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…
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…
Héliophonie
This is a binaural release, compatible with Stereo. This release gathers two electroacoustic works by Gerard Pape.
Glass World
“I have become fascinated by the complexity of the single sound.” - Annea Lockwood
Cartography
“Mapping” here refers to the interest of composer Larry Austin (1930–2018) in the adaptation of external structures (such as mathematical figures or shapes observed in nature) for the purpose of generating compositional material. This concern was shared by his PhD composition students at the university of North Texas, three of whom—Rodney Washka II, Gene De Lisa, and Robert Michael Keefe— are represented on Cartography. Each experimented with the possibilities of the Synclavier digital music sys…
The Avantgarde Series
The legendary DG Avantgarde vinyl series (1968-1971) is turning 55! In order to celebrate this occasion, the series is now released on 21 CDs for the first time. The Avantgarde series serves as a historical document for a time of radical change in musical thinking and the breaking of artistic boundaries. The question "What is music?" confronted many of the composers and musicians involved in the series, and the anti-authoritarian spirit of the 1960s and 1970s was a palpable influence. Deutsche G…
Trust
*300 copies limited edition* Students of Decay presents "Kaivajaiset" by Finnish composer Niko-Matti Ahti. Best known for his work alongside his partner Marja as Ahti & Ahti, Niko-Matti has been an active participant in the Finnish underground since the late 1990s. "Kaivajaiset" is his first solo recording and was originally conceived of as an installation. Part horspiel, part musique concrete, it is a piece of music that draws comparisons to the work of pioneering avant-garde composers such as …
Tête-à-tête
Over the course of a nearly 50 year romantic and creative partnership sound artist Annea Lockwood and the late pioneering electronic composer Ruth Anderson have shared space on a number of significant releases of early electronic and tape music, including Charles Amirkhanian’s trailblazing 1977 anthology of women electronic composers New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, a 1981 split LP on Opus One, a 1997 CD for Phill Niblock’s XI imprint, and 1998’s Lesbian American Composers compilatio…
Musiques de Concert
Passionate about music from childhood, it wasn't until later, at the age of 22, after reading À la recherche d'une musique concrète by Pierre Schaeffer, that she decided to study composition. After classical training in harmony, she met Michel Puig, a pupil of René Leibowitz, who taught her writing and analysis upon Schönberg Theory. In 1970, she began a two-year internship at the Research Department of the ORTF under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer. Between 1973 and 1975, she took part in a r…
Kaivajaiset
*300 copies limited edition* Students of Decay presents "Kaivajaiset" by Finnish composer Niko-Matti Ahti. Best known for his work alongside his partner Marja as Ahti & Ahti, Niko-Matti has been an active participant in the Finnish underground since the late 1990s. "Kaivajaiset" is his first solo recording and was originally conceived of as an installation. Part horspiel, part musique concrete, it is a piece of music that draws comparisons to the work of pioneering avant-garde composers such as …
Sijuaq The Seer Curlew
Highly imaginative stories, images that become stories, and mosaics with teeth are the focus of Raymond et Des Palmes, Francesco Cavaliere and Leonardo Pivi’s contribution to the collective exhibition Raymond curated by Luca Trevisani, and in collaboration with Olaf Nicolai, as a collateral event to the Palermitan edition of Manifesta 12 in 2018. The exhibition, an homage to Raymond Roussel, takes place at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes - where Roussel was found dead in 1933 - and finds the inspi…
Supermarket Variations 1+2
Tip! *100 numbered copies* Two pieces generated from musical material found within a 14-minute recording of Sainsbury’s supermarket, Chingford, UK, recorded by Thomas Haines at 17:26 on October 16th, 2020. The source recording contains music-like material. The material, once isolated, cross-processed and rerecorded, reveals extended electroacoustic versions of itself. In the source recording (audible in Variation 1), checkout scanners produce clusters of short pitched tones as the cashiers proce…
Pole Für 2 (Integrale Version)
*2022 Stock.* 'The Stockhausen Edition no. 103 contains the first complete recording of Pole (Poles, 1969-70) for 2 soloists with shortwave radio (and small instruments). Vocalists Natascha Nikeprelevic and Michael Vetter are featured here. The score for Pole includes directions for spatial placement of sound sources, which were realized through panning and digital reverb. An earlier recording of this piece with Péter Eötvös & Harald Bojé can be found on The Stockhausen Edition no. 15.' - Stockh…
Mittwochs-Gruss
*2022 Stock.* Mittwochs-Gruss (Wednesday Greeting) - Electronic Music from Mittwoch Aus Licht/Wednesday from Licht (developed during Michaelion's 1998 production, this final tape version was created in 2003). Mittwochs-Gruss is an 8-channel electronic music work realized with synth patches programmed by Antonio Pérez Abellán. It is featured as the entrance music for the opera, and is rendered live during Michaelion as a background element. Like the electronic music of Dienstag aus Licht (Oktopho…
Europa-Gruss / Stop Und Start / Zwei Paare / Komet / Licht-Ruf
*2022 Stock.* Europa-Gruss / Stop Und Start / Zwei Paare / Komet / Licht-Ruf is titled the "Electronic and Concrete Music of Stockhausen". However, this CD actually opens with two electro-acoustic chamber pieces, highlighting an ensemble dominated by winds, performing monolithic adaptions of older works.- Stockhausenspace.blogspot.com
Litanei 97 - Kurzwellen
*2022 Stock.* This disc contains two pre-Licht pieces, one a modernized reworking of an intuitive text piece from Aus Den Sieben Tagen, and the the other an "historical/archival" release from the shortwave radio "Plus-Minus" series. Litanei 97 is basically a reworking of the piece Litanei (Litany) from Stockhausen's 1968 collection of intuitive text pieces, Aus Den Sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days), which generally uses verbal instructions to direct improvisational ensembles performances. In co…
Bassetsu-Trio / Mittwochs-Abschied
*2022 Stock. Includes a 32-page booklet in German and English.* Bassetsu-Trio / Mittwochs-Abschied, the Stockhausen Edition no. 55 contains additional works from Mittwochs Aus Licht (Wednesday from Light). Bassetsu-Trio (1997) für Bassetthorn, Trompete und Posaune is a version of the last section of the 4th scene ("Michaelion") of Mittwoch Aus Licht. It was recorded and mixed at the Sound Studio "N" (for Nedeltschev), December 1999 (Cologne, Germany). Mittwochs-Abschied (1996) für elektronische …
Orchester-Finalisten
*2022 Stock. Includes a 32-page booklet in German and English.* Orchester-Finalisten is the 2nd Act of Mittwoch Aus Licht (Wednesday from Light), the 6th-completed Licht opera. This piece has no vocal text, but instead features 11 different orchestra instruments performing short auditions one after another against a background tape of musique concrete (environmental field recordings). Each solo is also accompanied by a single 5-chord orchestral figure, cued by the soloist (the instrumentation fo…
Paare Vom Freitag
*2022 Stock.* Paare Vom Freitag (Couples of Friday) with soprano, bass, electronic instruments (signal processing and samples) (1992/99). The Stockhausen Edition no. 48 contains 99 tracks of the isolated electro-acoustic/concrete vocal duets from the opera Freitag aus Licht (Friday from Light). In the opera these brief duets are sequenced and layered into 12 "Sound Scenes" spread throughout the opera, but on this disc they are presented as isolated events. These short vocal duets featuring the v…