Saturday 2 May 2020

Ruth White ‎– "Short Circuits" (Angel Records ‎– S-36042) 1971


After she finished her two occult inspired 'Experimental' albums for Limelight, Ruth White resorted to more comfortable territory in music for kids and families, where she spent most of her career.
This is basically one in a long line of electronic novelty records from the post war years. It's not unlike that classic Perrey and Kingsley album "The In Sound From Way Out", and i think they even did a version of  "The Flight Of The Bumblebee" on one of their multitundenous other albums. The difference is that Perrey and Kingsley made their albums from hours of painfully slow tape editing,splicing together thousands of short one-note long pieces of tape which contained an oscillator tone,and making a tape patchwork that became a tune.Amazing dedication to novelty music which deserves a medal.
Ruth, did no such thing for her novelty electronic album...she actually played a syntheziser,something that didn't exist in the fifties and early sixties.The only tape trickery she did was to slow the tape speed down so she could appear to play faster.
She still manages to sound a bit wierd anyway,and there are plenty of classic Modular Moog sounds to please even the most travelled samplist.
This one got lost amongst the tidal wave of 'Moog'plays the classics records of the early 70's.


Tracklist:

The Flight Of The Bumblebee 1:20
Gymnopédie No. 1 2:30
The Snow Is Dancing 2:07
Variations On Couperin's Rondeau 1:38
The Butterfly 1:37
Anvil Chorus 1:25
Tempo Di Ballo 2:48
Etude In G Flat 1:32
Solfeggietto 1:50
Prelude In E Minor 2:14
Polka From "The Age Of Gold" 2:10
The Ball 1:36
Sonata In G 1:58
Asturias 5:20


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for Ruth White records!