Electroacoustic/
Contemporary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

	2PartiMOLLItremolanti: 8cm CD Code:wallace01 Price: £8.81 Quantity in Basket: none
Xavier Iriondo, this time with Marco Tagliola, exploring the full gamut of sound and sounds, new and plundered, assembled in an intelligent, engaging way.
	5 COMPOSERS: 3rd Hearing Code:FYCD1006 Price: £8.23 Quantity in Basket: none
	50 YEARS OF ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC: Double CD ONLY Code:50yearsEANOCD Price: £18.21 Quantity in Basket: none
57 short pieces or extracts covering the first 50 years of the work of the seminal Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris, starting with Pierre Schaeffer(1948) and ending with Christian Zanesi (1998), selected and compiled by INA.GRM itself for a special edition of the rather obscure Italian Magazine Avidi Lumi, published by the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. Of special note on the CDs are rarely heard works of Darius Milhaud Earl Brown, and Philippe Arthuys; otherwise it's a lexicon of essential names: Bayle, Ferrari, Henry, Parmegiani, Chion, Reibel, Dufour, Lejune, Schwarz, Malec, Racot, Pamerud, Xenakis, Terrugi, Leroux, Racot, Stockhausen, Ascione, Amy, Lariviere, Philippot, Canton, Smalley, Carso, Favotti, Boucourechliev,, Risset, Mion, Ceasar and Baillif. Very different Individual styles and the evolution of the new musical language over time are here both closely and usefully juxtaposed. The CD's are also sold with a magazine.
	50 YEARS OF ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC: Double CD and Magazine Code:50yearsEA Price: £20.56 Quantity in Basket: none
57 short pieces or extracts covering the first 50 years of the work of the seminal Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris, starting with Pierre Schaeffer(1948) and ending with Christian Zanesi (1998), selected and compiled by INA.GRM itself for a special edition of the rather obscure Italian Magazine Avidi Lumi, published by the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, which it accompanies. Of special note on the CDs are rarely heard works of Darius Milhaud Earl Brown, and Philippe Arthuys; otherwise it's a lexicon of essential names: Bayle, Ferrari, Henry, Parmegiani, Chion, Reibel, Dufour, Lejune, Schwarz, Malec, Racot, Pamerud, Xenakis, Terrugi, Leroux, Racot, Stockhausen, Ascione, Amy, Lariviere, Philippot, Canton, Smalley, Carso, Favotti, Boucourechliev,, Risset, Mion, Ceasar and Baillif. Very different Individual styles and the evolution of the new musical language over time are here both closely and usefully juxtaposed. The magazine in 5 languages has a good collection of visual material and various giving some background on French and Italian electronic music history, practice and institutions. These will be useful to specialists but are otherwise either very dry, overwritten or bland. And are poorly presented. The CD is the thing. [Price reflects the weight of the magazine and consequent postage costs. If you don't want the magazine, for the CD alone is listed at £15.50.]
	ACOUSTIPHOBIA: Vol I Code:SLR009/10 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
CD1 features Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori and Elliot Sharp (concert recording at the Museum School, Boston) and CD2 consists of 20 SMFA student works, varied and often fascinating excursions into soundwork by visual art students. Worth it for Side 2, I think.
	AGON ORCHESTRA: The Red and Black (Dbl) Code:AGONORCHESTRA:TheRedandBlack(Dbl) Price: £19.39 Quantity in Basket: none
Double CD of contemporary Czech music by the best Czech Ensemble.
	AMEG COLLECTIV ET CIE: Granulation Code:CD02 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
7 pieces from different hands (Swiss and French composers). Good quality Electroacoustic / Acousmatic / Concrete works. Nicely presented. Illustrated booklet.
	AMIRKIHANIAN, CHARLES: Walking Tune Code:ST206 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
This is a good one. Intriguing and engaging combination of environmental, narrative sound and pitched 'musical' sounds. Very precise focus of material in 5 very different pieces. The last and longest 'walking tune' is an homage to and uses material from Australian maverick composer Percy Grainger to fine effect - featuring also much documentary sound en route. A beautifully conceived and balanced piece of work. (Interesting to hear alongside Jon Rose's (ReR) 'Perks' by the by). Highly Recommended.
	AMY, GILBERT: Une Saison en Enfer Code:INAC2004 Price: £18.80 Quantity in Basket: none
The deleted LP now reissued on CD.
	AN ANTHOLOGY OF NOISE & ELECTRONIC MUSIC Vol 4. Code:SR250 Price: £22.62 Quantity in Basket: none
The fourth Volume is lighter on the early landmarks, though there are some gems here, including one of Halim elk Dabh's prescient 1944 wire recorder experiments, Olivier Messiaen's 1937 Oraison for an ensemble of Ondes Martinots, Gottfireid Michael Koenig's remarkable 1967 Funktion Grau, Steve Reich's Pendulum Music a short 1958 electronic work by Ligeti, a rare appearance from Beatriz Ferreya (1967) and a Broken Music piece by the groundbreaking Milan Knizak. There are also some interesting '70s pieces by Laurie Speigel, Alvin Lucier and Francois Bayle (this with Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers). The rest, for the most part, are more recent pieces which stand closer to the industrial noise aesthetic, though carefully selected. Stephen Vitiello (2003), and James Whitehead (Air Attack over Kabul Airfield, 2005) both stand out. Another important collection.
	AN ANTHOLOGY OF NOISE & ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Volume 3 Third a Chronology (dbl) Code:SR220 Price: £21.74 Quantity in Basket: none
Third in the valuable Sub Rosa edition. The main work of this volume seems to be a proposed connection between early electronic productions evolved under the aegis of contemporary 'classical' music - yes, the terminology is deeply problematic - and recent, mostly computer and sample driven - work that floats unattached to any institution. From the first group there are pieces by Hugh le Caine, Ilhan Mimaroglu, Herbert Eimert, Robert Beyer, Bernard Parmegiani and Michel Chion; from the second Michael Schumacher, Francisco Lopez, Peter Rehberg, Asmus Tietchens, Rune Lindblad , Michael Rother (Kraftwerk), Lilith, Merzbow, Faust and a few sound artists: (Justin Bennet, Carsten Nicolai, CM Von Hausswolf. These are not complete lists, there are 23 pieces featured. A few stand out: Le Caine, Mimaroglu, Schumacher, Einert and Beyer, Faust but it is the sweep across somehow related fields that is useful to a listener trying to orientate in a profligacy of 'electronic' music. For the laptop generation, this will likely be an enjoyable collection, for students of the history of electronic music it should be informative; in any case it's a valuable resource. I still tend to the view that the claim to kinship between these different worlds is problematic and that many essential questions need to be answered before it can be easily accepted. The presence of Faust and Merzbow suggest this, but not deliberately. Perhaps I ask too much. In general this is an admirable and invaluable series. [OFFER. All three Volumes £48]
	AN ANTHOLOGY OF NOISE & ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1920-2007 (dbl CD) Vol 5 Code:SR270 Price: £21.74 Quantity in Basket: none
Fifth in this important series which, by mixing early historic electronic music recordings with more contemporary laptop and ensemble pieces, takes an unusually broad view of its topic, leaving it to the listener to make theoretical and aesthetic judgements. The works featured here date mostly from the '60s and '70s, however. Of special interest are Francois-Bernard Mache and Andre Boucourechiliev (1959), Wolf Vostell (1968), Josef Anton Riedel (1963), two rare electronic works by Helmut Lachenmann and Claude Bailiff (1962) and Kagel's Antithese. Mayakovsky and Hausmann represent earlier experiments and Pere Ubu and Ground Zero more recent abstract/noise experiments by bands. Other early works featured are by Richard Maxfield, Charlemagne Palestine, Alireza Masheyekhi (Iran, 1966), Jil Josef Wolman, Leo Kupper, Henri Chopin and a very interesting long piece by Dub Taylor (1972). Later works are by Rogelio Sosa, Christian Galaretta, Dickson Dee and Dajuin Yao (China), Yamaaki Takushi, Sutcliffe Jugend and Club Moral. The aesthetic and technological contrasts evident as the CDs unfold tell their own story, and this volume is a useful addition to an already critical and in some ways definitive collection. This is a resource and not everyone will like every track - though all are informative and many appear here for the first time. Comes with useful notes.
	ANTHEIL, GEORGE: Ballet Mecanique (1953 version),Serenade for String Orchestra, Symphony for five in Code:8.559060 Price: £7.05 Quantity in Basket: none
Completes the availability of the three Ballet Mecanique scores. This is the last, the shortest and the most stripped down. It's interesting to compare it with the others and it's also a fine piece in its own right. And it's very cheap. Serenade is a very charming late work, very defined, rather cinematic, Symphony, from 1924 is Stravinskyan, and Concert marks the time (1932) when Antheil left Paris and returned to the USA.
	ANTHEIL, GEORGE: Ballet Mecanique Code:EMF-CD020 Price: £15.57 Quantity in Basket: none
This is a first recording of a reconstruction of the earliest (1924) version for sixteen synchronised player pianos, 2 grand pianos, seven percussionists (4 xylophones, 4 bass drums, tam tam, pitched electric bells, siren and aeroplane propellers) which was never performed (because impossible at the time). It was a reduced version that caused such a sensation at its premiere in Paris. This realisation was made possible, finally, through computer and midi power (to co-ordinate those 16 player pianos). An historic recording of a groundbreaking work. The rest of the CD contains other pieces for player pianos, percussion and electronics by John Cage and Lou Harrisson, Richard Grayson, Amadeo Roldan and Felix Mendelssohn (a version of the presto from the 4th Symphony remade for 16 player pianos). Classic.
	ANTHOLOGY OF DUTCH ELECTRONIC TAPE MUSIC VOL 1 1955-1966 (dbl CD): Code:BASTA3-9182-2 Price: £19.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A long awaited reissue on CD of the near legendary limited edition LP series, edited by Dick Raaijmakers, released by Donemus in 1978. These are works by Hans Kox, Ton de Leeuw, Jan Boerman, Jaap Spek, Rudolph Escher, Henk Badings, Dick Raaijmakers, Frits Weiland, Tom Dissevelt, Axel Meijer, Robbert van de Neeve, Peter Schat, Tom Bruynel, Will Eisma, Klaus Gorter, Luctor Ponse and Berend Giltay. With thorough, essential and informative notes, and a history, by Raaijmakers and the individual composers.
	ANTHOLOGY OF DUTCH ELECTRONIC TAPE MUSIC VOL 2 1966-1977 (dbl CD) Code:BASTA3-9183-2 Price: £19.50 Quantity in Basket: none
A long awaited reissue on CD of the near legendary limited edition LP series, edited by Dick Raaijmakers, released by Donemus in 1978. There are works by Jacob Cats, Tera de Marez Oyens, Jos Kunst, Gilius van Bergeijk, Franz von Doorn, Thomas Arras, Simeon Ten Holt, Victor Wentink, Louis Andreissen, Peter Smith and Tony van Campen. With thorough, essential and informative notes, and a history, by Raaijmakers and the individual composers.
	ANTUNES, JORGES: Savage Songs Code:POGUSP21027-2 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Early Electronic music from Brazil. Starting in 1961 with a piece that uses only the stop, record and pause buttons Antunes went on to invent independently many of the techniques of electronic music and musique concrete and to develop a synaesthesic colour-sound theory which he utilised in later works. This collection follows through to 1970 with solid pieces, imbued with the burbling, droning, swooping character of much of the electronic music of the period. Largely unheard, this is a valuable historic collection that adds to the general reconstruction of the roots of electronic music.
	APPLEBAUM, MARK: Sock Monkey Code:INNOVA706 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
The worst thing about this CD is its title. The pieces themselves are varied, extremely well executed, beautifully recorded and of a consistently high standard. MA is a youngish (41) American composer who mixes traditional and electronic resources intelligently, so these are consequent works -though not without humour - and imaginative. There are 10 compositions, for all manner of different instrumentations, usually but not always including live electronics, ranging from small mixed ensembles, through percussion trio, 8 prepared pianos and solo trumpet to full orchestra. Particularly fine are Variations on variations on a theme by Mozart (18 prepared pianos), and Magnetic North. Highly entertaining. With an excellent and informative booklet with useful notes by the composer.
	APPLEBAUM, MARK: The Janus Remixes Code:Innova532 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
An interesting project by composer Applebaum (studied, inter alia, with Ferneyhough) where he uses recordings of his own acoustic works as raw material for "remixing" – meaning creating new pieces using a computer and Protools. In thoughtful sleeve notes he writes about good and evil, popular and contemporary, modern and postmodern, and techno. While he sees a relationship between his work and techno, these are electroacoustic works. It is interesting to compare with other AE work, and manipulations that do not come from the contemporary world (which can be far more radical). Personally, I think it is interesting for its failures of imagination and what it says about the technology – and thereby about a lot of electroacoustic music today. As music it is not especially notable.. but then ..
	APPLETON, JON: Contes de la Memoire Code:IMED9635 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
	ARCANE DEVICE: Engine Of Myth (vinyl) Code:ReR35 Price: £10.34 Quantity in Basket: none
David Myers has invented an instrument (see the ReR Quarterly Volume 2, Number 3 for details) that produces sound, as it were out of nothing:Feedback music - it screams, it whispers, roars, ululates, explodes, divebombs, twitters and reverberates endlessly in vast and detailed soundscapes; it sets two sound-mirrors face to face creating infinite reflections. DM struggles to control this machine and to give its massive voices shape. The result is huge, intimate and altogether remarkable.
	ARCANE DEVICE: Envoi In Cumin Code:PL02 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
David Myers' Feedback Machine (familiar to many from our LP release which comprised some earlier explorations) here presented perhaps to its best advantage. Electronics with responsive sensitivity.
	ARCHER, MARTIN: 88 Enemies Code:DISCUS10CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Highly interesting collection (bar one, I think) of pieces for virtual pianist, influenced by Stockhausen, Cage, Feldman, Boulez, Nancarrow 'New music has enabled anyone with a sense of sound and form to make great music' says Martin Archer, and then puts his sequencer and various devices on the line as proof. A courageous man, and you the jury. I think this is a fascinating record both for it's proposition, application and listening quality.
	ARCURI, SERGE: Les Meandres du Reve Code:IMED9310CD Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
	ARTEFACTS OF AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC 1930-1973 Code:SHAM050 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
An important collection, not least for the oldest track, dated 1930, by the very elusive Jack Ellitt. If this dating is true, here is a genuinely groundbreaking work. Ellitt, who at this time was making soundtracks for the New Zealand abstract film-maker Len Lye - and whose later work was done for the most part privately, even secretly, to be tragically lost after his death in 2001 - has produced here musique concrete 29 years ahead of time. Presumably done on optical soundtrack (like its contemporary, Ruttman's 'Weekend') this is abstract, manipulated sound. The CD continues with a 1951 recording of Percy Grainger's 'Free Music' machines, a snatch of the Melbourne Dada Group (including Barry Humphries) and 11 more fascinating extracts of work by people most of us have never heard of - and whose inclusion here makes a very important contribution to the library of musical experimentation of the period. Importantly, not only electronic music is collected, but also small ensemble compositions operating far from the mainstream of contemporary music - even at this time. For instance McKim's 'Monotony for 8 trumpets' or Cantrill's 'Soundtrack for Elkon' are properly experimental compositions, while Nagorcka follows Cage with a piece solely for televisions, record players and radios. This is an important - and an enjoyable - document, with a useful booklet and offers a timely reminder of where we were 30 years ago, putting today's offerings into perspective.
	ASCIONE, PATRICK: Polyphonie-polychromes Code:IMED9522CD Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
	ASHLEY, ROBERT: Automatic Writing Code:LCD1002 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Made in 1979 this a quiet, decentred piece, electronic for the most part (organ, Moog, electronics) with fragmentary involuntary speech. In his nicely pitched notes he relates this to Tourette's syndrome. Here also are two extracts from two other vocally based works made a decade earlier, 'Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon' for speaker, singers and bells and 'She was a Visitor' for many voices, humming and droning with a needle-stuck speaker. Important historic recordings.
	ASHLEY, ROBERT: Foreign Experiences Code:LCD1008 Price: £19.68 Quantity in Basket: none
Travelling in from different planets, Ashley and the world's rappers agree to aestheticise logorrhoea, shock-jockery and loose language and to keep those texts a-coming (there are 84pp in the accompanying libretto book). Two speakers and a host of ghost voices and a synthesised 'orchestra', all hovering around single tones create a hypnotic, often funny, vicious, strangely gripping linear streams of sound/speech. The nuance is all in shadows and hints and fleeting references. No one else is doing anything like this and it's fascinating to see Ashley re-emerge with such a highly evolved, unplaceable but fascinating form pitched somewhere outside opera, rap, theatre, music and bar talk. Try this one. CD and book in slipcase.
	ASHLEY, ROBERT: String Quartet describing the motions of large real bodies/ How can I tell the Diffe Code:1ONMN.030 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
For an electric orchestra of 42 sound producing modules... violin scrape and pizzicato type sounds mostly, piling up like the sounds of amplified rain on a resonant roof. Then another piece, similar but with tunnel reverb, motorcycles and other sounds added. A second version of this with different, longer sounds added and for only one string player with gated reverb. A seventies classic by one of the unfileable composers who changed the rules. With notes and diagrams by the author written in 1999.
	ASHLEY, ROBERT: Wolfman Code:20MNM.048 Price: £15.28 Quantity in Basket: none
Features the legendary 1964 piece for amplified voice and tape - a landmark in the history of electronics and performance art - as well as the tape made to accompany it, heard for the first time here on its own (itself a fascinating piece because of the materials used and the way they are used - far from the norms of electronic music or musique concrete at the time). Plus, the earlier (1957) tape piece 'The Fox' and, from 1960, 'The Bottleman' - for contact microphone, loudspeaker, vocal and found sounds, a more abstract and drone based piece
	AUGST, DAEMGEN, KORN: Jugend Code:AugstDaemgen Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Pieces that start from Brahms, Eisler, Hayden, Mahler, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner and Wolf, reduced, pared and articulated by voice, electronics, accordion, drums, bass and piano (instrumental guest appearances by Rudiger Carl, Chris Cutler, Thomas Dezsay and Georg Wolf). Romanticism rendered stark.
	AZZARIA, GEORGE: Concret (for headphones) Code:OHM/Avtr31 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Spatialised binaural work, ideally for headphone listening; a web of positioned and moving sounds, a central thread of cello (using plain and extended techniques, player unattributed), intermittent voice (tells complex, morbid, tenuous, tale; language: French), mysterious unidentifiable sounds (acoustic rather than electronic) and occasional field recordings. Fascinating and convincing. With a 5-foot concertina fold-out booklet containing text, some notes (rather minimal) a few photographs and a long, coloured, graphic score..
	BACH/SCHNEBAL: Curved Bow, Diess Code:MODE52 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
	BACHMANN, LEO: Palette of Sounds Code:UTR4131CD Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Solo tuba pieces that exploit extended techniques, circular breathing, harmonics and so on. Nice work.
	BADINGS, HENK: More Electronic Music by (dbl CD) Code:BASTA91-712-2 Price: £21.00 Quantity in Basket: none
Another collection of prescient and historic works by the remarkable and pioneering Badings, not sketches but fully formed pieces which, though dating from the late 1950s, sound more engaging and imaginative than much that is produced today. CD one holds 3 pieces: Capriccio (1959), one of the first works for acoustic instrument (violin) and (2) tape(s), Genese,(1958) for 5 frequency oscillators, and Dialogues for man and machine ((also 1958, busy man) a 20 minute radio piece for electronics and (processed) voice that is pretty off the map. CD2 features the 45 minute soundtrack for a multimedia event The woman of Andros (1959) which mixes pitched and unpitched sounds, melodies and rhythms, abstract textures and moods, and sits somewhere between a music that might have been composed for monophonic instruments and purely electronic sounds. It's closer to a strange, abstract, kind of pop music than anything else; an epic curiosity. This is followed by act 3 of Martin Korda D.P (1960) an opera for many voices and, in this extract, electronics - otherwise it's very conventional. The last track is Toccata (1964) a fugue of bleeps and bloops. In a very nicely designed package with useful booklet.
	BAKSHI, ALEXANDER: Hamlet is Dying Code:CDLA00028 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Three works for performance (music-theatre).The first, Hamlet is Dying, for 2 violins, three string ensembles, Double Bass funeral train and Bass drum brought to my mind an echo of Broch's 'Death of Virgil' as Hamlet's life swirls around him and some external sounds penetrate following his fatal poisoning. Part music, more dramaturgy, a convincing and concentrated work.The second piece, Sidur Mystery, for Soprano and percussion ensemble seems less concentrated, certainly on the record, without the seeing and the being there. You can compensate a bit by turning the Volume up and the light down, but this is still more of a document than a listening piece. It's interesting but not gripping.The third, Shostakovich Concerto, for Violin and Strings (a piece about, not by Shostakovich) . Gideon Kremer is the main violinist on the first and third pieces. The sleeve notes are almost worth the price of the CD, Bakshi writes about his idea of theatre-music, about the unique and critical quality of individual performance and about the deep relation of sound, space and presence in performance that is centred on dramaturgy and not dependent on words or any separable element. And there's the rub, on the CD, of course, only the sound remains. Nevertheless, there is an intelligence at work here that even information of is worth the having. Russian release. Limited supply.
	BALAYANA, JOSEPH MARIA: Ultramarinos 451 Code:NCM5 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A live recording of a concert at the Miro Foundation, Barcelona, for piano, prepared piano, public and a lot of plastic tubing. There are always more things to do with a piano - and here are a few of them.
	BANCQUART, ALAIN: Livre du Labyrinth (dbl CD) Code:Mode120-121 Price: £22.03 Quantity in Basket: none
6 pieces exploring microtanailty, shifting textures and time, some with very interesting instrumentation (piano in sixteenth tones, two in quarter tones and 2 violas d'amore; electric guitar, flute, harp, cello, clarinet, cymbalum, percussion and quartertone piano; four singers and tape; bass voice and 5 cellos. But much is slow and demands a performance context or visual accompaniment, I think, except for a few pieces. On the other hand the densely microtonal pieces are extremely interesting and unusual. A CD you might not want always to listen to all of but with some tracks that are passing strange.
	BARRET, NATASHA: Isostasie Code:IMED0262 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
Installation pieces mostly, well crafted.
	BARRETT, NATASHA: Trade Winds Code:ACD5056 Price: £14.69 Quantity in Basket: none
A sustained and impressive electroacoustic/ documentary composition built around sounds recorded from old ocean-going wooden ships (the sea, the creaking rigging, occasional voices) as well as appropriately related sources, that blends the weight of the world's oceans, the hyper-reality of film soundtrack, the conventions of science fiction, total sensory immersion and an imaginative suggestion of narrative. So: unclassifiable. A one-off. And great. Composed as a 16-channel installation it comes here on an SACD hybrid disc - so it will play on any CD player, but if you have SACD hardware, you will get the extra quality.