Scott A. Wyatt

Second title in this 199-x series - itself dedicated to working through titles that had been languishing in limbo in the Creel Pone "nominations" sector for some time while specific "Golden Circle" Cabal members feud bitterly over their possible inclusion - offering the only LP by Scott A. Wyatt, following the fantastic "in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios" set. Released at the tail-end of the 1970s on the Academic "University Brass Recordings Series" (UBRES), this collection of - just as it says on the tin - "Electronic Music With and Without Instruments" by composer Scott A. Wyatt - director of the Experimental Music Studios, School of Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champlain & student of Randall McClellan & Herbert Brün - regales us first with a flighty, four-part side-length suite entitled "Four for Flute" incorporating John Fonville's eager embouchures with a mighty four-channel tape of assorted, mythic distorted bonks and misted bleep. From there, we're treated to the extended, three-part "Menagerie" for solo electronics, attributed to such faunae as "Tree Clams," "Air Stones," and "Moonsheep" - before a rousing, Xenakis-esque "Two Plus Two" pits twin percussionists against an array of synthetic & tape-munged plosives. It's this side that gives the whole set its weight; Wyatt's unusual palette - much string synth, and what sounds like errant Buchla-bongo zap - puts him squarely in the current of cosmically-tinged, rust-belt, "third generation" American composers often singled-out by this series; his work fits comfortably alongside that of Jack Tamul, William Hoskins, Edward Zajda, et.al. Aside from the music, I love the aesthetics at play herein - all mutant swirls & skeumorphics on the cover, met with the trad 3-column rundown of the concepts of the works included by noted composer Ben Johnston, replete with a Dick Higgins quote.