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    Vladimir Ussachevsky – Electronic and Acoustic Works 1957-1972

    July 31st, 2008

    Vladimir Ussachevsky - Electronic and Acoustic Works 1957-1972

    This is a reissue of an old CRI CD that was released back in 1999. It contains electronic tape music, tape music with chorus and chorus alone. The first six tracks, which span 1957-1971, contain short interludes of reverbed, clanging, beeping, shocking, echoing and garbled sound realms of atypical twilight. “Of Wood And Brass” is an especially raucous yet carefully composed pile-up of inhuman sounds. Very nice, indeed. “Three Scenes From The Creation” (1960) is for chorus, mezzo-soprano and electronic tape. It’s really odd to hear straight-ahead classical choral singing accompanied and interrupted by such startling noises—a very unique phenomenon, to say the least. “Missa Brevis” is a work for soprano and chorus alone.

    Label: New World Records Catalog Number: 80654-2 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 13 Total Time: Unknown Country: United States Released: 2007 Related Artists: Otto Luening More: Discogs, Forced Exposure, Wikipedia


    Vladimir Ussachevsky – Film Music

    July 31st, 2008

    Vladimir Ussachevsky -  Film Music

    Vladimir Ussachevsky was among the earliest tape music composers, who combined the musique concrète style of France with Germany’s pure electronic approach, and took almost immediate advantage of the magnetic tape recorder when it first appeared at the beginning of the 1950s. He also co-founded The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1959. “Suite From No Exit” (1962) is a 14-minute soundtrack for a film of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit directed by Orson Welles, comprised of six short interludes of appropriate moodiness. Hazy, midnight curtains; violent, echoing clangs and hissing mists coalesce into each other with ease.

    “Line Of Apogee” (1967) is a much lengthier 43-minute soundtrack for an avant-garde film of the same name by Lloyd Williams. It combines environmental, vocal and instrumental sounds into a vast array of billowing curtains. Electronic hissing, menacing winds, distant clanging, somber piano, sirens morphing into operatic singing that is transformed further into insanely cut-up shards and shimmers, classical vocals, electronic echo-knocks, synth beeps, rain, children’s music box, stormy clouds, a lone seal call, a woman’s crazy laughing, mangled webs of electronic sounds, urgent beeping—all soaked with supreme, dark ambience. “The path to light lies through darkness,” intones a somber male voice just before a loud, hissing sound takes over, with wind. Another dim cloud floats into view as a second voice, this time female, intones: “Darkness is difficult, pathfinders are few. You have ended your quest that you may begin anew. You have found yourself that you may be reborn beyond yourself. Come into the light. I am with you. I am waiting.” Some strange tones then sound as the aforementioned male voice reappears one last time: “The answer: only the truth disguised in a dream.”

    Label: New World Records Catalog Number: 80389-2 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 13 Total Time: 57:16 Country: United States Released: 1990 Related Artists: Otto Luening More: Discogs, Forced Exposure, Wikipedia