Arcane Candy

Two Ships is a set of live, improvised electro-acoustic music by the duo of Ellen Band–who is actually a woman, not a band–and David Lee Myers, who is actually a man, not a woman. (For the record, I’m not a human, I’m a spambot.) For the better part of an hour, these two buddies respond to each other’s sounds and push all kindsa aquatic, nocturnal clatter out of their equipment into the ether for any and all humans–and, as the sound waves propagate into infinity, eventually aliens–to enjoy. To quilt these intricate sonic tapestries, Ellen transforms field recordings of real world sounds, while David deploys custom-built electronic circuit boxes that feed back on themselves. The result is 12 tracks and 50 minutes worth of subtle static, dizzy percussion, babbling brooks, whistling wind, pinging metal and rusted scrapes that percolate and bubble along in a steady state, but never really climax. The booklet’s liner notes are mostly composed of a conversation between the two regarding their approach to playing together, in case you want to know how all of the hubbub came about.

Label: Pogus Catalog Number: P21035-2 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 12 Total Time: 50:08 Country: United States Released: 2005 More: Arcane Device, Ellen Band, Pogus, Pulsewidth

Text ©2013 Arcane Candy

Educated at the University of Kentucky, University of California at Davis, Mills College and New York University, Beth Anderson is a composer of neo-romantic music, text sound works and musical theater events. Peachy Keen-O is a 2003 CD collection of her early, non-academic, fence post-John Cage text sound pieces that span from 1973-79. Kicking off the album is “Torero Piece,” in which Beth’s mom delivers a touching essay about her troubled yet loving relationship with her daughter while Beth spits out a string of vowel and consonant sounds over the top. This track is simultaneously sentimental and strange. “Tower of Power” features a bunch of nice, dissonant organ blasts that result from the players’ arms smashing down all of the keys. As if that weren’t enough, it was recorded four times, then played back with a live performer doing the same thing over a bed of electronics, to very dense effect.

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Analogue Smoque is an extended work for solo narrator and electronics spread out over two CDs, 15 tracks and 100 minutes. Brandishing a robust radio voice, author and vocalist Mike Silverton smugly spews forth his wry, humorous, dada-inspired, stream-of-consciousness text. His speech is supported, on and off, by experimental musicans Al Margolis’ and Tom Hamilton’s subtle electronic sounds flitting and droning away, forming a strange, static sonic backdrop. Your enjoyment of it all will depend on how big a fan you are of spoken poetry and a kinder, gentler kind of noise.

Label: Pogus Catalog Number: P21029-2 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: Disc 1: 8, Disc 2: 7 Total Time: Disc 1: 49:17, Disc 2: 52:18 Country: United States Released: 2003 More: Mike Silverton, Tom Hamilton, Al Margolis, Pogus

Text ©2013 Arcane Candy

Warren Burt (born 1949) is a composer, performer, video artist, sound poet, writer, and instrument maker (hardware and software, electronic and acoustic). Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he’s lived in Melbourne and Wollongong, Australia since 1975. Warren earned a BA at the State University of New York, Albany in 1971; an MA at the University of California, San Diego in 1975; and a PhD at the University of Wollongong in 2007. Influenced by early minimalism–including the music of La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Harold Budd, and color field paintings by the likes of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman–Harmonic Color Fields is a “set of five computer pieces which explore static microtonal harmonic fields.” Basically, we’re talking about multiple layers of shrill, melancholy drones courtesy of such instruments as the Roland Sound Canvas synth, kinetic music machine, a PC286 Compatible computer and Russ Kozerski’s Drummer program. This album is perfect listening for any happy camper trapped inside on a rainy day. But, if you’re feeling despondent or suicidal, avoid it like the plague. This music is so gloomy, it may just push you over the edge.

Label: Pogus Catalog Number: P21028-2 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 5 Total Time: 68:29 Country: United States Released: 2003 More: Australian Music Center, Discogs, Last.FM, Rainer Lenz, Official, Pogus

Text ©2013 Arcane Candy

Savage Songs is a collection of early electronic music from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1961, at age 19, Jorge Atunes attended a concert of electronic music by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig, which greatly influenced him to start making his own. So, he wasted no time setting up shop in his parents’ house with a couple of reel-to-reel tape recorders and a self-built saw tooth wave generator. The fact that Jorge had already taken a course in electronics and was engaged in freelance radio repair sure didn’t hinder these early efforts. By 1964, Jorge started splicing tape and employing random objects like cardboard boxes, plastic containers and small drums in his music. Theremin, tape head echo and reverb out the wazoo followed not long after, as did piano and sound effects records. By 1967, he moved operations out of the house to establish the Antunes Studio of Chromo-Musical Research in the Villa-Lobos Institute. As the decade drew to a close, Jorge even recorded his first piece in a professional studio at the Torcuato di Tella Institute.

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Composer David Dunn (born 1953) began his musical life as Harry Partch’s assistant from 1970 to 1974. Over the decades since, he has created a huge catalog of sound works that run the gamut from traditional and experimental music, installations, soundtracks, radio broadcasts and bioacoustic research. David’s compositions and wildlife sound recordings have been featured in scores of forums, concerts, broadcasts and exhibitions. He has taught music courses at UCSD and the College of Santa Fe, and he is President of the Art and Science Laboratory. To sum it up, I guess you could say David Dunn has accomplished a lot, but he ain’t done yet!

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“Roger Reynolds (born 1934) studied music composition at the University of Michigan. Together with fellow classmates Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma, he was a founding member of the ONCE Group. In the late ‘60s, Reynolds settled in Southern California to teach composition at the University of California, San Diego, where he has been based to this day. Reynolds’ works most often include text of poetic or mythological origin, electronic sound elements, and multichannel spatial explorations.”–Wikipedia

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Comma lovers take note! I, Angelica is a vault-clearing double CD set released in 2001 by Pogus label main man, Al Margolis, and his ongoing free music project, If, Bwana. (Yep, there’s a comma in the artist’s name and the title. Is that enough punctuation for you?) The tracks on these two coasters span a whole decade, from 1992 through 2001, and send the attentive listener not on a space odyssey, but a sound one. Titled Nick Nack, disc one offers up six tracks of prime weird behavior courtesy of Al himself, who piled up multiple layers of such instruments as Arp 2600, Moog Rogue, computer, tapes, manipulations, guitar and steel cello.

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“Pauline Oliveros (born 1932) is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s, and served as its director. She has taught music at Mills College, the University of California, San Diego, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Oliveros has written books, formulated new music theories and investigated new ways to focus attention on music including her concepts of Deep Listening and sonic awareness.”—Wikipedia. Flowing from the same vein as her Alien Bog / Beautiful Soop CD on Pogus and Electronic Works CD on Paradigm, No Mo brings three more long (and lost) tape pieces from the 1960s kicking and screaming into the fright of night.

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“David Rosenboom (born 1947) is an American composer and a pioneer in the use of neurofeedback, cross-cultural collaborations and compositional algorithms. He studied composition, performance, and electronic music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Salvatore Martirano, Lejaren Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo and others. Working with Don Buchla in the 1960s, he was one of the first composers to use a digital synthesizer. He has taught at a whole mess of colleges since the ’70s, and is currently Professor of Music and Dean of the School of Music at CalArts.”—Wikipedia

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