★Folkways Records
The Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer
2024 stock. Jon Appleton, Sydney Alonso, and Cameron Jones set out to create a new digital synthesizer at Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering in 1972. They considered the computer-controlled synthesizer superior to analog because of its “ability to create, by digital means alone, time-variant timbres which make all natural sounds interesting to our ears.” This 1976 recording presents the results of their effort—four different compositions, one each by Jon Appleton, Lars-Gunnar Bodin…
Sufi Ceremony: Rifa' Ceremony of the Eleventh Day of Rabi-L-Achien Honouring Abdul Hadir Beker
*2024 stock* Sufi, or Sufism, is often defined as "Islamic mysticism.” Sufism exists in both Sunni and Shia Islam. It is not a distinct sect, rather it is an association or fraternity for the achievement of religious enthusiasm and ecstasy by means of exercise undertaken in common. This 1959 recording is of a Rifa' Ceremony performed in South Africa. The Rifa’ association was originally found mainly in the Middle East eventually spreading to Malaysia and Africa.
Sounds Of The Sea Vol. 1: Underwater Sounds Of Biological Origin
2024 stock. Did you know that cancer crabs are great percussionists, as are catfish, snapping shrimp, drum fish and black croakers? Hear the noises of our underwater friends, recorded at depths of from five feet to two thousand fathoms below by the Naval Research Laboratory in the tropical waters of the Atlantic and Pacific.
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…
Seven Flute Solos
2024 stock. Employing tape overdubs, shifting tape speeds, reverberation, and echoes, flautist Charles Campo performs seven improvisational compositions. The musical settings range from pastoral and contemplative to urban and ethereal.
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.
Rhythmania And Other Electronic Musical Compositions
2024 stock. Released in 1976, Rhythmania and Other Electronic Musical Compositions spotlights the sounds of a specially assembled Moog Synthesizer (a type of analog synthesizer). The variety is impressive: from birdcalls and the sounds of machines in a factory to waltzes. Pieces such as “Cosmic Dance of Shiva” and “Hear the Clock Tick” are “composed of natural sounds recorded through a microphone,” rather than generated electronically like the “Triptych” fugues. This album also highlights electr…
Reelizations 1
2024 stock. This 1980 recording explores combinations of acoustic instruments and recording technologies. The increasing cost of large ensembles performing new works led composers to experiment with inexpensive alternatives. Barton Smith creates his own orchestra mixing recordings and acoustic instruments with everyday items such as swivel chairs and glass bottles. Liner notes include descriptions of how each track was composed, the composer's biographical information, and suggestions for how ea…
Reelizations 2
2024 stock. This 1982 recording builds on Barton Smith's previous Reelizations release, incorporating acoustic and electronic instruments with tape-recording technology into a unique one-person orchestra. The ability to create and perform music with the use of new technology and without large and expensive orchestras made sharing creations easier, especially for accompaniment in film, radio, and television. Liner notes include descriptions of how each track was composed, instrumentation, and sug…
Playing Music with Animals: Interspecies Communication of Jim Nollman with 300 Turkeys, 12 Wolves and 20 Orcas
2024 stock. On this one-of-a-kind record, Jim Nollman showcases his experiments with "interspecies communication." Using a variety of instruments and vocalizations, Nollman improvises with turkeys, wolves, and orcas. The interactions are sometimes funny, often surprising, and always fascinating. The liner notes include essays by Nollman on his environmental theories and experiences trying to communicate with animals.
Outer Space
2024 stock. "Ingenious use of echo, artificial reverberation and electronic alterations gives the music in this category a weird, spooky futuristic, 'out of this world' quality, well-suited to super-natural happenings of any kind. Piano, drums and electronic instruments are used to achieve the strange atmosphere and spatial sounds." Vaclav Nelhybel crafts a supernatural world, describing nebulae, meteors, star clusters and craters on Mars with sounds natural and manipulated to tell the story of …
Songs From The Bardo
Songs from the Bardo begins with a bell ringing out once, twice, three times, as a ritualistic chant emerges from the dense silence. The collaborative composition by avant-garde icon Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith is a guided journey through the visionary text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unfolding in an 80-minute ebb and flow of sound and words. Songs from the Bardo is a transporting experience, meant to draw the l…
Futuribile (The Life To Come)
*2024 stock* What did the future sound like in 1980? Futurible is brought to you by Italian composer Gianni Safred and will take you both back in time and into the future. Safred uses Moog and Arp synthesizers that have now become commonplace in popular music. These sounds are "suitable for space travels, space explorers, experiments, fantastic adventures, future enterprises, interplanetary stories, important achievements, industrial accomplishments of broad implication… modern scientific discov…
Four Fantasies For Synclavier
*2024 stock* In this 1982 Folkways release, Jon Appleton plays four compositions written for the Synclavier, a digital synthesizer he helped to develop in the late 1970s. “The Sweet Dreams of Miss Pamela Beach” was recorded in a studio using a 24-track recorder to “layer” portions of the music. The remaining three pieces were performed live with “some small sections and accompaniments contained in the digital memory of the instrument at the time of performance.” Liner notes contain brief descrip…
Extended Piano
*2024 stock* Elliott Schwartz plays four of his compositions for solo piano and pre-recorded tape, a project that remains "a continuing attempt to enhance, expand, obscure, develop or otherwise modify the piano sonority and the act of piano performance, through electronics." In his improvisatory piece "Grand Concerto" he uses fragments from the Grieg, Tchaikovsky No. 1 and Liszt No. 1 piano concertos; it is as epic in scope as the classical favorites.
Electronic Music
*2024 stock* This album recorded in 1967 by the Electronic Music Studio (EMS) of the University of Toronto exemplifies early experimentations in electronic music. It was the first studio of its kind in Canada (founded by Dr Arnold Walter) and the second in the North American Continent. The abstract songs are eerily captivating. Liner notes include explanations of how the songs were created, as well as biographical information on the members of the EMS.
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…
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…
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 …
Together To The Tune Of Coltrane's "Equinox"
Big Tip! Known for her contributions to the Black Arts Movement of the 1970s, Sarah Webster Fabio published a plethora of poetry collections and works of cultural criticism. Together to the Tune of John Coltrane’s “Equinox” is her fourth and final record for Folkways, and sees her vivid language and distinctive voice becoming enmeshed with a dynamic backdrop of exploratory jazz. Fabio pays homage to Black jazz and blues musicians Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and John Coltrane. F…