V/A - New Music for Electronic & Recorded Media (1750 Arch Records, 1977)

New Music for Electronic & Recorded Media is a showcase of works by female composers. It features pieces by Annea Lockwood, Ruth Anderson, Pauline Oliveros, Johanna M. Beyer, Laurie Spiegel, Megan Roberts, and most notably two early compositions by Laurie Anderson. Taken from the back cover-

          The music on this album exhibits an exciting, wide-open, free-wheeling approach to the medium of electronic music which has come to be typical of this genre in the late 1970`s. No longer are composers obsessively concerned with the agonizing, expressionistic, and purely "electronic" (synthesized) sound formulas which marked much of this music composed between the mid-Fifties and the late-Sixties. Instead, today we have composers willing to mix media and sonic materials in thoroughly inventive ways to achieve ends which are new-sounding, and often more engaging, than that of the "academic" avantgarde.

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May '13 Update

If anyone is counting, you know my posts have been far and few as of late and for this I apologize. It's been a busy spring and that's all I can say in my defense. Hopefully, though, no one has lost interest because I have a few titles which I am really excited about that should be making their way to the blog shortly. Here's a taste:

- New Music for Electronic & Recorded Media (all female composers)

- Pataphonie's first album

- Compositeurs de musique électrouacoustique du Canada, e.g. Jean Piché, Barry Traux, etc.

- Stockhausen on Candide!

- Percussion!

Also, odd private pressings and probably some more Opus One titles. Please stay tuned!

Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson - La Jolla Good Friday (CP² Recordings, 1981)

Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson, whose principal instrument is the piano, studied music at the Reykjavik College of Music. In the '50s, he came to the US and continued his studies in composition and electronic music, most notably at the University of Illinois under Kenneth Gaburo and Lajaren Hiller. La Jolla Good Friday is an electronic piece composed while on a visit to the Center for Music Experiment at the University of San Diego. Taken from the back notes-

              "On Good Friday, everyone had left the Center for Easter vacation. I should be returning home in four days. Sitting there, all alone, admiring all the paraphernalia from the computer to the 4-channel tape recorder, all my grand plans about how I was going to use the day slowly disintegrated. They were replaced by something else: mysterious and beautiful harmonies filled my head. They came and they went. I was in tune with Kepler! A true and wondrous inspiration. However, I soon discovered its source. It was not of divine origin. Outside the studio doors, an old janitor was just using the opportunity, when nobody was around, to wax the floors with his machine. They were creating this din. What followed, can be heard on this record, with one modification-the four tracks are compressed into two..."

Download here.

Annea Lockwood - The Glass World of Anna Lockwood (Tangent Records, 1970)

Annea Lockwood is a New Zealand born, American composer whose works often utilize unique sound sources such as glass or pianos grown over with moss. She has also recorded works inspired by the Fluxus movement in which pianos are played while being submersed in water or set aflame. Glass World, for which Lockwood is probably best known, is a showcase of experimental sonorities created by glass in various forms. Download it here.

Michael Galasso - Scenes (ECM, 1983)

The late violin virtuoso Michael Galasso, born 1949 Louisiana, began studying music at the age of three and gave his first solo performance by the age of eleven. He began his career as a composer in the early '70s writing scores for some of Robert Wilson's plays.  Scenes was Galasso's first album of studio recordings, released on the ECM label. It is comprised of nine pieces for violin, on which Galasso is the sole performer by utilizing studio multitracking. The musical vignettes are simple yet evocative and while occasional bearing the influence of Baroque composers, (i.e. Vivaldi, Albioni, Bach) they are devoid of pomp and ostentation. Get it here.