Lucien Goethals - "Lucien Goethals" Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Remastered, 2014 (Cacophonic)

Lucien Goethals (1931-2006) is a composer who had a focus on electronic music.  Or with 'real' instruments such as bass clarinet, which is the focus on side one of this album.  "Difonium" is an 18-minute composition with Harry Sparnaay on bass clarinet, with Goethals's electronic sounds. This 1974 composition is a moody interplay with the wind instrument andmagnétaphone. I think of Edgard Varése's music when listening to this piece.  Not only due to its compositional techniques but for it's the sense of purity in sound and vision. 

Side Two starts off with "Cellotape," and I have to say I love the mixture of electronics and real instrumentation such as piano and violin.   I admire electronic music as it stands by itself, but the tension of having real instruments brings the music a specific type of intensity.  Sometimes this music is instruments treated through an electronic medium (besides the recording studio of course), but here it's on equal ground with Goethals's eternal sounds.  The Piano goes through cluster-sounds, strumming of the piano keys as well as played on the keyboard.  "Studie VII B" is pure electronic composition, and I find it lacking in that it does need the presence of a real instrument in its mix. 

Dan Melchior - "Melpomene" Vinyl, LP, Album, U.S., 2017 (IDEA Records)

"Melpomene" is an album that is hard for me to forget or get off my turntable.  It's a combination of Musique Concrete with beautiful melodies running in-between the cracks of sound and mayhem.  But there are samples (I think) of piano or orchestration that is heard that gives it a moody scary vibe.  What's interesting is that one doesn't know what is going to happen around the corner.  I know nothing of Dan Melchior, but this is not an experimental album of compositions.  I think he knows exactly what he's going for.  The construction of the pieces on "Melpomene" is constructed like a fine building. The only other album that I can think of that one can 'maybe' compare this album to is Brian Eno's "Another Green World."  Melchior does not sound like Eno, but only in the sense that they share a great love of melody within what we think is an experimental music context.  Perhaps Melchior is more of a Morricone than an Eno.  I also admire the cover painting he did for the album cover.  I suspect that there is a visual element in his work, or he works things sonically that can convey a visual to a listener. 

Walter Marchetti - "La Caccia (Da Aprocrate Seduto Sui Loto) LP, Vinyl, Album, 1974 (Cramps Records)

The late (he passed away in 2015) Walter Marchetti was a composer who wrote and played in the collective ZAJ, a Fluxus minded group of sound artists from the year 1964 until they officially disbanded in the 1990s.  I went to Rockaway to check out the Ronald Kane collection of LPs he sold to the record store before his untimely death.  This one stood out to me due to the cover as well as being on the label Cramps records - not to be confused with the great band called The Cramps.  Then again, there is no such thing as coincidence. 

"La Caccia" (the Hunt) is a landscape record.   Two sides of what sounds like being in nature and listening to either birds or instruments that sound like creatures in the wilderness.  Duck calls, and other devices to attract the attention to these creatures of nature are used, and on one level this is very much an environmental soundtrack album. For me, it has the touch of disgust, due that I hate the idea of one going hunting and killing an animal.   Still, since the liner notes are all in Italian (a language I don't understand) these are the tools of perhaps a hunter but used for aesthetic purposes.  This is very much a music score being played out, and although it is placed (in the aural sense) in the middle of a hunt, and more likely in a godlike freezing condition, it's a funny work of art.  Using something that is sound related for the sake of luring birds to be shot, or other animals, is instead used in a music composition.  There is something very Goon (Spike Milligan/Peter Sellers) like that crosses my mind as I listen to this album.   I now have the urge to collect all recordings from the Italian label Cramps Records.  

V.A. - "Sounds of New Music" Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Limited Edition, Reissue, 2017/1957 (Modern Silence)

A remarkable album (document) from 1957, but recently reissued by the excellent record label Modern Silence.  Folkways Records put together a compilation of new experimental music, mostly focusing on the work of Vladimir Ussachevsky, who had a sound studio in Columbia New York, where he and fellow composer Otto Luening experimented with organic and electronic sounds to make music.  I have a small collection of both of these composers, and they never fail to give me great listening pleasure.  

The album is divided by the two sides.  The first side is focusing on experimentation but with real instruments, but often played in a new way.  For instance, the big two stars here are John Cage and Edgard Varese.  Cage is of great interest in this package because of "Dance" which is work on a prepared piano.   The composer attached rubber, metal and wooden objects to the piano strings which gives it a gamelan orchestration sound.  It's a beautiful piece of work that borders on exotica.  Varese is an orchestration ("Ionization") which uses siren but with different pitches.  The work here that really turned my ears around is Henry Cowell's "Aeolian Harp" which is a work for piano, but him or the performer playing the instrument by leaning fists, arms and palms across the keyboard, as well as plucking the piano strings.   This is the only work here that has a strong sense of melody.  Listening to "Aeolian Harp" reminds me of The Yardbirds' "Still I'm Sad."   Almost the same melody and I wonder if the band was familiar with Cowell's work.  

On this side is a work that I know of, and that's Otto Luening's "Fantasy in Space."  It's a flute piece that is manipulated by tape recorder.   It reminds me very much what Brian Eno did with Roxy Music, but this is twenty-something years earlier.    It's a piece that borders on exotica (now that's a genre that mixes quite well in experimental music) and of course, deals with the thought of space travel.  Perhaps finding that utopia that we can't have here on Earth.  Side one starts off with an early piece of music from Russia that sounds very much like Spike Jones, but more animated sounding - like Warner Brothers cartoon music.  And then there are orchestrations where they imitate the sounds of the factory, for instance, a steel mill.   There is nothing gimmicky about any of this music.  The roots of industrial music, recorded in the Twenties. 

Side two is more instructional where we can hear how a tape machine can change a sound, either by pitch or other filters.  Most of the work here on side two is by Ussachevsky, and like Luening's work, it's a remarkable set of beautiful sounds.  The album ends with an actual narration explaining how the composer Henry Jacobs made his "Sonata for Loudspeakers."  I'm not a huge fan of recorded lectures but this of great interest to anyone who's into the recording as a craft or art form.  Surely the first strains of sampling here.  And the final product (the composition) is really fantastic.  

Tom Recchion - "Chaotica" CD, Album, 1996 (Birdman Records)

I treasure Tom Recchion's sensibility.  I tend not to separate his graphic arts work from his work as an artist and composer.  He takes second-hand information, in this case, music from another era, that held promise to the American imagination, which was exotica.   Recchion makes the old recordings and transforms them into new music, but not erasing the music's original purpose.  To transform the listener into another world.  As Exotica music is a tour of the outside world, "Chaotica" is a journey into the inner world.  Exotica brings relaxation, "Chaotica" brings relaxation but with an emotional edge. 

There were no overdubs or edits made during the recording.  Recchion used pre-recorded tape-loops and then improvised over the music using keyboards and various digital and analog effects.  "Chaotica" is a relative of Musique Concréte, but with a refined delicacy.   A great album from a brilliant artist. 

Stockhausen/ The London Sinfoniettta - "Stop" / "Ylem" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1974 (Deutsche Grammophon)

There is a method to his madness, and Stockhausen is clearly the man who was holding the keys to his incredible compositions.  Conceptually minded, these two pieces "Stop" and "Ylem" are made for live performance where the musicians are both on the stage as well as in the audience.  The music on both pieces are textural with quietness, but also a great deal of intensity.  Reading the liner notes I'm aware that perhaps this music is not really made for a recording, but for one to experience it in a concert hall.  Stockhausen seems to have an interest in architecture - both in the sense of space, such as a concert hall, but as well as the openess or space that is in music.  There is a 3D effect in the works that draws one into the aural world of Stockhausen.

Pierre Henry - "Variations For a Door and a Sigh" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1967 (Philips)

On one level, probably the most 'difficult' album in my collection.  On the other hand, it's everyday life as being interpreted by the great Pierre Henry.    From awakening to death.  All is exposed on this concept album of life being lived on a physical level.  Musique concrète all, or mostly through what sounds like a door being open and closing.  

Musique Concrète is a style of music that I find interesting because it's based on the everyday sounds of a composer who captures that moment and rearranges the sounds for their purpose.  Through either tape manipulations or some other electronic means, it is giving the natural or organic sound another dimension.   "Variations For a Door and a Sigh" is not for everyone, but for those who want to dwell into the inner-world, I recommend this album. And it may be just me, but I find it sexy.  As the statement on the back cover of this album: "This recording should be played at full volume, and listened to in darkness."  Which is an excellent recommendation.    

Tom Recchion - "Proscenium" Vinyl LP, Limited Edition with Vinyl 7" 45 rpm (Elevator Bath)

Tom Recchion's "Proscenium" is like going into a room, and there is nothing there, but this eerie, beautiful sound, that is hard to distinguish from something natural in the air, or man (person) made.  All I know is I can sit at a table in this room and do some writing or something creative.   The music (sound) is demanding, so you can't read a book there, but you can think through the levels of aural pleasure that is this album.

I'm not sure how Tom made this record.  I once in awhile hear what sounds like a piano, but is it him playing or just a sample?  Listening to the album becomes a mental exercise where you describe smoke that lingers in the air, which is the graphic on the cover by the way.  Or is it a spirit of some sort?  Or both?   Music that is abstract becomes a sound sculpture. I can almost see it, but not really.  Although I feel I can walk right through it.  Artists like Brian Eno has done ambient music - sometimes for a specific space and time - "Music for Airports" for example.  "Proscenium" is a work that gives me a sense of place, but not time.  I sense not a large space, but a room.  It's interesting to read the titles which is "Entrance Music No. 1" or "Exit Music No. 1."  There is also "The Mesmerized Chair" and of course, "The Haunted Laboratory."  I don't have to know the titles, but it's interesting that they do convey a space or studio of some sort.  Space is vague, but the emotions are not.  It's a very warm album, and I feel good being contained by its sense of seduction.   I have this album on vinyl as well as an MP3 (code comes with the album), and I often listen to it while writing.   I like it because it doesn't free up my brain/mind but puts me in a room that I can focus in.  In a practical way, I can recommend this music if you're a writer and need time to reflect on your thoughts.  Or it can be music that you enter in, but you can stay inside for hours.

I didn't know this, till I started writing this piece, but the proscenium is a theatrical term meaning "an arch framing the opening between the stage and the auditorium in some theaters."  It's a great album. I keep hearing new things in it, and it maybe just my ears playing tricks on me, but the vinyl listening experience is different from the MP3.  The medium alters same music, but space.  It never ends.   I like that.

Iannis Xenakis - "GRM Works 1957-1962" (Recollection GRM) Vinyl

I have the impression that Iannis Xenakis is a solemn thinker and composer.  There is a tension in his music that seems to be contained in a particular space.  To be corny his music can be used for a horror film, but the compositions can give one image in one's head without the visuals being projected on a screen.   It shouldn't be a surprise, but one of the pieces on this album "Orient-Occident" (1960) is a soundtrack to a film.  It's a documentary about a visit to a museum and comparing artifacts from different cultures.  The film may be wonderful, but the music I think is even better.  

Xenakis' work is a sonic/aural landscape.  Sophistication as an artform. There is nothing wasted, it seems all sounds have a proper place.  The first piece on side one is "Concret PH" (1958) commissioned by the huge company, Philips, it took place at the Brussels World Fair.   There were 400 speakers in the Le Corbusier's pavilion.  I have only two speakers, but have the volume up loud.  Xenakis thought very much of space and how to fill that area with music.  In a sense, one can imagine that he did sound poetry for that location.  

"Bohor" (1962) is the longest work on this album.  Almost 22-mintues of tension being built.  It's similar to "Concret PH" in that there are ambient touches, but in no is this a relaxing listening experience.   It's very urban with what sounds like crowd noises but more ghost-like than anything else.  The music on this album serves as a magnet where I can't help but be drawn into its world.  

Léo Kupper - "Electronic Works & Voices 1961-1979" (Sub Rosa)

Léo Kupper had an interest in making music that was totally from electronic sounds, and not with or the addition of 'real' instruments.  What his music is a landscape of some style that makes an aural statement that in turns can be scary sounding.  The electronic noise often sounds like a form of nature to me.  I hear dolphins (not in a new age fashion), electrical storms, birds, crickets, waves hitting the beach, and perhaps noise of passing vehicles - either an automobile or train.  There is something human about Kupper's work, in that it's not about electronics specifically, but how those sounds interwind within the natural life.  

There are works on this double album that features vocals.   Not singing mind you, but female voices that are either speaking in a foreign language or used as a texture to the overall music.  These pieces remind me of Luciano Berio's work with the Swingle Singers.  The Italian composer made a lot of vocal music that were either based on literary text or poems.   On one of the works here on this album, "L' enclume des forces" features text by Antonin Artaud.  Overall there is a sinister quality to the music.  Kupper captures a sense of dread or anxiety.     

Jean Dubuffet - "Expériences Musicales 1961" Vinyl (Jeanne Dielman)

I just finished reading a David Toop book called "Into the Maelstrom," regarding the history of improvisational music.  Toop listed two categories: those who are master of their instruments or the very least have a concept to go on as their platform to do such music, and there's the artist Jean Dubuffet.   Who is like a child, and more likely goes with the first thought is the best thought school in music (sound) making.  His "Expériences Musicales 1961" was originally released as four 10" albums in 1961.  With the assistance of the great Asgar Jorn (founder of COBRA and an early member of The Sitauationsts), he made these incredibly charming, yet at times horrifying sounds by using obscure string, percussion, and wind instruments, with the addition of piano.  Mostly instruments that came from the shop of Boris Vian's brother, Alain.  It seemed his shop specialized in instruments from all over the world. 

Both Dubuffet and Jorn were fascinated with the art of the outsider.  Meaning those who made art that is not part of the art academy or schooling.  A lot of the art was produced in various hospitals, and some were made by children.  Dubuffet had a term 'art brut' meaning "raw art."  Musically speaking, Dubuffet and Jorn's work has a mixture of vocal work from the Letterists, as well as at times sounding very African or Moroccan sounding.   Also I suspect that their use of the tape machine was not only to record their music, but is also an additional instrument, among the others. 

Easy listening it ain't.  Still, if you allow yourself be pulled in Dubuffet's world, it's incredibly pleasing aural experience.    For those who are conducting an inquiry into the sounds of the 20th century avant-garde, "Expériences Musicales 1961 is a must.