Leo Kupper – Electro-Acoustic
Born in 1935 in Nidrum, Belgium, Leo Kupper worked with Henri Pousseur from 1959 to 1962 at Apelac, the first electronic music studio in that country. In 1967, he became the founder and director of the Studio de Recherches et de Structurations Electroniques Auditives in Brussels, and, from 1977 to 1987, he followed that up with Sound Domes in Roma, Linz, Venezia and Avignon. His first foray into the world of commercial recordings was back in the era of vinyl records in the ’70s and ’80s, followed up in the ’90s by discs of the compact variety. I’ll have to admit that on first listen, his Electro-Acoustic CD from 1996 caught me by surprise, as I was expecting a more Xenakis-like lamination of huge, grainy placemats, only to receive pretty much the opposite. The three-track “Electro-Acoustic Santur” (1989), for the Santur (an ancient, 72-string Persian instrument played with sticks, fingers and brush) and electronic sounds, stretches out beautiful taps and plucks of clear string resonance over a canvas of deep hisses, subdued drones and bird-like warbles.
The next three tracks are claimed by “Guitarra Cubana” (1988), which pairs Spanish-style, acoustic, prepared guitar playing with treated vocal drones and other subtle electronic mayhem. “Inflexions Vocales” (1982) is a “quiet, meditative piece” for soprano and a DAT tape containing stretched-out vocals that form a very misty, atmospheric backdrop along with bells and “high electronic impulse sounds which evoke birds.” Overall, it sounds like a vague mixture of Meredith Monk and Brian Eno. “Le Reveur Au Sourire Passager” (1977) is a work for spoken poem. Many layers of the speaker’s voice are sprinkled about the stereo field and transformed into all kinds of metallically-filtered and cut-up debris. “The poem is accompanied by sound streams originating from transformed music, such as electronic materials. Those materials create the background of the recited poem and bind it in a synchronized continuity with its meaning. The composition, through the poem, describes a dark, vast world incomprehensible and mysterious.”
Label: Pogus Catalog Number: P21009-2 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 8 Total Time: 70:17 Country: United States Released: 1996 More: Discogs, Last.FM, Pogus, Sub Rosa
Text ©2003 Arcane Candy
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