding. This CD is a must. Both these are in print on CD and readily available through CRI: Alwin Nikolais - Electronic Dance Music - CRI CD 651 The McLean Mix & The Golden Age Of Electronic Music CRI CD 764 If you order either of these, tell them Charlie James from Little Rock sent you. Charlie James