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

DOWNLOAD a little electronics and a whole lotta HORNS HERE"

Various Artists ‎– "Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 1 (1955-1966)" (Composers' Voice ‎– CV 7803) 1978

On a purely Intellectual note to start off with......TeeHeeHeeeee......His name is Hans Kox...titter titter! Fnar Fnar Kyuk Kyuk!
Well, Hans off yer Kox now,and lets get serious.....Nah!
Like everywhere else,the Dutch think they invented Electronic music,and one has to say,they were pretty close to having a point.
The origin of Electronic music is almost as tiresome an argument as who invented Punk Rock.....but in Punk Rocks' case it was quite clearly England, Not Detroit,Not New York,Not Scotland...England,gottit?
As for coherent electronic composition, it seems,on the whole, to be a French thing, although it turns out that Daphne Oram of the BBC may have trumped Pierre Shaeffer,but it was kept traditionally  Hush Hush in that understated British way.We don't like show-offs over there  y'know?
One thing that the Dutch are world class at however, is Funny Names.

Hans Kox .....gaffaw gaffaw. laff laff!

Tracklist:

Studio Of The Netherlands Radio Union
A1 –Hans Kox - Three Pieces For Electronic Organ 3:48
A2 –Ton De Leeuw - Study 6:47
Studio Of Delft Technical University
A3 –Jan Boerman - Musique Concrète 3:04
A4 –Jaap Spek - Impulses 7:58
A5 –Rudolf Escher - The Long Christmas Dinner 6:15
Philips Studio
B1 –Henk Badings - Cain And Abel 8:57
B2 –Dick Raaijmakers - Piano-Forte 4:56
B3 –Ton De Leeuw - Antiphonie 15:17
Studio Of Utrecht University
C1 –Frits C. Weiland - Studie In Lagen En Impulsen 4:46
C2 –Hans Kox - Cyclophonie III 7:33
C3 –Tom Dissevelt - Fantasy In Orbit 3:05
C4 –Axel Meijer - Werkstuk-1964 2:32
C5 –Robbert Jan De Neeve - A.F. 1:17
C6 –Peter Schat - De Aleph 7:46
Studio Of Ton Bruynèl
D1 –Ton Bruynèl - Reflexen 4:34
CEM Studio, Bilthoven
D2 –Will Eisma - BTH. 3457 4:08
D3 –Klaus Gorter - K 45 5:40
D4 –Luctor Ponse - Etude-I 6:19
D5 –Berend Giltay - Polychromie-I 6:42

DOWNLOAD some early electronics with clogs on HERE!

Else Marie Pade ‎– "Face It" (Dacapo Records ‎– 8.224233) 1957-1970

Denmarks version of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was basically just Else Marie Pade, who made weird aural backing tracks for Danish Radiophonic plays.
Musique Concrete is very much in evidence for Symphonie Magnétophonique, but the Little Mermaid, is very much in the realms of Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshires work for the BBC. For us non-Danish speakers, it sound even weirder because of the narration of this Classical Danish fairytale,which sounds like someone speaking backwards to the average Anglo-Saxon ear.
Face It's title track is where it gets really weird,with some unknown Danish phraze concerning a certain ranting German dictator, repeated in a loop,with filtered extracts from one of Adolf's very nasty nazi rally speeches.This was a full decade before William Bennett decided to do the same thing, rather less subtly I may add, for his various Throbbing Gristle aping Come Org projects.Especially unsubtle were his remixes of Maurizio Bianchi's work
Else Marie got there first,and she even fought against the Nazi's in the resistance too,before GPO and Bennett were even a twinkle in their fathers eye,and still in short trousers when these recordings were made.Having said that, I severely doubt they ever heard any of Pade's work....even if they were Danish.


Tracklist:

1 Symphonie Magnétophonique (1958) 19:27
2 The Little Mermaid 42:54 (1957-8)
3 Face It 7:58 (1970)

DOWNLOAD and face it HERE!

Daphne Oram - "Private Dreams And Public Nightmares" (1957)

Groundbreaking pre-Radiophonic Workshop experimental Radio from Daphne Oram and Frederick Bradnum. Introduced by producer Donald McWhinnie, in that cut-glass BBC accent that no-one in Britain is lumbered with anymore. Donald explains the horrific broadcast that would have sent most children of the era to hide in their room, and most normal vintage 1957 adults running for pen and paper to write a stiffly worded letter of complaint to the authorities.
It certainly is a creepy experience, even for the desentized minds of 2020. No-one was doing stuff like this in 1957.It's to the BBC's credit that they allowed this kind of experimentation to continue,although they also did very little to encourage it.
This programme was the pre-curser to Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange's fantastic "Inventions For Radio" from 1964/5.
As Donald said
“This programme is an experiment. An exploration. It’s been put together with enormous enthusiasm and equipment designed for other purposes. The basis of it is an unlimited supply of magnetic tape, recording machine, razor blade, and some thing to stick the bits together with. And a group of technicians who think that nothing is too much trouble – provided that it works.You take a sound. Any sound. Record it and then change its nature by a multiplicity of operations. Record it at different speeds. Play it backwards. Add it to itself over and over again. You adjust filters, echos, acoustic qualities. You combine segments of magnetic tape. By these means and many others you can create sounds which no one has ever heard before. Sounds which have indefinable and unique qualities of their own. A vast and subtle symphony can be composed from the noise of a pin dropping. In fact one of the most vibrant and elemental sounding noises in tonight’s programme started life as an extremely tinny cowbell.
It’s a sort of modern magic. Many of you may be familiar with it. They’ve been exploiting it on the continent for years. But strangely enough we’ve held aloof. Partly from distrust. Is it simply a new toy? Partly through complacency. Ignorance too. We’re saying at last that we think there’s some thing in it. But we aren’t calling it ‘musique concrète’. In fact we’ve decided not to use the word music at all. Some musicians believe that it can become an art form itself. Others are sceptical. That’s not our immediate concern. We’re interested in its application to radio writing – dramatic or poetic – adding a new dimension. A form that is essentially radio.
Properly used, radiophonic effects have no relationship with any existing sound. They’re free of irrelevent associations. They have an emotional life of their own. And they could be a new and invaluable strand in the texture of radio and theatre and cinema and television.”

DOWNLOAD for your own public dreams and someone else's private nightmares HERE!

Ken Nordine ‎– "Word Jazz" (Dot Records) 1957

'A somewhat new medium', it says on the cover. Was this the start of 'Rap'? There's certainly a beatnik vibe to these comforting mono monologues,and after all, 'Rap', was a hipster term for talking.
Yeah I know, us 'Honkys' are alway misapropriating Black Culture and claiming it for the supreme white race.I'm still looking for that KKK rap record,I'm sure it exists.However, I suppose I could slag, John Coltrane off for using a Belgian instrument, but I won't be so petty. We are Humans all, and Humans are responsible for Rap music......for their eternal shame.I'm proud to say it had fuck all to do with me.I can comfortably claim 'Nicht Schuldig' in the Nuremburg Rap Trials for crimes against music, fashion and culture in general, which ocurred in the mid to late 2050's......does this groovy concept come under Retro-Futurism or Alternative Histories?
Would you let a Rapper into your Nuclear Bunker,or hermatically sealed anti-Virus pod? Be it Vanilla Ice or Ice-T?...the answer is NO FUCKING WAY.Would sooner have a dose of anthrax or Radiation Sickness before I allowed even a basball cap anywhere near me during the nuclear winter.
Lots of actors started talking,rather than singing over some hip music from the mid to late (nineteen)fifties onwards,and i guess there were similar star vehicles before Nordine,but Ken gets the plaudits.
Nordines smooth voice flows like hot chocolate sauce over a waffle,and his intonation gives these charming stories a slightly surreal edge,all layered over the Fred Katz Group's cartoon jazz.
Among the laid back vibes and cigarette commercial narration, there lies some astute observations about Human culture and behaviour of the naked ape.Above all,and its not something I refer to very often on this blog, its entertaining?

Tracklist:

A1 What Time Is It? 3:48
A2 My Baby 2:36
A3 Sound Museum 7:09
A4 The Vidiot 5:30
B1 Roger 5:05
B2 Hunger Is From 3:47
B3 Looks Like It's Going To Rain 3:27
B4 Flibberty Jib 4:42

DOWNLOAD the word you cool Katz HERE!

Robert Ashley ‎– "Wolfman" (Alga Marghen ‎– plana-A 20NMN.048) (2003)

Ok then, who invented Harsh Noise as entertainment?...I thought it was AMM,but turns out Robert Ashley, he of catatonic spoken word operas fame, beat them to it by a couple of years. The track "Wolfman (1964) could have been a early Merzbow out-take!? A fucked up mess of tape,voice and feedback that should have scared the living bejeezuz out of any Beatles fans.
Then he had a go at very early 'Ambient',with his 40 minute long tape collage "The Bottleman". This was the best part of 20 years before his dialogue operas for TV started taking shape.
The the late fifties and early sixties this was an extraordinary glance into an unimaginable musical,or non-musical future.
Now every fucker does this for home entertainment with their Granny on the effects table.

Tracklist:

1.The Fox (1957) electronic music and voice
characters adapted from a folk song by Burl Ives (5:15)

2.The Wolfman (1964) tape, voice and feedback
produced at the University of California at Davis by Composer-Performer Edition
first performed at Charlotte Moorman's "Festival of the Avant-Garde", New York, fall 1964 (18:10)

3.The Wolfman Tape (1964) tape-speed manipulation and mixes of many layers of "found" sounds
used as "sound environment" by Bob James for a jazz improvisation (ESP Records, 1965) (6:01)

4.The Bottleman (1960) tape composition with contact microphones, loudspeaker, vocal and other "found" sounds
composed for a George Manupelli film of the same title; single-projection version (43:30)

DOWNLOAD like a silver bullet HERE!