Joan La Barbara begins Sound Paintings with a scream that pushes you into an unusual world of vocal sound. Her virtuoso singing style, developed over a 20-year period, can be heard on this disc, which combines some of her earlier works with more recent compositions. She takes her extended techniques, which include multiphonics, overtone singing, and glottal clicks, and orchestrates them in layered soundscape compositions using from 8 to 16 tracks of material.
Details
Cat. number: CD 3001
Year: 2008
Notes:
Urban Tropics (1988)
ShadowSong (1979); original production Radio RIAS Berlin, September 19, 1979
Time(d) Trials and Unscheduled Events (1984); recorded and mixed in Santa Monica, CA, March 1984
Erin (1980)
Klee Alee (1979); production Radio RIAS Berlin, recorded September 18 and 20, 1979
Berliner Träume / Berlin Dreaming (1983); composed and recorded July 1983 in New York, commissioned for the Airworks Radio series
All of the vocal sounds on this CD were recorded in real time with no electronic manipulation and consist of both traditional and "extended" vocal techniques I have layered over the past twenty years. While the sounds are layered to create various textures, they remain natural.
Partial funding for this recording has been provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust.
The recording/remixing of "Time(d) Trials and Unscheduled Events" and "Berliner Träume" was funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Music Recording Program (1988-89).
