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.  

Mel Powell/Vladimir Ussachevsky/Otto Luening - "Music For Electronic & Older Instruments" Vinyl, LP, 1968 (Composer Recordings Inc)

I have an addiction to music that was recorded in the 1950's/1960s that deal with electronic tape manipulations.  My favorite composers, and who often worked together is Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening.  Both were with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York.  Which is a cell in NYC that was devoted to making new sounds.  This album, "Music for Electronic & Older Instruments" was released in 1968, but most of the music was composed in the early 1960s.  

Side one is devoted to my heroes, and the first piece is a collaboration between Ussachevsky and Luening.  "Concerted Piece" is a dual of sorts with a full orchestra and tape manipulated sounds.   They have done this before, and it never fails.  The tension between live and real music being performed with the addition of a 'future' technology is pretty incredible.  

"Wireless Fantasy" is the masterpiece on the album, and it's by Ussachevsky.  It goes back to the origin of radio sounds, and it's kind of a nostalgic piece of work because it is both a tribute but also a source of that noise that was made in the early 20rh century.   When I heard it for the first time, I immediately thought of Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" album.   Which is also a throwback to a sound or at the very least a tribute to early technology.  

The second side is devoted to Mel Powell who I don't know.  The works on this album are electronic or tape orientated but with some pieces that are the total real instrument - although very 20th century modern.  "Two Prayer Settings" is voice by Charles Bressier, with text by Paul Goodman, and music performed by the New York Soloists.  It's a beautiful piece of music, and Bressier does his work with great voice and skill.   The electronic piece he does is called "Events, a nice" and it is text by Hart Crane, read by actors.  He prerecorded the actors and does a cut up with them, and it's a  beautiful piece but not essential for my taste.  His other tape piece is "Second Electronic Setting, " and it's hardcore tape music.   I like it.

What is great about this album is that it's a collection of works that were at the time modern and new, and I like to think of myself drinking a martini in a mid-century home with my hi-fi listening to this album.  Bland yes, but it feels great. 

Otto Luening/Vladimir Ussachevsky - "Tape Recorder Music" (Cacophonic, Vinyl LP)

Slowly and surely, this is becoming my favorite album in my collection of vinyl goodies. I have written about Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky before, on another album that was released in the early 60s.  "Tape Recorder Music" was recorded in 1952, and it's a remarkable album on so many levels.  Without a doubt, Brian Eno must have had this album during the early Roxy Music years.  Otto and Vladimir did was basically used real instruments - piano, flute, orchestration and put it through the tape machine to manipulate the sounds. Doing loops, echo, etc. Low-tech technique that keeps getting better.

On another level, the music on this album is really beautiful. Funny as well - especially with the voices mixed in one of the works.  It has a lightness, but the sound is fantastic. And again, listening to this album, I 'm reminded of the first two Roxy Music albums.   The Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center was a sound lab for Luening and Ussachecsky - and they used it wisely.   Historically this is a very important album, but the listening pleasure is also endless.  I really love it.

Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center (Recorded in 1961, released in 1964) Columbia

Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City sometime in the early 1950s.   It is the oldest center to focus on composing and making electronic music in the United States.  For me, there is something wonderful and fresh hearing early electronic music in the combined eras 1950s and 1960s.  It was a time of wonderment and exploration of new sounds, done in new ways.  This particular album is a classic, which consisted of pieces and performances by Babbit, Luening, Ussachevsky, Bülent Arel, Halim El-Dabh, and Mario Davidovsky. 

The main discovery for me is El-Dabh's "Leiyla and the Poet." My reference to this piece is David Bowie's "Lodger" album, which was one of the first works I heard that mixes ethnic melodies in an electronic-pop mode.   I don't know if Bowie was aware of El-Dabh's work, but what's marvelous is the mixture of musique concrète with what I think is Egyptian folk or ethnic music.  Based on the Arabic 11th century poem "Layla and Majnun, " the music is a combination of vocals, percussion and high-pitched electronic noise.  Tape manipulation of speed transposition filters the vocals into a unique and highly effective sound. It's a short intense piece of work, that also brings to mind the music that Paul Bowles recorded in Morocco.  To me, it's the perfect hybrid of styles, that is familiar, but in actuality, it's quite new - especially at the time of this recording in 1961.  

Ussachevsky's full chorus piece "Creation - Prologue" is a mixture of heavenly voices but then is joined by jolting electronic effects, including a short section using an early version of a synthesizer.  It's not surprising to know that Arel worked with Edgard Varèse - because the piece here, "Stereo Electronic Music No. 1" is very similar to the great French musique concrète composer's music.   Completely electronic, and controlled feedback, it's a remarkable piece of textures exploring mood and tension.   Rabbit's performance as the title says "Composition for Synthesizer" is an exploration of linear/total rhythms, volume, and pitches.  For me, the weakest piece on this album, but still interesting.  Davidovsky's "Electronic Study No. 1" is from three sources: sinusoidal and square wave generators, and white noise.   Chaos is contained in a box by the composer.  

The last piece on the album is by Luening, and it's a combination of synthesizer, then manipulated by taping techniques, with a live violin, played by Max Pollikoff.  "Gargoyles" is an intense piece of noise/music.   Besides the chorus used in Ussachevsky, and El-Dabh's mixture of vocals/electronics, this is very much more of a real stringed instrument bouncing off the electronics/tape manipulations.  The beauty of all six composers is that they have studied classical composition as well as worked with regular orchestrations, but here they take a huge step forward to a new world.  Yet, if one listens carefully, it is still has traces of the old classical world.  A remarkable anthology of sounds that one can hear later in 20th century pop music.