The latest issue of Electronic Sound celebrates the fascinating world of tape music – and comes complete with an exclusive Steve Reich CD featuring two early and lengthy tape-loop tracks by the pioneering American composer. Magazine and CD are sold together as a single bundle.
It's almost 100 years since the invention of magnetic audio tape revolutionised the way that sound was recorded, but the focus of this month's cover story is how it subsequently also became an unexpected tool in the creative process. Step forward visionary figures such as Pierre Schaeffer, Delia Derbyshire and Steve Reich, whose work with strips of tape – cutting, splicing, stretching, manipulating, duplicating, looping – spawned a totally new form of music. As well as our in-depth history, we've selected 20 classic releases and 30 of today's sharpest loopers, with William Basinski, Open Reel Ensemble, Rachael Finney, Cate Brooks and Howlround on the loopy list. Keep turning the pages for interviews with plenty of other forward-thinking artists, including bass kingpin Jah Wobble and experimental guitarist Michael Brook, whose credits take in Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and David Sylvian. Then there's Robert Margouleff, the brains behind the amazing TONTO mega-synth, and On-U Sound chanteuse and poet Little Annie, plus fresh names such as E.M.Arson and The Peace Race. We also speak to musician and filmmaker Jesse Hartman about Laptop, his brief but super-stylish 1990s electropop project.
Accompanying the magazine is a very special release. Issued in a gatefold sleeve, Tape Pieces is an exclusive Steve Reich CD pairing two groundbreaking early loop tracks, Come Out and It's Gonna Rain. With a total running time of around 30 minutes, both date from the mid-1960s and are built from two short voice recordings – one of a man beaten by police officers, the other of a street preacher. For each piece, two identical loops were played together, seemingly in perfect synchronisation, but a tiny difference in the speed of the tapes means they slowly slip out of alignment. The melodic and rhythmic patterns that emerge as the loops drift further apart are quite extraordinary.
"You're not an inactive listener," said Brian Eno about It's Gonna Rain in an interview with The Times last year. "All of Reich's work, I think, depends upon making your brain perform and watch itself performing in a certain way. I suddenly realised, 'The composer is not just Steve Reich, it's Reich and my brain making this composition what it is'."
This CD is available only to readers of Electronic Sound, exclusively as part of the magazine-and-CD bundle.
