issue11

EMUSIC-L Digest                                       Volume 34, Issue 11

This issue's topics: Electronic Music Sources and Availability
	
	Artifact (4 messages)
	Elect Mus History/Discography (9 messages)


Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon .
You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with 
the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text.
 
The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the 
University of North Carolina.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 27 Nov 1991 16:05:08 CST
From:         Gregory Taylor 
Subject:      Re: Artifact

I'm the one who put the Artifact listing into the computer music
discography for the masses of late, and I just wanted to point out
that, in their own quiet way, Artifact is doing what lots of other
large recording labels are only vaguely trying to pull off: To assemble
a coherent catalog of recordings connected together [as the collectivistic
impulse of the label's organization would suggest] by a common sensibility
that one just doesn't see a lot of. In the case of Artifact, it's the
urge in contemporary music to work actively with the idea that the
technology one uses to realize new music has or might have an *active*
role of changing the nature of the music itself. That's combined with
a really refreshing "appropriate technology" approach to the actual
technology used [since Mills isn't exactly wall-to-wall Samson Boxes
or Synclaviers, you get a lot of - gasp - MIDI work on a small scale
by persons with big ideas]. Now, perhaps a caveat is in order - I'm
talking about working explicitly in the territory of the avant-garde,
so [with a couple of exceptions on Chris Brown's, Larry Polansky's
and Brian Reinbolt's discs] if your area of interest in electronic music
involves German sequencer work [or even the soundtrack to "Birdy", for
that matter], you may not be crazy about what's on Artifact. I've come
round to their point of view, I think [I play 'em all on my show, and
judiciously salted among either skewed popular music or acoustic/improv
stuff of similar form, they work quite well in the playlist], and I'm
not at all shy about recommending the work.

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 27 Nov 1991 12:40:47 -0800
From:         Chris Brown 
Subject:      Artifact

Hello ! Saw the reference to our electronic music label called Artifact
Recordings and wanted to correct the reference for anyone who is interested.
Distribution is through North Country Distributors, The Cadence Bldg.,
Redwood, NY 13679-9612 tel. 315-287-2852.  We have currently 6 releases
including Chris Brown, The Hub, John Bischoff/Tim Perkis, Larry Polansky,
Brian Reinbolt, and Rotodoti, and will next year be issuing the early
computer music pieces of James Tenney.  If you just want a brochure or
to be on our mailing list send us a line at ARTIFACT RECORDINGS,
1374 Francisco St., Berkeley, CA  94702

Chris Brown
Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College

------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 28 Nov 1991 10:36:32 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: Artifact

>Now, perhaps a caveat is in order - I'm
>talking about working explicitly in the territory of the avant-garde,

Explicit territory of the avant-garde? Isn't that a bit contradictory? Or
do I just misunderstand what avant-garde means?

>if your area of interest in electronic music
>involves German sequencer work [or even the soundtrack to "Birdy", for
>that matter], you may not be crazy about what's on Artifact.

Erm, right, anybody who likes Garbiel's BIRDY soundtrack is obviously stuck
into the commercial mind-set and isn't at all interested in anything not in
the same vein. Tell me: are fans in the "explicit territory" of the
avant-garde allowed or expected to listen to and appreciate BIRDY, or will
that get their membership terminated?

Just FYI, I have BIRDY, PASSION, several inches of German sequencer stuff,
and Brian Reinbolt's CD. I like them all, and I don't put Brian's CD on a
pedestal or in a special presentation case (it's between Julee Cruise's
album and the latest from Enya). Greg's message seems to be giving me the
impression that avant-garde emusic is somehow exclusive, clever, and not
for people who enjoy more commercial stuff (as well). This is the mind-set
that organises concerts where the performers outnumber the audience.

        Nick.

P.S. OK OK, so I'm being provocative. I'm bored.

------------------------------

Date:         Sat, 30 Nov 1991 00:35:00 CST
From:         Gregory Taylor 
Subject:      Re: Artifact

Not to play apologist for pedestals at all, Nick - and I didn't
mean to leave that general impression. It's just that after that
last posting on the Wergo and Neuma stuff, I got a letter from a sort
of irate E-music listener who seems to have gone out and bought some
of the stuff I mentioned/recommended ["wasted good money on" was the
exact term, I think] and was rather irate with me for getting him to
buy some records that sucked as bad as Vangelis' Beaubourg and Invisible
Connections [my two favorites of his, incidentally....]. I was worried
about offending persons like that and not you, Nick.

I trust that you all recognize that the world is large enough to accomodate
all that kind of work, from the tried and true Neue Deutsche Welle to
"Artifacts" of all kinds. I'm merely speaking about the work I program
most often and seeking to avoid the possibility that some souls out
there seem to think of Tangerine Dream as "out there" music. I made the
mistake of using discriptive language that seems to have missed at
least one irate reader/buyer. I went off trying to avoid the same
mistake twice, since recordings *are* expensive.

But I do confess here - I've rather tuned out of the Tangerine Dream
school of late - the sequenced electronic world in general. The last
disc that really struck me as interesting was Rob Mounsey and the
flying Monkey Orchestra and the new Maggi Payne disc on Lovely. Are
there any recommendations from the floor on some really interesting
electronic music of the more ah.... "accessible" variety?

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 1991 15:12:00 CDT
From:         BOBPRIEZ@SLU.BITNET
Subject:      Elect Mus History/Discography

   re: Bryan Basham's request for history of electronic music via recordings

   Try to find a copy (out of print now) of Herbert Russcol's book
"The Liberation of Sound", published in early '70's.  It had a good
chronology of people and events and a very complete (for its day!)
listing of *serious* and *pop* recordings.  Unfortunately it came
out just before most of the current technologies hit the market.
I would really like to see it updated and re-released.


Bob Priez  (Bitnet: BOBPRIEZ@SLU)

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 1991 17:37:06 CST
From:         Gregory Taylor 
Subject:      Recommendations for your collection....

Someone has asked for some pointers to recordings of electronic and/or
computer music. I've just finished typing up a list that goes out with
the playlist for my weekly radio show, so I'll plunder it here.

There's a caveat here: The radio program I do plays very little of
the kind of electronic music that winds up in rec.music.newage - I tend
to program in the terrain of "hard" computer music, and music that comes
a bit more from the margin [old-line cassette electronics people like
Jeff Greinke and PGR]. This means that my recommendations to you will
be warped accordingly. I'm sure that there are a lot of people here
who would be much better at naming good, consonant, sequencer-driven
stuff with its roots in the Neue Deutsche Welle of the early 70s than
I could possibly do, and I'm sure they'll pick up my slack. I tend to
leave that kind of electronic music to the New Age programmers, who're
much more interested in it than my audience. I don't think any more or
less of that sort of work at all. I just don't listen to it and don't
program it [save for David Borden and some solo work from Ralf Hutter
and Florian Schneider], to speak of.

Places to start:

There are two current series of CDs of computer music of some
interest. One of them [the Wergo Computer Music Currents Series]
has been in the cans since about 1988 or so, with the releases
trickling out. The other set comes from a consortium of universities
with computer music centers. They're referred to as the CDCM [consortium
for the distribution of computer music], and there are 9 of them
presently available. These discs are on the Centaur record label.

For starters, I'd personally suggest the Princeton University disc
[work by Paul Lansky, Andy Milburn, Alicyn Warren, Frances White] and
the solo disc from David Rosenboom in the series called "Systems of
Judgement." My last issue of the computer music journal had a brochure
that listed all the recordings and their contents. THe CDCM
discs include the work of student or grad student composers working
at the studios from time to time.

The Wergo series was more or less juried, and then collected into
a rough set of collections [music composed by computers, music for
the voice, music that includes some form of real-time control, etc.].
Of those recordings, I'd tend to recommend Computer Music Currents III
[Johannes Goebel, Richard Karpen, and Francois Bayle] or Computer Music
V [Johnathan Harvey, Kaaija Saariaho, Gareth Loy, et. al.].

Wergo has additionally released the computer music series which includes
single discs of works by the following composers such as John Chowning,
Jean-Claude Risset, Michael Obst, and James Dashow. There's also a
"Dinosaur Music" disc which is a collection of work out of Stanford.
The Chowning, Stanford, or Risset discs would be the ones I'd recommend
for starting points.

Both the Wergo and CDCM [on the Centaur label] are distributed in the
United States through Harmonia Mundi. You should be able to locate a
classical record store in your area that gets their records from them.

There are a couple of other interesting little lights on the horizon.
A label based from a composer's collective out of the Bay Area called
Artifact has released a number of excellent CDs of work by composers
who work with smaller, less capitally-intensive systems and are really
interested in algorithmic composition. Discs from The Hub, Tim Perkis
and John Bischoff, Brian Reinbolt, and Larry Polansky. I think you can
perhaps go through somewhere like Wayside Music for them. Real interesting
work.

Neuma records, a new label based in Massachusetts, has started an
electroacoustic Music series with only 2 releases so far. One of them
has "historical" electronic performances [Varese's Poeme Electronique,
Xenakis, Reynolds, etc.] and one of newer work. A nice start. They're
also distributed by Harmonia Mundi, too.

Finally, there's a really serious collection of music being done out
of the Empreintes Digitales folks in Canada. I've yet to hear a bad
release from them. You might want to check EAR magazine for their
address. They've got a new Francois Dhomont coming out that I'm really
interested in. Also [and this is the recommendation here], there's a
compilation of 35 little short computer music "snapshots" from a more
or less who's who in Canadian computer music called "Electro-Clips" that
is really a nice collection of all kinds of work.

I hope this is of some help.
Gregory Taylor
_____________________________________________________________________________
The leveling weight of music and weather/closes the stores, drives the people
underground/into cool rooms under ducts and water pipes./There are ways to
prove the logic of whatever happens./In a movie, the darkness between each
frame proves it./Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corporation/Madison, WI/608-828-3385

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 1991 15:04:31 TZONE
From:         Bryan Basham 
Subject:      EM Roots (was: Anyone in it for the art?)

Hi Gang,

I'm a computer programmer, who is in love with all kinds of music.  In
college I study Electronic Music as a means for me to express my musical
talents through a computer, since I'm not very good with my hands.

I have two questions for the group:

(1) I am looking for a good book (or electronic archive) that discusses
    Electronic Music history, with a focus around actual recordings.  My
    problem is that my EMusic collection is very limited -- a little Eno,
    W. Carlos, some Riech.  I want the classics: Schaffer, Henry, Verase (SP?),
    Luening, Ussachevsky (ouch, I butchered that one), etc.

(2) Given the context of question (1), is there a more reasonable "List"
    to be on rather than EMUSIC-L?  Also, is there a general Musicology List?

-Bryan

PS -

   >      When I first subscribed to the list I thought I had found a clone
   > of SYNTH-L.  Over time, there have been some "music" postings.
I agree, I trash a lot of EMUSIC-L messages because I am not a keyboardist.

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 1991 15:54:42 EST
From:         "Joseph D. McMahon" 
Subject:      Re: EM Roots

Let's try that again, without the mailer screwup.

Artists who you have not listed that I recommend:

Karlheinz Stockhausen - "Kontakte" (the all-electronic version) and
"Gesange der Junglinge" (German readers, pardon the spelling!). These
are seminal pieces of pure electronics. Microphonie is another
fascinating piece, consisting only sounds producible using a tam-tam
and various microphone manuipulations.

Charles Dodge - the oldest thing I know of by him is "Speech Songs".
A wonderful and funny set of pieces; I believe he is still working
with processed voices (comments? corrections?)

Morton Subotnick - He has several pieces available on CD; I believe
his earlier stuff has not been rereleased yet. Look for "Sidewinder",
among others.

Paul Lansky has been getting reviews in the CMJ that make me want to
run right out and get his CDs. I'm having trouble finding them though.

Milton Babbitt did some really great stuff on the old Columbia-Princeton
synthesizer. Some of the only pure serial music I've ever really liked.

There are dozens of other artists you should try as well. Most are hard
to find, if not impossible. Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros's older stuff,
...

I'd appreciate recommendations from others as well. I don't know of any
really good histories of pure electronic music. Allen Strange's textbook
on the subject has a lot of references, most out of print now (and it's
out of print as well...).

 --- Joe M. (unreconstructed blip-squork-and-bleep lover)

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 1991 17:20:00 EST
From:         rg8 
Subject:      Re: Re: EM Roots

>Paul Lansky has been getting reviews in the CMJ that make me want to
>run right out and get his CDs. I'm having trouble finding them though.

Try Tower Records in Rockville or downtown near GWU.  He's on several CDs
released by Wergo in their computer music series.

Kaija Saariaho is doing some interesting things with tape and instruments.
Her stuff is also on Wergo and Finlandia, including a recent release devoted
entirely to her work.

Bob

------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 19 Nov 1991 17:44:24 EST
From:         ronin 
Subject:      em info sources

as far as the 'classic' emusic composers go, there really has never been
much critical analysis of their work except among their own community.
for the music, the library is often an useful source. much of this
material either hasn't been transferred, or is difficult to get ahold
of. at the same time, the lps are hanging out all over the place in
public and university libraries.
for discussion of their work, again, you mostly need to stick with the
composers themselves. both xenakis and stockhausen have been fairly
prolific and articulate writers, and have written at length about both
the techniques and philosophy of their music. cage, as well, particularly
in his 'silence', provides a definable musical programme.
also, there are many works available on aleatoric, serial, and other
compositional processes, which are the foundations of many of these
composers' ideas.
further, i can recommend three particular items:
first, any book by david cope. he has a wide-ranging musical
imagination, and has produced several works on ideas and applications
of new music.
second, a book by erhard karkoschka called 'notation in new music'.
it provides an interesting collection of approaches to the expression
of unconventional sonic events.
third, a collection of articles form 'keyboard' magazine under the title
'the art of electronic music.' it covers quite a nice bit of history,
and contains interviews with 70's and 80's period artists, most of
which are quite cogent.
you've got to keep in mind, though, that most of these things *do* lean
toward descriptive, as opposed to philosophical, discussion.
oh... but you might read some boulez.

-------------------< Cognitive Dissonance is an Art Form >---------------
Eric Harnden (Ronin)
 or 
The American University Physics Dept.
Washington, D.C

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 20 Nov 1991 10:45:56 EST
From:         ronin 
Subject:      em disc & crit

there are several things that seem to make the in-depth discussion
and crtiticism of electronic music difficult.
the first thing that comes to mind is that a great deal of such discussion
concerning acoustic music focuses on the subtleties of expressive technique
distributed among performers and instruments. glenn gould's preternatural
precision, for instance, or yo yo ma's extraordinarily emotive dynamic
control. in electronic music, either the skills that produce this kind
of techniques tend to be hidden by the complexities of the tones being
generated, or the machines themselves simply don't provide the range of
control-surface variability and parametric mapping that is inherent in
many acoustic instruments. it should not be wondered, perhaps, that a group
of people whose main concern is the attempt to make meaningful music with these
ornery and dumb boxes should be a bit obsessive about the enabling technology
(whether high or low). another thing that occurs to me is that 'classical'
music and its descendants have a historical continuity which provides a rich
background for comparitive analysis. electronic music, for many years (and
perhaps still) in the process of continually reinventing itself, has had no
opportunity to develop a mature literature of self-criticism. further, and
this is certainly the most speculative of these ideas, electronic music
seems to be much more 'removed', if you will, from the normal context of
listening and appreciation. it does not tend to draw on, say, folk music
in the same manner as does beethoven's music, for instance. each work of
electronic music is a more highly personal statement, and does not
necessarily (and in fact sometimes actively refuses to) communicate with
the experience of the culture at large. which is, perhaps, as it should be,
but it does make the formulation of a shared experiential vocabulary
somewhat more problematic.
make sense?

-------------------< Cognitive Dissonance is an Art Form >---------------
Eric Harnden (Ronin)
 or 
The American University Physics Dept.
Washington, D.C

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 22 Nov 1991 15:20:16 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: em disc & crit

>each work of
>electronic music is a more highly personal statement, and does not
>necessarily (and in fact sometimes actively refuses to) communicate with
>the experience of the culture at large. which is, perhaps, as it should be

Why is this as it should be, Eric? Care to expound?

        Nick.

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 22 Nov 1991 21:04:24 EST
From:         Marshall Gilula 
Subject:      Re: em disc & crit

>each work of
>electronic music is a more highly personal statement, and does not
>necessarily (and in fact sometimes actively refuses to) communicate with
>the experience of the culture at large. which is, perhaps, as it should be

Why is this as it should be, Eric? Care to expound?

        Nick

------------------------------------------
to me, as a musician, the more highly personal a statement is for and from
me, the more the statement tends to communicate with the experience of the
culture at large. But then you might quibble  with the meaning of "at large,"
and I would probably quibble as well.
-73-
Marshall Gilula

------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 20 Nov 1991 13:37:30 EST
From:         The Radio Gnome 
Subject:      Mail order sources for EM

Hi,

     Below are some of the places I order/have ordered from along with
some short descriptions.

     Any word of new releases by Georges Boutz or Thom Brennan?


Alcazar              Heavier emphasis on the folk/newage end of things.
Box 429
South Main ST
Waterbury, VT 05676             800-541-9904

Wayside Music          Lots of rare/unusual stuff as well as some
Box 6517               pressings on their own Cuneiform label.
Wheaton, MD 20906-0517

Eurock Distribution    A one person show (Archie Patterson)
Box 13718
Portland, OR 97213

Lotus Records          Carried a lot of rarities.  Last ordered from them
23 High Street         in 1985.
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Staffordshire ST5 1QZ
Great Britain

Mirage Music           Martin Reeds venture.  Used to carry Mark
612 Southmead Road     Shreeves early cassette only releases.
Filton                 Also good cassettes by Ian Boddy and Steve Frost.
Bristol BS12 7RF
Great Britain

Backroads Distribution    More Newagey type stuff but extensive inventory.
417 Tamal Plaza           Also carry New Albion and Erdenklang Labels.
Corte Madera, CA 94925    800-825-4848

Generations Unlimited       They carry David Prescotts tapes and some
199 Strathmore #5           good stuff by Jorge Thomasios
Brighton, MA 02135-5210

The Music Suite Ltd       Carry the complete Adrian Wagner Collection.
Glanyrafon House          Also check out 3 Men Underground.
Cenarth - Newcastle Emyln
Dyfed SA38 9JN
Great Britain

Perry Thompson          He sent me his cassette Sleeping Giants for
70 Sproul Rd.           free.  Its very Burmer-esque.
Malvern, PA 19355

Charles Cohen       Ask about his "Darwin in Chains" cassette and
Box 181             the unreleased(?) "Swizzle Stick"
Riverton, NJ 08077

George Wallace  c/o         All three of his releases are MUSTS in
Larger than Life Music      any EM collection.  Start with Communion.
10 Belmont Sq.
Doylestown, PA 18901

Jesse Clark             His latest, Locked in Heaven is his best, but
710 Eton-Adelphia Rd.   earlier releases are also good, especially
Freehold, NJ 07728      "CAMELIA"

"She has learned that short ideas repeated massage the brain" - Robert Ashley

------------------------------
End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
******************************