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viewing 1 To 8 of 8 items
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ALE 011LP
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Jennifer Lucy Allan's Arc Light Editions releases Here, the debut album by little known electronic and tape music composer Ruth Anderson (1928-2019) who died just before she was able to see her first solo release out in the world. Here reinserts Ruth Anderson as a trailblazer in the history of electronic music in the USA. Here gathers microtonal electronics, drone, and meditative long-form works and a mischievous plunderphonic collage into an album that is playful, meditative, and bold in its minimalist approach to sound. In an article written by her partner, the composer Annea Lockwood, Ruth describes her music "evolved from an understanding of sound as energy which affects one's state of being. [These are] pieces intended to further wholeness of self and unity with others." "Pregnant Dream" is a collaboration with poet May Swenson. "Points" is constructed from pure sine waves, a veil of microtonal sound intended as a healing piece that generates quiet energy. "So What" hovers in electroacoustic space, and crescendos in oscillations and phasing. The playful proto-plunderphonics of "SUM (State of the Union Message)" is constructed from sounds sampled from TV commercials, made one January while Anderson was waiting for a studio to become free, offers tongue-in-cheek resistance to politics and communication as pertinent today as then. Her intention with "SUM" became "to say as little, and by omission, as much as the President (Nixon) would in his address." The restful and meditative "I Come Out Of Your Sleep", constructed from the speech vowels in Louise Bogan's poem "Little Lobelia", is a deeply calming and mindful piece. Anderson intended the shape of the vowels to become breathy melodic arcs and tones, which becomes the core of a stylized meditation. Sleeve notes by Louise Gray. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
Anderson was born in Montana in 1928, and originally trained as a flautist and composer studying with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. She was the first woman to be admitted to Princeton University Graduate School in the early 1960s. She also worked as an orchestrator for NBC-TV and the Lincoln Center Theater production of Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman (1966). After joining the faculty of Hunter College, CUNY, in 1966, she created the Hunter College Electronic Music Studio, one of the first electronic music studios in the USA to be founded and directed by a woman. She was engaged in studies of psychoacoustics, Zen Buddhism, and was a committed teacher. She retired from Hunter College in 1989. Ruth Anderson died on November 29th, 2019, aged 91, just after approving test pressings for Here.
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ALE 009LP
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Martin Bartlett was an inspiring and original thinker, composer, writer, performer, and organizer. His preoccupation with building aleatoric elements into electronic music distinguishes his work. He devised elegant and open interactions for instrumental performers and computer-controlled synthesizers which included building his own electronic devices and extensive work on the Buchla 400. He worked with or studied under Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, and David Tudor, and collaborated extensively with Don Buchla, and some of their live performances are included on the LP Anecdotal Electronics. He also studied Carnatic vocal music with V. Lakshminarayana Iyer in Madras, South Asian music with Pandit Pran Nath, and gamelan with K.R.T. Wasitidipuro. He founded the Vancouver Community Gamelan in 1986. His performances were often collaborative -- for the Western Front's second anniversary in 1975, he devised the four-channel piece "One Piece for Everyone", where he prepared and cooked a cauliflower curry on a table connected to a self-built synthesizer, while reading from texts on food. When the curry was cooked, the piece ended, and everyone was fed. Bartlett was a prolific writer, and he expresses himself in fresh, lucid, and wonderfully descriptive prose, offering clear thinking on social aspects of electronic music performance; on the barriers between the performer and the "black box" and on possibilities for organic systems in electronic music. He also wrote the incandescent manifesto-like piece "Electronic Recalcitrant" (which forms the cover artwork for Anecdotal Electronics), in which he hoped that electronic music would be imbued with "organic codes of growth and metamorphosis" so that he could "pluck elegant and fleshy electronic sound fish from the frothy algorithmic sea of possibilities". It is unclear why Bartlett's work remains unknown. Perhaps it is because it remained largely inside the academy. Perhaps his commitment to live performance and community activity means it was more transient than the work of others. Perhaps his openness about his sexuality played a part in his music not receiving much recognition -- one can only speculate. But correspondence in his archive shows that rejection from labels was a source of great personal discontent, leading to Bartlett working with the Western Front to release his final opus "Pythagoras' Ghost" shortly before his death. Bartlett died young, of AIDS-related causes, in 1993, but his music is characterized by an irresistible and unselfconscious charm that renders his sound unique.
Arc Light Editions releases an LP "sketchbook" of live recordings, experiments, and spoken word titled Anecdotal Electronics, and a CD of Bartlett's longer electroacoustic and orchestral works, titled Ankle On (ALE 010CD). Compiled and edited by Luke Fowler with Jennifer Lucy Allan. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. "Three Songs" features Dan Shiedt + Doug Collinge.
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CD
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ALE 010CD
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Martin Bartlett was an inspiring and original thinker, composer, writer, performer, and organizer. His preoccupation with building aleatoric elements into electronic music distinguishes his work. He devised elegant and open interactions for instrumental performers and computer-controlled synthesizers which included building his own electronic devices and extensive work on the Buchla 400. He worked with or studied under Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, and David Tudor, and collaborated extensively with Don Buchla, and some of their live performances are included on the LP Anecdotal Electronics (ALE 009LP). He also studied Carnatic vocal music with V. Lakshminarayana Iyer in Madras, South Asian music with Pandit Pran Nath, and gamelan with K.R.T. Wasitidipuro. He founded the Vancouver Community Gamelan in 1986. His performances were often collaborative -- for the Western Front's second anniversary in 1975, he devised the four-channel piece "One Piece for Everyone", where he prepared and cooked a cauliflower curry on a table connected to a self-built synthesizer, while reading from texts on food. When the curry was cooked, the piece ended, and everyone was fed. Bartlett was a prolific writer, and he expresses himself in fresh, lucid, and wonderfully descriptive prose, offering clear thinking on social aspects of electronic music performance; on the barriers between the performer and the "black box" and on possibilities for organic systems in electronic music. He also wrote the incandescent manifesto-like piece "Electronic Recalcitrant" (which forms the cover artwork for Anecdotal Electronics), in which he hoped that electronic music would be imbued with "organic codes of growth and metamorphosis" so that he could "pluck elegant and fleshy electronic sound fish from the frothy algorithmic sea of possibilities". It is unclear why Bartlett's work remains unknown. Perhaps it is because it remained largely inside the academy. Perhaps his commitment to live performance and community activity means it was more transient than the work of others. Perhaps his openness about his sexuality played a part in his music not receiving much recognition -- one can only speculate. But correspondence in his archive shows that rejection from labels was a source of great personal discontent, leading to Bartlett working with the Western Front to release his final opus "Pythagoras' Ghost" shortly before his death. Bartlett died young, of AIDS-related causes, in 1993, but his music is characterized by an irresistible and unselfconscious charm that renders his sound unique.
Arc Light Editions releases an LP "sketchbook" of live recordings, experiments, and spoken word titled Anecdotal Electronics (ALE 009LP), and a CD of Bartlett's longer electroacoustic and orchestral works, titled Ankle On. Compiled and edited by Luke Fowler with Jennifer Lucy Allan. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
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ALE 008LP
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Following a sold-out run of Salm, Vol. 1 (ALE 007LP, 2018) Arc Light Editions closes the year with a second volume of Gaelic psalm singing. The recordings documented here are from the same psalm singing sessions as the first, and both together represent a complete collection. This is music that is transcendent and together, about the individual and the earth, movingly spiritual with or without belief. The sound comes in great waves, swells of sound that break and roll around the space. The texture relies on the individuals: this is group singing where the individual is preserved, elevated, but together. The recordings of Gaelic psalm singing presented in the release are among the best ever captured. They document a living tradition, a form of religious singing from the Hebrides in Scotland, which is still practiced in Lewis. In Gaelic psalm singing, a precentor leads, and from here voices follow, moving together in great swells like the murmurations of birds. These recordings of Gaelic psalm singing were originally made over two evenings in the Back Free Church on the Isle of Lewis in October 2003. The singing was spontaneous and totally unrehearsed. The recordings are now presented on vinyl for the first time by Arc Light Editions. A precentor leads off with the first lines of a psalm, and the congregation follows, some faster than others, and each one remains discernible. In his notes to the original release, Calum Martin writes that the form, called precenting (where one person puts out the line and the congregation responds), while not exclusive to Gaelic free church traditions, is in Lewis particularly influenced by the pibroch style of free ornamentation. It's through this, he says, that the distinctive emotional swell of sound emerges. The sound relies on the congregation's individual responses to the melody and the individual precentor's leading. The musical term is free heterophony. Arc Light Editions has worked directly with DR Macdonald at the Bethesda Hospice and Calum Martin on this release, and they are to be thanked for their time. A portion of the profits from this release go directly to Bethesda Hospice, in accordance with the original release. Kraftliner sleeves printed in white litho, artwork by Jennifer Lucy Allan, and photography by James Ginzburg.
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ALE 007LP
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The recordings of Gaelic Psalm singing presented in Salm: Gaelic Psalms from the Hebrides of Scotland are among the best ever captured. They document a living tradition, a form of religious singing from the Hebrides in Scotland, which is still practiced in Lewis. In Gaelic psalm singing, a precentor leads, and from here voices follow, moving together in great swells like the murmurations of birds. These recordings of Gaelic Psalm singing were originally made over two evenings in the Back Free Church on the Isle of Lewis in October 2003. The singing was spontaneous and totally unrehearsed. The recordings are now presented on vinyl for the first time by Arc Light Editions. This is music that is transcendent and together, about the individual and the earth, movingly spiritual with or without belief. The sound comes in great waves, swells of sound that break and roll around the space. The texture relies on the individuals: this is group singing where the individual is preserved, elevated, but together. A precentor leads off with the first lines of a psalm, and the congregation follows, some faster than others, and each one remains discernible. In his notes to the original release, Calum Martin writes that the form, called precenting (where one person puts out the line and the congregation responds) while not exclusive to Gaelic free church traditions, is in Lewis particularly influenced by the pibroch style of free ornamentation. It's through this, he says, that the distinctive emotional swell of sound emerges. The sound relies on the congregation's individual responses to the melody and the individual precentor's leading. The musical term is free heterophony. Arc Light Editions has worked directly with DR Macdonald at the Bethesda Hospice and Calum Martin on this release. A portion of the profits from this release go directly to Bethesda Hospice, in accordance with the original release. Comes in a kraftliner sleeve printed in white litho; Artwork by Jennifer Lucy Allan.
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ALE 006LP
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Tapesongs (1977) is the second of two crucial Joan La Barbara reissues on Arc Light Editions, following Voice Is The Original Instrument (1976) (ALE 005LP, 2016). Joan La Barbara is a composer, performer, sound artist and actor, renowned for her unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques, which have influenced generations of composers and singers. This reissue is presented in full collaboration with La Barbara. Tapesongs makes use of early electronics, and multi-tracked tape techniques to manipulate La Barbara's signature extended vocal techniques. It includes two essential pieces: John Cage's Solo For Voice 45 and a burning take-down of Cathy Berberian in "Cathing". In 1977, La Barbara was living in NYC, playing concerts internationally and performing regularly with John Cage, who she described as a mentor. "I began working with John Cage in 1976 and we had done several performances of his 'Solo for Voice 45' from Song Books in concert," says Joan. "Cage determined the 13-minute version for this version, overlaying all 18-pages of the score so that one hears the entire work in layers. Hearing it again after all these years is wonderful and brings back many memories." "Cathing" uses a recording of a radio interview Cathy Berberian did during the intermission of one of La Barbara's concerts at the Holland Festival: "She basically trashed those of us doing extended vocal techniques," she says. "She used the interview for her own self-promotion rather than taking on the mantle of the 'mother' of vocal explorations. Rather tragic, I thought. So I created a work exploring extended vocal techniques and manipulating her spoken voice." "Thunder" is for six tympani and voice, using electronic devices (the same as used in "Vocal Extensions" from Voice Is The Original Instrument), and explores patterns through instruments and real-time composition with two jazz improvising musicians. The original artwork is an incredible shot of Joan buried to her neck in reel -to-reel tape. Remastered from original tapes by Rashad Becker. Kraftliner outer sleeve & art paper inner sleeve.
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ALE 005LP
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Voice Is The Original Instrument was the first record released by Joan La Barbara in 1976 on Wizard Records. This is the first time the original LP, with artwork, has been made available again. It has since become iconic as one of the initial examples of extended vocal techniques in experimental music. The human voice is the only instrument on the recordings. The works on Voice is the Original Instrument were some of Joan's earliest compositions, researching the possibilities of the voice, in two rigorous études, "Circular Song" and "Voice Piece: One-Note Internal Resonance Investigation", and the more free-form "Vocal Extensions", which uses live electronic processing. "My reason for producing the LP was to get my music out to the world beyond NYC and the major cities in which I was playing concerts," she says. "At that time, Carla Bley and Michael Mantler had started JCOA/New Music Distribution Service which handled small independent labels, so there were quite a few artists in the NYC area who were producing their own albums and distributing them through that service." Just out of college and living in a Soho loft in New York, Joan began playing shows in New York with jazz and rock musicians, and with those in the new music scene. "I did commercials, which, strangely enough, led me to Steve Reich," she says. "A composer I was working with, Michael Sahl hired me to do some radio commercials and suggested me to Reich who was looking for singers who could imitate instruments, which was something I had been working on for some time and was part of my exploration of the voice. I worked with Reich on the development of "Drumming", imitating the marimba."
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LP
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ALE 004LP
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2016 repress. Reissue of legendary underground release Buddhas of Golden Light by Pekka Airaksinen, Nurse-With-Wound-listed founding member of legendary Finnish improv group The Sperm. Buddhas of Golden Light is a highly sought-after crate-digger's classic, originally self-released in 1984. Airaksinen originally recorded the album to tape, using an 808 and DX7, with improvised saxophone taken from an epic week-long solo session and Antero Helander featured on one track. Buddhas of Golden Light is a true underground record that sounds like very little else ever made before or since. Simultaneously alarming and disarming, Airaksinen's work co-opts the sound of the 808 and manipulates the DX7 for a cosmic spiritual jam, Sun Ra style. Airaksinen has been actively making music since the 1960s. Buddhas of Golden Light is from a series of albums he began making in the 1980s, each of which is dedicated to one of the thousand Buddhas and many of which were self-released. At the time of this reissue, he is about a hundred Buddhas deep. Airaksinen is mainly known for his role in the controversial Finnish underground group The Sperm, formed in 1967. The collective's recordings resembled the noise and industrial music of the '70s and '80s, with a pro-drug, pro-sexual revolution rhetoric and a Dadaist sense of humor, influenced by American free jazz, underground rock, and anarchism. After The Sperm disbanded in 1970, Airaksinen continued making experimental music in his own studio. His music is characterized by out-of-sync rhythms, intense dynamics, and feverish visions. His approach is consciously unpolished, spontaneous, and improvised, resulting in a cosmic electro-jazz sound fusing free jazz and the 808. In the '90s he began to incorporate techno influences, filtered through his Buddhist philosophy, and he is still making music at the time of this reissue.
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