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Visions - Music for Orchestra, 2 Pianos and Computer-Generated Tape
**2020 stock** This 1979 record is a five-movement composition for large chamber orchestra by David Cope. First presented by the Santa Cruz Chamber Symphony in 1978, the work attempts to demonstrate the relationships between sound and physical space and to translate them to recorded sound as well as performance. The tapes in the piece were composed at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and were “spliced” digitally rather than physically. Liner notes contain drawings of the way that Co…
Music for Synclavier and Other Digital Systems
**2020 stock** Electro-acoustic musician/composer Jon Appleton plays a variety of digital instruments which, in his words, “obtain timbres and textures which convey expressive character through my work.” Instruments used in this recording are the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer, the Synclavier, and the MUSSE of Sweden’s Stiftelsen Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm. The five pieces span the years 1974 to 1977 and include Appleton’s first digital piece “Zoetrope.” Liner notes include short introduction…
The World Music Theatre of Jon Appleton
**2020 stock** This 1974 recording by electro-acoustic music composer Jon Appleton is designed to take the listener to different musical landscapes. Appleton notes differences in context that will make the music more and less effective (“not everything I intended will be heard by the listener because no two listeners share the same aural experiences…because we are continually expanding our aural vocabulary, the sounds used assume a different significance as time passes”). Liner notes contain a b…
Eight electronic pieces
**2020 stock** Chance combinations, accidental themes, chaos in general—these are the musical modes that Tod Dockstader uses in composing electronic pieces. Blending oscillating electronic sounds with natural sounds is like being "confronted with a potential orchestra of thousands of instruments," he says, and the task becomes one of "improvising."
This CD is a custom made copy from Smithsonian Folkways collection. Every effort has been made to preserve its historical and aural integrity. The or…
Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico
**2020 stock** Recorded on the night of July 21/22, 1956 by V.P. & R. Gordon Wasson, these are rough and ready field recordings featuring the voice of Maria Sabina (1894-1985) a Mexican curandera who would perform healing vigils known as veladas in Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca where all participants would ingest psilocybin mushrooms (Maria's holy children), as a sacrament to open the gates of the mind and communicate with the sacred. María Sabina (July 22, 1894, Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, Mexico …
Gamelan in the New World, Vol. 2
**2020 stock** Gamelan in the New World: Vol. 2, released in 1982, is a teaching album, providing the listener with lyrics, scales, and a history of Indonesian music culture. Gamelan Son of Lion play keyed instruments that are constructed in the Javanese style. The group uses both the pelog and slendro tuning systems, sometimes in conjunction with one another within a single composition. The group is composed of ethnomusicologists and instrumentalists who are dedicated to playing and preserving …
A Different View
*2024 stock* Contrabass (double bass) solo virtuoso Bertram Turetzky performs seven solos on the contrabass in this 1981 release. Using bow, plucking strings, tapping on the instrument’s wood body, and employing a little audio technology, Turetzky demonstrates the full range of musical sounds that can be produced on the contrabass. His repertoire on this recording includes a piece dedicated to him (“The Last Contrabass in Las Vegas”), two of his own compositions, and the Lennon-McCartney ballad …
Computer Music
*2024 stock* Computer Music serves as the official musical documentation of the November 1981 International Computer Music Conference, held at North Texas State University in Denton, Texas. The album features five compositions with music that ranges from electronic sounds to female vocals, flute and horns, stringed instruments, and percussion. The composers include Larry Austin, whose early works were recorded with the help of Leonard Bernstein; Bruce Pennycook, who now teaches music at the Butl…
Computer Music From The Outside In
*2024 stock* A 1983 Folkways release, Computer Music from the Outside In showcases three composers narrating the ideas and processes behind their computer music compositions, as well as the compositions themselves. The first two pieces are by Barton McLean: “Etunytude” is an etude-like piece made of gradually changing harmonic sounds, and “The Last Ten Minutes” is meant to be an abstract representation of the devastation of “the last nuclear holocaust.” “The Whistling Wind,” by Karl Korte, is ba…
Sounds Of New Music
2024 stock. Sounds of New Music is a collection of 18 compositions from the 1920s to the mid-1950s representing attempts at a "new means of musical expression." Some use familiar instruments in new ways, while others experiment with new instruments; the formats of the compositions range from structured musical scores written for orchestra to electronically altered music using tape-recording devices. Composers include Edgard Varèse, Henry Cowell, and John Cage, whose "Dance" is played on a transf…
Des Jeunes Gens Mödernes (Post Punk, Cold Wave Et Culture Novö En France 1978 - 1983)
2024 stock. This compilation, originally released in 2008, explores the French vaults of French post-punk, electro-pop and French no wave. Between the late '70s and mid-'80s, in the wake of the punk wave and in parallel to other types of music like disco, funk, ska and reggae, a prolific and chaotic music scene began to develop in France, combining the energy of rock and the nihilism of punk with electronic experimentation. The period was not, on the whole, one of optimism and joy, played out as…
Dimensioni Sonore
Widely celebrated and easily among the most ambitious and beautiful endeavors of the last year, the "Dimensioni Sonore" box is truly a stunning thing to behold. Thankfully, Dialogo has repressed this wonder in a brand-new edition of 250 copies on red vinyl. If you weren’t able to grab a copy the first time around, this is a once in a lifetime chance that can’t be missed.
Eskalation
BOXED deluxe version. and i mean deluxe. a thick lp boxed-set box with a hand-etched coated-metal “badge” contains the regular edition lp/sleeve (below) plus two cd-rs of interviews & audio by mr. bösmann and a veritable king’s random in leaflets, posters, flyers, dossiers, dockets, etc - 100 copies only scalating drone sounds like a mixture of cluster/kluster and ktl or sunn o))) with vocal parts in the style of tazartes or tibetan monks. the 20 minutes long title track sounds like a swelling v…
Les Olivensteins
2024 stock. LP version. The best-ever French '77 punk band, next to Metal Urbain. Killer and cult and a true must-have. This is an official reissue, with a lot of unissued tracks. "In a particularly raw moment captured on the disk you are holding, the singer (whose name escapes me) shouts derisively at the audience, 'Vivement que je sois vieux, tout sec et tout rugueux?" (trans. 'I can't wait to be old, dried out and bumpy'). And indeed, it required not only the passage of three decades, with th…
JST: Solar Noon, Kyotango: Summer Solstice, Akashi: Winter Solstice
Solar noon is the time when the Sun appears to contact the local celestial meridian. This is when the Sun reaches its apparent highest point in the sky, at 12 noon apparent solar time. *However the local or clock time of solar noon depends on the longitude and date. The summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight of the year. The winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight of the year. Time and Space, UTC and JST, North and South, East and West, Left and R…
Voices Of The Satellites
*2024 stock* On October 4, 1957, the space race was triggered by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik I, the first human-made satellite to orbit the earth. This recording, produced and narrated by Professor T.A. Benham of Haverford College, chronicles the sounds of the first thirteen American and Soviet satellites launched during the ensuing year. One track features the audible heartbeat of Laika, the first dog in space.
Voicings For Tape / Soprano / Piano
2024 stock. Voicings for Tape/Soprano/Piano is a collection of performances by composer, educator, and pianist Sorrel Doris Hays that reflect her Southern roots and feminist themes. The first of four tracks, “Southern Voices for Tape” consists of random spoken conversations interwoven with music from a 1979 Sacred Heart concert. “Blues Fragments” is an excerpt from “Southern Voices for Orchestra” featuring soprano Daisy Newman. “Celebration of NO” is from a larger work titled “Beyond Violence” a…
Vox Humana: Alfred Wolfsohn's Experiments In Extension Of Human Vocal Range
Have you ever considered what the full range of tone and pitch the human voice is? Have you wondered if there was some latent singing ability that all people were capable of achieving?
Science Series: Sounds of Frequency
2024 stock. While some of the sounds on this album could be the noise produced by various electric equipment (fax machine buzz, phone busy tones etc.) this album is actually to provide “a standard by which record playing equipment can be checked for frequency response, and distortion, without equipment other than an oscilloscope and volume indicator.” Recorded and annotated by Peter Bartok. Liner notes include detailed information about each track (frequency) and method of testing.
To Live A La West I
Every new St. Abdullah record is an attempt to present new ideas and To Live A La West is no exception. Spread out over a CD on Imprec and a cassette on sister label Cassauna, To Live A La West is simply moving, a collection of profound and spiritual tracks miraculously existing at the impossible intersection of free jazz and electro where mystery and clarity exist together. Neither complicated or complex but profound, St. Abdullah’s new work is partially inspired by their love for Jon Hassell’s…