Friday 31 July 2020

Wolfgang Dauner's Et Cetera Feat. Jon Hiseman, Larry Coryell ‎– "Knirsch" (MPS Records ‎– 21 21432-2) 1972


One thing I likey not within the 'Jazz' idiom is 'Jazz Guitar' (Derek Bailey exempted), which Larry Coryell extols the virtues of excessively in his guest spot on this Wolfgang Dauner Rock-fusion album. Nowhere near as 'Out-there' as "Output", this could potentially reel in countless Colloseum fans just by the presence of Jon Hiseman, never mind the attempt to recreate 'The Kettle' from 'The Valentyne Suite' as album opener.This could be as far-out as 'Rock' fans could dare to get to achieve the next rung up the ladder of Intellectuality yet still enjoy the simple Joys of Thin Lizzy and Status Quo.
This and Colloseum would be ,thee, 'Jazz' records in a dysfunctional rockers' record collection,which although he doesn't like them much, he will whip out whenever he want to display his 'interesting' side.
Krautrock Fusion with a bit of bite, "Knirsch"..... ("Crunch" in English)


Tracklist:

A1 The Really Great Escape 4:20
A2 Sun 5:00
A3 Yan 12:50
B1 Tuning Spread 11:05
B2 Yin 9:50


Thursday 30 July 2020

Wolfgang Dauner ‎– "Output" (ECM Records ‎– ECM 1006) 1970


As well as being great to be left hanging around in your batchelor pad,even if your are a forty year old batchelor whom no sane woman would want to be in the same room as,never mind be intimate with; "Jazz" can go so wrong that it's right. As Howard Moon explained so succinctly in 'The Mighty Boosh':
"Yeah you fear jazz!
You fear the lack of rules, the lack of boundaries. Oooh! It’s a fence! No, it’s soft! Ahh, what’s happening? The shapes! The chaos! Has to be simple little nursery rhymes for you, huh? Simple little “dee dee dee de dee-dee.” Soon as the melody gets abstract you mess your trousers and run to your mommy."

In fact, the boudaries are so stretched here that the word Jazz becomes just a meaningless blurry blotch on the outer spiral arm of just one of a billion billion galaxies,or, in fact, just over there for those of us us who nearly understand this raw juju....everyone and no-one!?
As the cover 'art' suggests, just plug yerself into the PA and let the ideas flow channeled from the ether in the vast untapped vat of Dark Knowledge that makes up for 95% of the Dark energy in the known universe.Even Quantum computers can't calculate the exact volume and location of this dark force that is splitting the universe asunder.
The corpulent torso with dense crabs ladder adorned by groovey neck-a-chief, reveals the location of the Earth end of this rip in the space-time continuum as being cold war era West Germany;briefly world leaders for music this 'out', until "Future Days" in 1973 normalised it all.
The 'Output' seems to be an intriguing alloy of Prog,Jazz, and spontaneous improv direct from the source that is tearing reality apart.Kraut-Fusion has been volunteered as a category for those of us who feel comfortable on solid ground.


Tracklist:

A1 Mudations 5:45
A2 Output 7:42
A3 Bruch 4:15
B1 Nothing To Declare 10:40
B2 Abraxas 4:24
B3 Brazing The High Sky Full 4:25


Tuesday 28 July 2020

Penderecki - Don Cherry & The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra ‎– "Actions" (Philips ‎– 6305 153) 1971


You know you've made it into the pantheons of recognition when you're only referred to by your family name......like Beethoven,Coltrane, and Collins (Phil). Penderecki gets in there, but alas, the great Don Cherry never is reffered to as simply "Cherry".He's far too self-effacing for that.He just gets on with it and is comfortable as an ignored Jazz also-ran.
This sounds like predominantly a "Cherry" record to me,but Penderecki gets to be named first on the front cover.
Plaudits go out to our favourite Polish avant-gardiste, for having anything to do with losing control to a bunch of seasoned improvisers. Normally those who write stuff down don't allow self-expression as part of their scripts,notable exceptions includes Cage(who also gets the surname treatment I notice).
This is a wild excursion into feral free Jazz territory,that can only enhance the legend of both Penderecki and, yes....."Cherry".Just don't let his screechy step-daughter sing on it....... pleeeeease!


Tracklist:

1.Humus - The Life Exploring Force 18:36
2.Sita Rama Encores 4:17
3.Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra 16:33


Sunday 26 July 2020

Edgard Varèse ‎– "Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1" (EMS Recordings ‎– EMS401) 1950/1962


Edgard Varèse has been credited as the "Father of Electronic Music",probably by himself. There's a clear behavioural pattern among artists,especially classical composers, to control events with zero wriggle room. They either long to be either dictators or composers.They are the large pulsating brain in the centre of the orchestra.If they could not do this they would regularly crop up in the extreme ends of the Political spectrum,the number one destination for the failed artist.As they cannot legally control people any other way than they could a triangle player in a symphony Orchestra,sadistically allowing him just one note,then woe betide you if you got it a nanosecond out of place. I'm sure that if Artists weren't given their medium to ejaculate their need for control they would vent their anger in the form of some attempt at doing Genocide properly,and this time 'no more mr Nice Guy!

"I Long for instruments(read instruments as people) obedient to my thought and whim, with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, which will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm." Varèse said in June 1917,obviously his mind was with the millions of young men being slaughtered on a small strip of land in north-eastern France at the time?

As for the 'Father of Electronics' title, i would suggest there are far more worthy and earlier pretenders to the throne than Varèse,but all those Frank Zappa fans grasping over every word their hero said,won't have it any other way....Frank liked Edgard,that's all you need to know.
Ed had been hoping for using some electrical devices in his music since the twenties,composing a piece for two Theremins and voice.Then, with electronic music at last a real possibility owing to the development of the tape recorder, Varèse produced Déserts for wind, percussion and tape (1954) and Poème Électronique (1957-8), devised to be diffused,very influentially, in the Philips pavilion at the Brussels Exposition of 1958.

His non-electronic pieces, have a tendancy to sound like a bucking mule in an empty kitchen...with police siren of course.....I told you he was wacky? There are other pieces that sound not unlike the Car Horn factory that Laurel and Hardy worked in in "Saps At Sea".....horns....HORNS.....HOOOOORRRRRNNNNNSSSSS!.....after hearing this you too will need rest and plenty of sea air just like Oliver Norville Hardy was recommended by his physician.


The more trad avant-garde works on this album were recorded in New York City in 1950,taken from the original mono master tapes, except 'Interpolations' which are in stereo,and recorded in 1954.'Interpolations' are 'organized sound' compositions on magnetic tape, realized in the studios of the highfalutin Groupe de Musique Concrète,Paris.This is was that french roman nose was evolved for,to look down on 'us' along.
The original album didn't have the more Musique Concrete/electronic numbers on it, so I took the liberty of adding them, in their original, done by Edgard himself versions......so all you Zappa fans can rest easy.

Tracklist:

1 Ionisation 5:27
2 Density 21.5 3:57

Interpolations (From Déserts) (9:22)
3 Interpolation I 3:00
4 Interpolation II 2:12
5 Interpolation III 4:10


6 Octandre 7:34
7 Intégrales 10:33

8 Poème Électronique

Saturday 25 July 2020

Basil Kirchin - "Worlds Within Worlds" (Columbia ‎– SCX 6463) 1971



Looking like the Wolfman for need of a better description, Basil was a much overlooked innovator in the world of improvised music and tape composition. "Worlds Within Worlds" contains so many ideas,constantly shifting direction,that it sounds like a frustrated experimental musician's attempt at compressing all his ideas into this rare moment where he was allowed to express himself.
Any album where the sounds sources are credited to:
1 Gorilla
2 Hornbills
4 Flamingos
Various amplified insects, animals, birds, jets, and other engines. Sounds of the docks in Hull, Yorkshire... and the autistic children of the community of Schurmatt, Switzerland.

Augmented by one (uncredited)Derek Bailey, and Evan Parker,who were basically, the UK Improv Jazz underground.
Erroneously labelled the 'Father of Ambient'retrospectively,and a major influence of the 'other' 'father of Ambient', Brian Eno,Nurse With Wound was also an obvious recipient of the Kirchin influence. Basil made his living playing in jazz bands from the early forties and writing sweet tunes for the 60's and 70's UK Film Industry.
Let off the leash by EMI in 1971, Basil poured aall his ideas into this two part album,which is a whirlpool of found sounds,tape effects, field recordings,spontaneous improv,and jazz.Certainly a unique album,which was released in two parts...the first in 1971, and the second part, with the same title but different tracks, in 1974.....complete with ENO sleevenotes.
I've stuck them together, so you get the uninterrupted version,as originally intended.A bargain bin favourite,it never sold enough to justify the EMI conglomerate to allow the same mistake twice,so Baz stuck to film,and library music,but always continued experimenting off duty.The results of which are still being regularly released on the Trunk label.In,how we brits say,"Continental Europe", our Basil would have been made a professor at the national academy of Music...but he would have had to have a haircut,get some glasses,and wear a suit.You're either 'pop' or you're 'Not' in the UK.
It does say 'File Under Popular' on the rear cover?....hmmmm I'd love to see the face of someone in 1971 who took a blind punt on this?!

Tracklist:

1.Part I - Integration (Non-Racial)
2.Part II - The Human Element
3.Part III - Emergence
4.Part IV - Evolution


Friday 24 July 2020

Various ‎Artists – "Electronic Panorama: Paris, Tokyo, Utrecht, Warszawa" (Philips ‎– 6740 001) 1970


This is the 'NOW that's what I call music" for Musique Concrete,or "NOW That's what I don't call Musique" for most people. Looking at the pictures of the artists on insert cover, it seems that to make music like this you needed to wear National Health Service spectacles,wear a suit, have a side-parting even if you were balding, and be male! The being 'male' part was not an essential ingredient,as emphasized on this blog, by the lengthy 'Women in Electronics' thread wot I dun a few weeks back. And there's me thinking that Holland was a progressively liberal state.
More likely is that women,sensible creatures that they are, just don't wanna make silly directionless sonic nonsense, or Nonsense Sonique, like this;putting their undeniable talents into such popular male ghetto's as Football,getting blind drunk and mindless violence.


The intention of this four disc compilation was to show us nay-sayers that Musique Concrete was a worlwide phenomenon,and we do get some early noise pioneers from Japan,which is where the best disc in this quadruple album draws its tracks from.Was this the start of the japanoise obsession with how to damage ears without touching them....an extention of their interest in torture and disembowelling themselves at the drop of a hat.
The French disc, naturally has all the legends of Concréte, Schaeffer,Henry, Ferrari, Parmegiani, in fact anyone without a French surname.
After listening to the entire three hours and twenty minutes of this album, you will be willingly joining your Japanese chums with a celebratory disembowelling.After raiding this for a bunch of rather marvellous samples of course.


Tracklist:

Disc 1: Groupe De Recherches Musicales De L'O.R.T.F.
1–Ivo Malec- Spot 1:35
2–Luc Ferrari- Visage V 10:34
3–Guy Reibel- 2 Variations En Étoile 6:49
4–Bernard Parmegiani- Ponomatopées 6:33
5–Bernard Parmegiani- Générique 2:20
6–Pierre Schaeffer- / Pierre Henry- Bidule En Ut 2:30
7–Ivo Malec- Dahovi II 7:20
8–Pierre Schaeffer- Étude Aux Allures 3:30
9–François Bayle Solitioude 6:30
Disc 2: Studio Voor Elektronische Muziek Utrecht
10–Jaap Vink- Screen 7:30
11–Milan Stibilj- Rainbow 7:00
12–Frits Weiland- Textuur 6:50
13–Jacob Cats- Lux 6:55
14–Alireza Maschayeki- Shur 6:40
15–Luctor Ponse- Radiophone 6:01
16–Jos Kunst- Expulsion 9:00
17–Gottfried Michael Koenig- Funktion Blau 6:00
Disc 3: Studio Of Radio NHK, Tokyo
18–Toshiro Mayuzumi- Mandara 10:20
19–Maki Ishii- Kyoō 13:15
20–Minao Shibata- Improvisation 9:32
21–Makoto Moroi- Shōsanke 13:20
Disc 4:Studio Eksperymentalne Polskie Radio
22–Krzysztof Penderecki- Psalmus 5:05
23–Andrzej Dobrowolski- Musique Pour Bande Magnétique Et Hautbois Solo 9:00
24–Arne Nordheim- Solitaire 11:00
25–Włodzimierz Kotoński- Microstructures 5:20
26–Bogusław Schaeffer- Symphonie 17:40


Thursday 23 July 2020

Tod Dockstader ‎– "Eight Electronic Pieces" (Self-Released) 1961


Thanks Tod, I knew I was the real talent behind all these musique concrete records.....as the man himself explains:

"Electronic music is recorded music -it exists only in a recording. The cuts on this record are not performances that have been recorded - they ARE the performances; you perform the piece when you play it on the phonograph."

Hmmmmmmm?

Tod was a sound effects engineer for animated cartoons in 1950's Hollywood,when he must have heard a few of his contemporaries getting acclaim for making so-called 'Avant-Garde'records that sounded like the sound effects he was making for kids cartoons.
Smartly realising that he could do this 'Musique Concrete' stuff,he began making 'Electronic' pieces from 1958 onwards.
Not so smartly,he would soon realise that there's bugger all money in Avant-Garde composition, but it can lead to a string of easily impressed stalkers,similar to those who think Artists are 'special', and that Poets aren't just lazy short story writers.
Musique Concrete has many similarities with Poetry,and Abstract Painting,as its the easier route to making product.Just as Poets don't have the staying power to even write a pamphlet of their dreary prose,if they write anything at all,-the pose is the prose-,and Abstract painters don't even have to paint something recognisable,Avant Garde Electronics relieve the composer of the hassle of writing a melody...its too bloody difficult for starters.The only brain power needed is to dream up some confusing explanation to justify the general inactivity surrounding these finished works of Art.No-one can say you're not working when you're primarily a "Thinker".
The basic needs of the male can be met simply by covering his lack of actual talent with a thick layer of bullshit.This will bring him credulous young women,fame, to appeal to ladies he's never met,and rave reviews by equally pretentious and talentless art critics,to boost his ego.Yes 'Artists' of all kinds are generally lazy talentless bastards looking for a life livin' on easy street.
Whether Tod Dockstader fits into this category, I don't know;but he did manage to create this without going to a music school,and self-release his own album...all this in 1961. How many he actually sold isn't revealed, but Folkways Records later re-released it,eager to get on that darn Avant-Garde bandwagon that was gaining momentum by 1961.
Well I enjoyed it anyway...me being a pretentious feckless arsehole looking for an easy earner.Or,simply that i like funny noises....Don't we all?


Tracklist:

1 Piece #1 2:01
2 Piece #2 3:06
3 Piece #3 4:12
4 Piece #4 2:31
5 Piece #5 4:32
6 Piece #6 3:09
7 Piece #7 8:01
8 Piece #8 9:08


Wednesday 22 July 2020

Josef Anton Riedl ‎– "Klangregionen 1951- 2007" (Edition RZ ‎– Ed. RZ 1020-21) 2009


Another pioneer of concrete and Early electronic music composition, Riedl co-founded and became music director of Siemens Studio für elektronische Musik in the nazi homeland of Munich (1956-66)...good to hear that Siemens' massive war profits from slave labour were invested in something worthwhile?
The 'music' on this retrospective has the same problem as most of the Musique Concrete lot,an inate inability to repeat any of the sequences to suggest at least, some, musicality,rather than just piling one noise after another so it becomes more like a sound effects record rather than an articulate piece of modern composition. The dark ambient pieces apart, the stream of funny noises does tend to get on one's proverbial tits somewhat....an accusation that admittedly doesn't just fall at the feet of Herr Riedl.There are many other guilty parties in the early Electronics gang.
Nonetheless there are many atmospheric and interesting works among these 24 tracks worthy of admission into the Electronic Hall Of Fame.
I'd better end it there before I start ranting on about Nazi's ,who's a Nazi, and who isn't a Nazi,again....I'm beginning to sound like an Industrial tape in flesh,but without the tape echo effects!?
However,this doesn't change the fact that without Nazi's there'd be nothing worth watching on TV, and next to nothing to accuse each other of, which would make for a very boring life. 'Nazi-Fatigue is as real a thing as 'Holocaust Fatigue';don't let it get cha!

Tracklist:

1 Paper Music I 4:28
2 Studie 59 I 2:39
3 Zeichnen - Klatschen / Zeichnen - Zeichnen 4:00
4 Aus Landschaftsbeschreibung I 4:58
5 Mix Fontana Mix 4:58
6 Silphium 4:08
7 Lautgedichtfolge G) 4:52
8 Ausfluss, Niederschlag, Spur, Nachhall I 4:17
9 Douce-amère 3:06
10 Komposition Nr. 2 10:15
11 Polygonum 1:25
12 Leonce Und Lena 1:44
13 Vielleicht - Duo 3:16
14 Musique Concrète - Studie II 2:27
15 Musique Concrète - Studie I 2:53
16 Leonce Und Lena B 3:38
17 Folge Von 4 Studien: Studie 62 I 2:07
18 Folge Von 4 Studien: Studie 62 II 5:46
19 Klangsynchronie I Studie 59 6:16
20 Studie 61 I 2:08
21 Komposition Nr. 3 6:49
22 Ideir Notna Fesoj 51:02
23 Elektronische Musik - Studie II 2:17
24 Elektronische Musik - Studie I 5:46


Various Artists ‎– "Electronic 2000 (Philips ‎– 6585 007) 1971


While everyone in the British Isles were inexplicably making music everyone wanted to listen to and pay enormous amounts of money to its creators for the privilege, the also-ran nations were releasing compilations of serious minded weirdness  by even more serious looking librarian types and university lecturers. The Netherlands being one of the main culprits;making music no-one wanted to listen to, never mind pay for. This compilation,one of thousands from the same epoch with the word 'Electronic' in its title, is a case in point,bringing together Librarians from all over the world to appear on an evocation of what we would all be dancing to in the RollerDisco by the year 2000......which was, and still is the Future, where good taste in Electronica resides.
Back in 1980,which I also mistakenly thought was 'the Future', the year 2000 seemed unimaginably far away,and one could only wonder at what magic awaited us in the ensuing 21st century........i think you know where this is going?........indeed what treasures have we been spoilt with in the first two decades of the Two Thousand's......Twerking, free internet porn for the starving,Kanye West, instant information on what Kim CarKrashian is doing in any given second, Cars that all look the same,but still use the internal combustion engine and rubber tyres, trains that can get you anywhere you want to be late in, as quickly as possible.......I could go on,but basically fuck-all has changed fundementally since 1980.Except, easier acces to the kind of prescription medication that you can see in blurry form on the cover of this aural prediction on plastic.......a recorded medium that we thought would never survive the Millenium,but twenty years hence is now the fastest growing seller in this shrinking market. One advancement is that super-rich pop stars are now endangered species,'cus we can get all their rip-off product for freeeeee, just like those poor little starving kids in africa can now all access freee pornography.
One prediction that has certainly gone wrong, is that we'll all be listening to Penderecki by 2012, and dancing to Luctor Ponse in the skool disko by 2008-ish.
Almost true......male record collectors now chew their arms off to get hold of a vinyl copy of this album,and others like it, to impress ....er....other male record collectors.

What??.....the record?.....oh yes.....its dead good.
Track 1 is your typical Japanese groaning woman intersperced with Hitler speeches over an electronic morass....you know the one Beyoncé wanted to do a cover version of.And the type of record that many an Industrial Artist ripped off and made their own,whilst at the same time moaning that illegal downloading was costing them money???
The rest is quite simply,just as good,especially the rampant use of a short wave radio on track 4, and could clear a room of K-Pop fans in nano-seconds.
It is therefore highly recommended to download this for Freeeee,and deprive these musique concréte masters of the same one quarter of one percent of the profits that you are denying Feargal Sharkey of everytime you illegally download 'Teenage Kicks'.


Tracklist:

A1 –Toshiro Mayuzumi- Mandara 10:20
A2 –Krzysztof Penderecki- Psalmus 5:05
A3 –François Bayle- Solitioude 6:30
B1 –Luctor Ponse- Radiophonie I 6:01
B2 –Milan Stibilj- Rainbow 7:00
B3 –Bernard Parmegiani- Générique 2:20
B4 –Jos Kunst- Expulsion 9:00


Tuesday 21 July 2020

Various ‎Artists – "Musical Offering / Музыкальное Приношение" (Мелодия ‎– С60 30721 000) 1990


The Soviets insisted that anything the capitalists could do,they could at least match it,usually making these things on a budget of close to zero,held together with straw and snot, like their version of Concorde,the supersonic passenger jet,Concordski,which crashed at the Paris airshow in 1973. As soon as the "more Equal Than Thou" members of the Polit Bureau heard of the EMS synth,they wanted their own 'Socialist' version, that their great and glorious electronic composers could all use.......this was called, the 'ANS' synthesizer;notice any similarities there?
One of the first synthesizers in the world (aka in The USSR), it was created by the Russian engineer E. Murzin over a period of twenty years from 1937, and it created music using light, rather than electrical variations, unlike all other synthesizers,except Daphne Oram's Oramics machine of course.This replaced the soviet version of the synth which involved high voltage cables attached to the genetils of 88 Oboe playing dissidents,and a series of levers that, when thrown in a sequence, would apply the adequate voltage to make the dissedent play his allocated note on the Oboe stapled to his mouth. This was fully polyphonic,but had its drawbacks, like the oboe player dying, and it emitted an awful smell of burning ball-bag hairs.Now that's what i call 'Electronic Music'!?

For Murzin's light synth,he,or the KGB, invited,or ordered, young,but qualified, composers to come and work on some new electronic pieces....this time without electrodes or any pointing guns,and the resulting works are showcased on this post Berlin wall collapse album released by crumbling state label Melodia.
Recorded between 1964 and 1971,these bizarre dark electronic excursions didn't see the light of day until 1990,as the communist bloc was collapsing;but the rest of the recordings that never made it onto the album were rediscovered and are now included here as bonus tracks.Whoppeeeee.......now, where did I put those electrodes,and where are those cheap economic migrants I bought?

Tracklist:

1 –Oleg Buloshkin- Sacrament 3:34
2 –Sofia Gubaidulina - Vivente-Non Vivente (Alive & Dead) 10:44
3 –Edward Artemiev - Mosaic 4:00
4 –Edward Artemiev - 12 Looks At The World Of Sound 12:52
5 –Edison Denisov - Birds' Singing 5:05
6 –Alfred Schnittke - Steam 5:50
7 –Alexander Nemtin - Tears 4:41
8 –Alexander Nemtin - I. S. Bach: Choral Prelude C-dur 2:30
9 –Schandor Kallosh - Northern Tale 5:38
10 –Stanislav Kreitchi - Voices Of The West 2:00
11 –Edward Artemiev Music From The Motion Picture "Cosmos" 12:15
12 –Stanislav Kreitchi - Intermezzo 2:00

Iván Patachich ‎– "Musical Electro-Alchemy" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12369) 1982


As this blog was initially about how to turn musical Lead into musical Gold,or vice-versa, the 'electro-alchemy' of another very serious Hungarian seems out of place, when you compare it to anything on 'Fuck Off Records',but they do share the same determination to get their very unpopular works into the hearing appendages of a few hundred members of the public.Apart from that I've ran out of UK DIY stuff,so i gott write about something,no matter how tenuous the link.
This,one has to say, 'Fantastic' record melts haunting  neo classical choirs with Kluster style narration in a foreign language....unless you're Hungarian of course.....and ......here's the electro bit....minimal electronic noise.
This would have made a great soundtrack for "Solaris 2" if anyone had the guts, or stupidity to try making such a bold attempt at the only good movie with a "2" at the end of the title.
Failing that, get a bunch of contemporary dancers and leave them to it.The results should be hilarious.

Tracklist:

1 Antifonák(1977) 9:30
2 Hivó Jelek(1977) 10:05
3 Ballade(1976) 5:00
4 Ludus Syntheticus(1977) 8:00
5 Kínai Templom Visszhanggal(1979) 8:12
6 Hommage À L'Électronique(1978) 9:24


Monday 20 July 2020

Zoltán Jeney ‎– "Om" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12708) 1986


John Coltrane's "Om", or anti-Om, as made on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum,by some cat called Zoltan!?....so that's either Zoltan, Cat of Dracula, or John Zoltrane?
Zoltrane, uses a french...yes French!!!?...synth called a 'Rsf Kobol',which if made to French manufacturing standards in 1986 would break down or fall apart as soon as you glanced in its general direction. I've never seen another artist use one of these who wasn't French....they like to buy French product do the French, no matter how crap it is. Then we have it hooked up to a computer designed by the idiot who produced the Sinclar C5 electric "I'm A Twat" sign on wheels.
I'm surprised the ZX Spectrum could handle the minimal repetetive sequence that plays continuously for fifty minutes.It must have used at least one whole kilobyte of the massive 128 Kilobyte memory that comfortably enabled kids to play Donkey Kong for hundreds of brain numbing hours.It obviously numbed the Brain of 'Sir' Clive Sinclair.....yes, this dick was knighted!?.....as he ruined his company with that ridculous plastic death chariot that he thought would revolutionise road transport.
The Commodore C64 was usually the home computer to go for concerning Electronic Mooozik production.Why' I've even used it myself,as my first sampler,and it had a built in synth called the 'SID Chip', which made unique lo-fi squelchy synth sounds. The ZX had nothing like that, so I'm at a loss as to why Zoltrane opted for this lo-tech device. Probably an importing beyond the Iron Cutain problem.Hungary only got Stockhausen LP's and ZX Spectrum's smuggled into it's musicians grasps.
They are likely all absolute whizzes at 'Donkey Kong' I wager.
Then came the Atari ST, with MIDI!?...just in time for the Acid House debacle.
Thanks to the Chernobyl disater,1986 was a good year for high background radiation levels,which made all Geiger Counters sing like a Nightingale on Crystal Meth. So ,maybe, that noise was Zoltrane's inspiration for this nursery rhyme from the reactor core of communist computer music.
I guess this could be referred to as a sequenced hypnotic drone,which it is,but I won't repeat it again; and it's certainly an easy way to fill up two sides of a vinyl LP.Kinda like an Avant-Garde Rock'n'Roll swindle,but,it being from a communist country,no money will have exchanged hands in the process.What is missing, is a robot chanting "Oooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm".....now that would have said something worthwhile?At least about the human tendancy to follow hive minded religions robotically.


Tracklist:

A-Om 1 (26:20)
B-Om 2 (26:12)


Sunday 19 July 2020

Edward M. Zajda ‎– "Independent Electronic Music Composer" (Ars Nova Ars Antiqua Recordings ‎– AN-1006) 1969



Lets take a break from the Iron Curtain,and look into the do it yourself electronic world of an ordinary American....albeit with a Polish name. 
Inspired by Cage, Zajda decided to build himself an electronic studio around 1962.The first in Chicago, and proceeded to record a massive output of one album,and this is it.
Nothing innovative here,the usual bleeps and farts, but ,as ever in the USA, it has a more listenable ,slightly more commercial edge;and even more american is that no-one bought it and we never heard of Edward M. Zajda ever again.Probably had to sell his studio at an incredible loss to pay off his debts for producing the album. This is why there's so much Early Electronica springing from socialist environments;you wouldn't lose your appartment in Hungary if your record bombs.


Tracklist:

A1 Study No. 10
A2 In March For Ann
A3 Points
B1 Magnificent Desolation
B2 Study No. 3


Saturday 18 July 2020

Various Artists ‎– "From Czech Electronic Music Studios" (Supraphon ‎– 1 11 1423) 1974


If ever there was a soundtrack to life in a police state then this is it. On State Label Supraphon, with cover art from some twisted nightmarish detention centre inmate after a long spell of sleep deprivation, this musique concréte escapade emits all the joylessness of a lifetime spent under curfew.
Largely involving tape manipulation,and thankfully lacking access to the Soviet Union's state-owned EMS synthi 100 in Moscow, the edited and varispeeded recorded sounds have all the characteristics of a fully furnished subterranean dungeon in Prague.
Each new track is like an interrogator saying "Let's Go back to the Beginning",as it seems we've been here before but still aren't any wiser as to what you did last summer,especially as every day feels like winter.Music that'll make you admit to anything to avoid the 'Bath of Shit' part of the afternoon.Nothing's worth that illegally imported pair of jeans you purchased from that under-cover policeman last July.
Most of Czechoslavakia's prog rock fraternity were locked up in the same interrogation centre that this stuff evokes,but you could get away with it if you achieved the status of of 'Official Musician'. Without the nod from the State you weren't allowed to play music to a paying audience,if at all.Anything 'western' or subversive was an arrestable offence; as the Zappa-esque Plastic People Of The Universe found out. 
The composers of these creepy early electronic cattle prod-a-gogo instruments of aural torture,were,of course, possessors of pieces of paper that allowed them the distinction of being official 'State Composers', so they were safe in their state provided accomodation.....undoubtedly bugged,but its a rent controlled roof over one's head, where subversive thoughts could be encrypted into indecipherable weird noises and passed off as 'Avant-Garde'.


Tracklist:

1 –Zbyněk Vostřák - Scales Of Light (1967) 13:55
2 –Miloslav Ištvan - Isle Of Toys (1968) 9:25


Two Parts From The Kinetic Ballet (1968)

3 –Václav Kučera - The Labyrinth 14:00
4 –Václav Kučera - The Spiral 7:35


Friday 17 July 2020

Various ‎Artists – "Magyar Elektronikus Zene: Hungarian Electronic Music" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 11851) 1979


Oh Those Hungarians and their weird Iron curtain ways,and their kerazzzzy christian names like.....er.....Peter!!!?.....two Peters in fact.Theres a Peter Winkler on here,surely no relation to Fonz legend Henry I trust? Anything's possible in the world of avant garde Electronic music,even a 'Happy Days' connection.Despite the music summoning enough power through discomfort to rename this shit TV series as "Unhappy Days"
I'm relieved to say that the other names are far more in the malevolent dictator realm,like Ivan, and the previously discussed Zoltan......wasn't that the hound of Dracula's name?
The...er.....'music', is suitably castle dungeon in it's homeliness.
The odd appearance of The Soup Dragon from the Clangers,in Zoltan's work,place the evil one head and shoulders above his compatriots,although its all jolly sinister.Evoking empty space,lonliness and fear amongst the moist cloisters of a vampire's mountain top chateau.A Hungarian 'Trump Tower',but with taste.

Tracklist:

A1 –Zoltán Pongrácz - Mariphonia(1972) 8:07
A2 –Zoltán Pongrácz - Egy Cisz-Dur Akkord Története (1975) 5:48
A3 –Peter Eötvös - Mese: Rövidített Változat (1968) 12:18
B1 –Iván Patachich - Magánhangzók: Ta Fonaenta (1976) 8:06
B2 –Iván Patachich - Hangzó Függvények (1975) 10:37
B3 –Máté Victor & Péter Winkler - Viscositas (1975) 5:12


Wednesday 15 July 2020

Zoltán Pongrácz ‎– "144 Sounds: Electronic Music" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12433) 1982


Most Hungarians have names that are later used for the character of an Evil God in cheapo kids fantasy cartoon series'. Zoltan , the bringer of pestilence,with a few of those weird Hungarian Dogs straining on the end of some chain heavy leash. One day Zoltan hopes to compete at 'Crufts',but for now he'll make do with just doing evil.Keep it simple Zolt.
This Zoltan makes evil sounding neo-classical electronics,complete with the barking hounds of Zoltan. Not the type of Electronics anyone can do mind....there's some craft to Mr. Pongrácz's electronic compositions. Sound effects as music, this most certainly is not! There's dark and light shading, and lots of stagey Hungarian monologues,in the style of those early Kluster albums (get them here and here). Again, I dunno what the voice is going on about,and I don't wanna know, it invariably lessens the mystery. I avoided seeing pictures of Joy Division, and I avoid translations of dark foreign language solioquies, to maintain the enigma.Nothing beats the perfection of the human imagination.
There's choirs too, like some Magyar version of the Omen.
Chimps could not make this,not even the infinate chimp,unlike the chumps who make that random knob twisting "I've got an expensive synth and you haven't" electronica' waving their Karl Heinz Stockhausen correspondence course certificate in your face mockingly,chanting "you don't understaaaand, you don't understaaand, nah nah n-nah naaaah!"


Tracklist:

A1 Madrigál 10:03
A2 144 Hang 12:00
B1 A Balgaság Dícsérete 18:26
B2 Sesquiatera 7:22


László Dubrovay ‎– "A² "/ "Oscillations Nos. 1-3" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12030) 1979


Any cover with close ups of an EMS synth is always iminently purchasable,and doubly so if it comes from behind the Iron Curtain during the cold war times.
For some reason communist Hungarians had a Stockhausen fixation, and enthusiastically made silly electronic noises and drew charts with the same efficiency as they helped Eichmann deport a million jewish citizens to the Auschwitz labour camp (notice how i called it 'a labour camp' to avoid know all anti-zion conspiracists telling me how many really died and how.....yeah we got holocaust fatigue as well as conspiracy fatique.....look I Don't Care understand!?...and yeah yeah yeah, I'm a Fascist,which is different to a Nazi by the way...well done you keyboard finger pointers....well done).
I figure that the only western records they could smuggle through customs were by Stockhausen,which would explain the number of serious electronic composers in Magyar land.....But that does not explain their numerous ,badly dressed prog bands, like the dreadful 'Omega',which i did feature on the blog, but ,true communists that they were/are, they made a DCMA complaint against me and the download had to be withdrawn(but you can check it here in the post on the terrible hungaro-rock album "Bum".
Its funny how former commies now make for the very worst capitalists.Humans do have a natural tendancy to burn down their houses to keep themselves warm,capitaist or communist.That's why, neither dogma works.
These electronic pieces are from the 'I've got a Synth and I'm gonna Use It school of 'Because I Can'.
A series of very pointless sound effects rechristened as music. Its great background music to a slow moving science fiction epic, or a wacky off-kilter fondue evening, but taking it seriously as a modern composition is strictly for the pseudo-intellectual in your cell.
Maybe this was an easy way to get a more favourable appartment in the brutalist tower block that László was allocated before he became an 'Artist', I dunno.Basically, he had access to an astronomically expensive EMS synth and his fellow brothers and sisters did not.....that's equality for you.
Good cover though.


Tracklist:

A1 "A²" (16:38)
A2 Oscillations No. 3 (9:45)
B1 Oscillations No. 1 (18:00)
B2 Oscillations No. 2 (11:50)


Sunday 12 July 2020

Gil Mellé ‎– "Tome VI" (Verve Records ‎– V6-8744) 1968


Yes, it's 'Jazz'.....impressed?...nah,me niether.
But it's more than that, It's Jazz with an Early Electronics flavor......Now you're 'Hip',all the way from the original hipster to the modern hipster all in one package with free beard grooming kit.
Gil made the "Andromeda Strain" Soundtrack, which featured rather more Electronics as played by a bunch of chimps at Twycross Zoo.The same Zoo which had a chimp who could gob a ball of rancid saliva at a chump,this chump,doing monkey impressions over 50 metres away,effortlessy. A bit like a Jazz Trumpeter.
It has been mentioned on the wonderful interweb that yours truly has no idea how difficult it is to make free-form electronic soundscapes,especially in the early 70's. Well, I have a lot of idea how difficult it is to make electronic sounscapes with fuck all money,in fact I'd say it would be nigh-on impossible.An accusation made by someone who makes electronic soundscapes about someone who doesn't because everyone does nowadays is rather irrelevant anyhow. Yes, a bunch of chimps with a VCS3 could make a wonderful noise,but, like me, they have bugger-all money to buy one,even the budget Behringer version.
Here we find our Gil making glorious Free Jazz improv with ...yes,Electronics, to show how hard it is to make improvised Jazz music...and the key word here is 'Music'. Basically any discerning pond dweller can make a complete racket,but at the expense of the music.....that's the hard bit. Make all the soundscapes and funny noises you want, but makin' melodies ain't easy, buying a synthesizer and switching it on, is.
This album is great, and as a bonus you can impress everyone  as to how intellectual you are at the same time.Jazz is, Jazz was,chacachacaaaaah!


Tracklist:

1.Blue Quasar 15:15
2.Elgin Marble 4:15
3.Man With The Flashlight 11:40
4.Jog Falls Spinning Song 6:15


Saturday 11 July 2020

Trevor Duncan ‎– "Other Worlds" (Impress ‎– IA 428) 1981


Was there ever an American called Trevor?
The infamous,or, Not famous, composer of the main theme to "Plan 9 From Outer Space" has a glaringly 'English' name, from the Eric Clapton skool of Les Noms Anglaise? Was probably born in Squatney, next door to Nigel Tufnel and David St Hubbins of Spinal Tap.......it says Camberwell here...close;but then we find out that his real name was a very foreign sounding Leonard Charles Trebilco,and now we're all confused,and a tad saddened!
Alas he redeems himself by working for the BBC,just before the Radiophonic Workshop was formed back in '56, and went down the freelance library music for films angle,which by a cruel twist of fate led to Edward D. Wood Jr selecting Trevor's music for the best worst movie ever made. I'm not even sure he would have been aware,or even paid, of this glorious fact before 'Death the proud brother(Criswell)' tapped him on his shoulder in 2005.
By the sound of this Library album from 1981, he would have blossomed had he stayed at the Beeb. This late period ,post synth Radiophonic Workshop era, collection of Electronica,could have been made by any of the post-Derbyshire staff on hand at Maida Vale studios.
In fact some of this stuff would not have seemed out of place on an 'Ash Ra' album,it being very proto-trance Manuel Gottshing in style.
Another thing I am a fan of is Library Music cover art,of which this is a glorious example, that suggests a willful workmanlike anonymity that most muscians balk at. Bright,but unassuming colours,clean lines,library label font bigger and snazzier than the composers name,and absolutely no pictures.
Most musicians' idea of cover art is a full size picture of their own face with name writ large to the expense of both taste and information.


Tracklist:

A1 Galactic Congress 4:12
A2 Cyclopulse 2:56
A3 Enigma On Centaurus VII 2:39
A4 Downtime On Lasvega V 3:30
A5 Sunrise On Aldebaren III 3:25
A6 Sunset On Sirius IV 2:15
A7 Girowarp 2:40
A8 Landscape On Rigel VI 2:53
B1 Beltegeuse V 3:29
B2 Outpost On Beltegeuse V 1:58
B3 Terror On Beltegeuse V 1:51
B4 Megadrive 2:39
B5 Laybeam I 2:03
B6 Laybeam II 0:38
B7 Laybeam III 1:26
B8 Eden On Arcturus IV 3:45
B9 Asteroid Trail I 1:59
B10 Asteroid Trail II 1:05
B11 Asteroid Trail III 1:04
B12 Asteroid Trail IV 1:07


Friday 10 July 2020

Criswell ‎– "The Legendary Criswell Predicts Your Incredible Future" (Horoscope Records ‎– H-156) 1970


"We are all interested in the future, for that is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives !", said bonkers TV Psychic Criswell....he didn't have any other names apparently,which is usually the hallmark of a genius. Criswell certainly had a genius in the way he could predict virtually nothing that came true.Thanks to the benefit of living precisely 20 years after the Criswell predicted 'End of the World',we can look back and definitely cross vending machine sex-change operations off of the list for starters.
I am rather envious of that splendid cultivated kiss curl that can be located revolving from his receeding hairline.
It may surprise you to know, but the Narrator of 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' was predictably, a rampant Homosexual.Which would have made him fit in rather snuggly with all the other freaks and outsiders that made up the Edward D. Wood Jr entourage.
The low budget Nostradamus supplies us with 40 minutes of wide ranging predictions,that if the same analysis technique as applied to the cryptic verse of the mad monk of Provence, all of these madcap alternative futures have already happened,and this where you heard them first......and last, because, like Nostradamus....None of them came,or will appear to become true,without a dumpster full of autistic licence.
But, we laugh at Criswell, and take Nostradamus as 'real'??
The most disturbing thing about this trash culture clairvoyance is that its trival targets are only too omnipresent in this post Criswell future.Death, the proud brother, tapped on his shoulder well before he could bask in his cult glory, and before he could take advantage of having his remains blasted into outer space by missle.This prediction at least, did come true;but sadly,in the case of James "Scottie" Doohan of Star Trek.His rocket never made it into space, and crashed somewhere in the Mojave Desert...."the Engines could nae take it Captain!"

Tracklist:

1. Criswell Predicts Your Incredible Future (42.01)
2. Someone Walked Over My Grave (Bonus) (1:47)

I predict that you will DOWNLOAD these predictions HERE"

Thursday 9 July 2020

Various Artists - "Plan 9 From Outer Space - The Original Music Underscore" (Retrosonic Records ‎– RR-1001) 1959/1996


Here we have DIY cinema at its very zenith on a lavish budget of precisely  Fuck all. (watch it HERE!)
Edward D. Wood Jr's anti-nuclear masterpiece, and Bela Lugosi's final nail in his coffin...literally.
Now you can recreate all that amazing dialogue with the backing music, which Ed got from some cheapo Hollywood music library. Quite a few bits of this soundtrack turn up elsewhere in the Hollywood dumpster.For example, the Plan 9 main theme pops up in that other schlocksploitation movie "The Wild Women Of Wongo".....another DIY movie of impressive incompetence.
The 'Main Theme' was written by ex-BBC employee, Trevor Duncan.Who left the BBC the year Daphne Oram arrived, to earn more money in Hollywood,but,in the process,become totally forgotten.
As Delia Derbyshire made the immortal "Dr Who Theme" at the BBC, at least Trev wrote the  Theme to 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'?.....apparently this fact was not engraved upon his tombstone,a glaring error on a not too unremarkable CV.


Tracklist:

1 Prelude
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 0:52
2 Main Title
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 2:09
3 The Shadows Of Grief
Composed By – Van Phillips 1:39
4 Gravediggers
Composed By – Bruce Campbell, Steve Race 0:57
5 Lost Roses Of Her Cheeks
Composed By – Bruce Campbell 1:10
6 Tragic!
Composed By – Bruce Campbell 0:39
7 Police Squad
Composed By – Van Phillips 0:30
8 I'm A Big Boy Now, Johnny
Composed By – Franz Mahl (2) 1:18
9 Piano Talk: Jeff & Paula
Composed By – John O'Notes 2:57
10 Clay Stalked And Killed
Composed By – James Stevens (9), Trevor Duncan 1:53
11 Plan 9 Interlude
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 0:58
12 The Bell Has Rung
Composed By – Van Phillips 1:22
13 Saucers Over Hollywood
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 2:20
14 Col. Edward's Big Decision
Composed By – Van Phillips 1:25
15 Saucer Fire
Composed By – Van Phillips 1:02
16 Your Pillow Beside Me
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 1:23
17 The Old Ghoul Walks
Composed By – Franz Mahl 0:42
18 Mac Calls Paula
Composed By – Franz Mahl 0:45
19 Cemetery Chase / Clay Rises
Composed By – Trevor Duncan, Van Phillips 3:56
20 The Old Ghoul Retreats
Composed By – Franz Mahl 1:06
21 Graveyard Marionettes
Composed By – Ward Sills 1:47
22 Kelton Lights A Match
Composed By – Franz Mahl 0:44
23 Drop Your Electrode Gun!
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 0:22
24 There's Something Out There
Composed By – Trevor Duncan 2:18
25 Clay Abducts Paula
Composed By – Steve Race 0:40
26 Eros, Do We Have To Kill Them?
Composed By – Wolfgang Droysen 1:22
27 Someday It'll All Be Gone
Composed By – Wolfgang Droysen* 2:18
28 Kelton & Larry Enter Ship
Composed By – James Stevens 0:46
29 Fight / Fire / Finale
Composed By – Van Phillips 3:10
30 God Help Us In The Future
Composed By – Gilbert Vinter, Trevor Duncan 2:15


DOWNLOAD plans 1-30 from outta cyber-space HERE!

Monday 6 July 2020

Vangelis ‎– "Blade Runner" (EastWest ‎– 4509-96574-2) 1982/1994


On the day that soundtrack miester Ennio Morricone left us at the mercy of John Williams, and that bloke from Radiohead to do our soundtracks, here's a rare thing indeed...a great Vangelis record.
It also happens to be from another of my super bestest filmy wilmy's, The Magnificent "Blade Runner" (original version).
A fine existential exploration into what makes one alive or not?
It contains one of the greatest final speeches in the history of ,at least, Science Fiction,written by dutch acty-man Rutger Hauer.
If i could replce the words with Spaghetti western and italian soft-porn references, it would also have been a perfect tribute for the Legendary Ennio,but, unlike Roy the replicant,all those moments aren't lost in time;they're all on record until the end of human civilisation.
Hopefully in a hundred or so years he will earn his rightful place alongside Bach,Beethoven,Beefheart and Danny and the Dressmakers,in the pantheon of great composer elite.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.......Time to die!"


Tracklist:

1.Main Titles 3:42
2.Blush Response 5:47
3.Wait For Me 5:27
4.Rachel's Song 4:46
5.Love Theme 4:56
6.One More Kiss, Dear 3:58
7.Blade Runner Blues 8:53
8.Memories Of Green 5:05
9.Tales Of The Future 4:46
10.Damask Rose 2:32
11.Blade Runner (End Titles) 4:40
12.Tears In Rain 3:00


Sunday 5 July 2020

Wendy Carlos ‎– "The Shining (Complete Motion Picture Score By Wendy Carlos)" (Overlook Productions ‎– LOOK-CD19802005) 1980/2005



"HEEEEEEERRRRRREEEESSSSS JONNY!"
I was tempted to just post pages and pages of the repeated phrase "All Work And No Play Makes Jonny A Dull Boy", but i can't resist the temptation to write something full of Shiningisms,as this has to be up near the top of my favourite movie list.
Wendy Carlos was no longer Walter, and ,although there's a shed load of  spooky experimental classical music included,likely chosen by Kubrick, She provided a suitably sinister minimal electronic score.
Jack Torrence reminds me of myself, the amount of times the scene when Wendy interrupts Jack at 'work' was repeated in my mountain hideaway makes me shudder with embarassment.
Admitedly I never smashed down a door with an axe, but as David Banner in the Lou Ferringo Hulk used to say..."Don't Make Me Angry, you won't like me when I'm Angry"!
My former partner was no shrinking violet either, think of Clint Eastwood's stalker,Evelyn, from "Play Misty For Me".....she was frightening, sheeech!She threatened to 'kill me and slit my girlfriends throat at one stage......worst thing is I believed her! Later diagnosed with 'Borderline Personality Disorder', whatever that means.So as she's on medication I can sleep soundly without fear of being stabbed up by a nutter. Now, no-one interrupts me when i'm at work except my drummer,but at least he brings beer so that's almost ok.So Jonny's now a dull boy again.
This movie also has the marvellously named Scatman Crothers, more famous as the voice of 'Hong Kong Phooey', as Mr O'Halleron, of which I do a peerless impression.
"How d'You like some Ice  cream doc?"

"That's strange sir, I don't have any recollection of that at all?", said Delbert Grady in that fantastic restroom scene.....That's because a lot of this music wasn't used,or even made for the final movie,which is a shame 'cus its nicely creepy,and a tad disturbing. The "Kill,Kiiiiil" bit in 'Horror Show' was too close to home for comfort;an insight into the malfunctioning brain of my ex-partner!(Shudder).
There's lots of use of dialogue from the film itself, and from other shining related sources underlaying the out-takes/remakes.Sadly,as you may notice, not all of these music cues are from the original soundtrack or film, they are re-creations,this being an unofficial release...well done yes, but if you were hoping for the ORIGINAL score in digital format, this ain't it,but...it's better than the original vinyl so thats what we've got.All the Bartok and Penderecki stuff is worth the price of admission alone.
It's just sad that Jack Nicholson made more movies after this...he really should have stopped there.


Tracklist:

1-1 Opening [Altered Ancient Anthem - Dies Irae Aka Day Of Wrath : 25th Anniversary Version] 3:00
1-2 The Shining Title Music 3:51
1-3 Danny 1:28
1-4 Colorado 1:13
1-5 The Rocky Mountains 1:46
1-6 The Overlook Hotel 3:52
1-7 Visitors 2:17
1-8 Dark Winds And Rustles 1:49
1-9 Greetings Ghosties 2:19
1-10 Horror Show 1:04
1-11 A Haunted Waltz 0:37
1-12 Subliminal Ballroom 1:16
1-13 Paraphrase For Cello 3:23
1-14 Two Polymoog Improvisations 1:47
1-15 A Ghost Piano 1:58
1-16 Paraphrase For Brass 1:34
1-17 Setting With Medea 2:10
1-18 Clockworks - Dies Irae 2:17
1-19 Heartbeats And Worrying 2:10
1-20 Psychic Shout - Room 237 1:14
1-21 Danny Bells Ascending 1:19
1-22 Psychic Scream 1:25
1-23 Thought Clusters 0:55
1-24 Fanfare And Drunkenness - Dies Irae 1:33
1-25 Day Of Wrath 1:04
1-26 Where Is Jack? 5:21
1-27 Bumps In The Night 3:02
1-28 Chase Music 1:11
1-29 Postlude 1:09
1-30 Title Music - Dies Irae 3:42
1-31 Clockworks - Bloody Elevators [Trailer Music] 2:18
1-32 Nocturnal Valse Triste [Making The Shining] 1:22
1-33 Main Title [Original Album Version] 3:23
1-34 Rocky Mountains [Original Album Version] 2:53
1-35 Reprise 0:49
1-36 Episode From The Life Of An Artist, Op.14 / Fantastic Symphony, Fifth Movement - Dream Of A Witches Sabbath : Dies Irae 4:55
1-37 Death, Op.44 / First Movement - Sad Waltz: Lento [Valse Triste, Excerpt] 4:18
1-38 Dance Of Death, Op.457 - Dies Irae [Paraphase, Excerpt] 2:48
1-39 Home [When Shadows Fall] 4:31
1-40 Warner Bros. Logo 0:14
2-1 Lontano For Orchestra [As From A Distance, Sustained With Expression Aka Window On Long Submerged Dream Worlds Of Childhood] 11:27
2-2 Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta [Celebrating The 10th Anniversary Of An Orchestra] - Third Movement : Adagio 7:14
2-3 Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta - First Movement : Andante Tranquillo [Excerpt] 3:56
2-4 Morning Prayer II - Resurrection : Gospel 2:18
2-5 Morning Prayer II - Resurrection : Passover Canon 2:47
2-6 The Awakening Of Jacob [Aka The Dream Of Jacob] 8:06
2-7 Nature Sonorities I [Aka On The Nature Of Sound I] 7:13
2-8 Nature Sonorities II [Aka On The Nature Of Sound II] 8:55
2-9 Polymorphia For 48 Strings 10:35
2-10 Canon For 52 Strings And Tape Delay 9:31
2-11 Concerto For Cello And Orchestra I [Excerpt] 4:28
2-12 Home [When Shadows Fall] 3:00
2-13 Midnight, The Stars And You 3:24
2-14 It's All Forgotten Now 3:19
2-15 Masquerade 3:14


Saturday 4 July 2020

Walter Carlos ‎– "Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange" (CBS ‎– 73059) 1972


As your loyal scribe nicked his nom de plume from the top ten(Number 2 if I remember correctly?) in the chart in the pop-disk shop featured in "A Clockwork Orange" , it seems only too fitting to include this oscar nominated score in this brief section of electronic soundtracks for movies. It could have also fit comfortably in the thread one did on early female electronic pioneers.....except this was done by the male Carlos,Walter, just before his gender reassignment, as Wendy.
Generally,i'm not too big a fan of Wendy Carlos's synth work.It's electrified classics direction stunk of elevator muzak,as did the up and coming warbles in the 'Switched On Bach' series. What's the point in accurately transcribed classical works on a Moog?Why not just hear these over played compositions as they were supposed to be slooshied? New music for new instruments is the long respected tradition innit?
Soundtrack work was the perfect place for Wendy or Walter to tinkle their ivories.
A horrorshow of a movie,and the soundtrack is understated but with a sufficient level of sarky-ness to be a perfect bedfellow for this parable about directionless ultra-violent yoof.
I think I got a pain in me gulliver missus.


Tracklist:

1 Timesteps 13:50
2 March From A Clockwork Orange (Beethoven: Ninth Symphony: Fourth Movement, Abridged) 7:00
3 Title Music From A Clockwork Orange (From Purcell's "Music For The Funeral Of Queen Mary") 2:21
4 La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie, Abridged) 5:50
5 Theme From A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana) 1:44
6 Ninth Symphony: Second Movement (Scherzo) 4:52
7 William Tell Overture (Abridged) 1:17
8 Country Lane 4:43