Valerio Tricoli - Miseri Lares (PAN)

Deliberately forgetting every reference to instrumental causes or pre-existing musical significations, we then seek to devote ourselves entirely and exclusively to listening, to discover the instinctive paths that lead from the purely "sonorous" to the purely 'musical'. Such is the suggestion of acousmatics: to deny the instrument and cultural conditioning, to put in front of us the sonorous and its musical 'possibility''.
                                                                                                                                        - Pierre Schaeffer

Few of us can totally escape the effects of cultural conditioning. Even a determined refusal to comply is a reaction to it. Valerio Tricoli's Miseri Lares requires the devotion to listening championed by Pierre Schaeffer. Theoretically, in an age when so many listen via ear buds, this should be easier than ever before. We are no longer tied to 'phones that were the size of half a melon and in turn needed to be connected to the record player. This is a blessing for those who wish to hear richly detailed music, but for most it will not have changed their listening habits, only increased the impact of trademark sound elements in mainstream genres.

Ambitions to make radical variations of common forms such as Techno or Ambient are not scarce, although few truly cross the border from genre specific traits to the great beyond. Bound by what they know or were raised on, artists operating left of center can rarely escape the magnetic pull of that core.

Thankfully, PAN has its cake and eats it. It releases variations on rhythm machine themes and records like this. But what is this like? Musique concrète is one reference point, Tricoli manipulating the Revox tape recorder. Acousmatic music is another. Precise definitions of that may be elusive yet in Miseri Lares there is something of the attention to sonic detail found in work by prime exponents such as Francois Bayle and Bernard Parmegiani. Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell's outstanding soundtrack to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may be another influence, such is the atmosphere of dread created by Tricoli via unknown sound sources.

But this album is much more than just another Horror film soundtrack homage. Tricoli exploits the unknown musically and psychologically. He nudges the listener towards that closed door at the end of the corridor, or to look behind that red velvet curtain beloved by David Lynch. Words in Italian and English are carefully woven into the work, including texts by Dante and Guido Ceronetti, as well as H.P. Lovecraft and Tricoli.

The sound of a trap door swinging open on La Distanza is more unsettling than the loudest scream. A door is knocked, then thumped and slammed shut. Briefly, on Hic Labor Ille Domus et Inextricabilis, we hear something like a deep sea diver's breathing. That would be fitting. Not the heavy breath of fear, but the finite supply of air in these very deep waters. Not that Tricoli applies common modes of pressure, the clichés of brutal noise or drilling synths. Parts of In The Eye of The Cyclone consist of near or total silence and as in much of the record what we do hear is indefinable.

By refusing to supply the obvious Horrorcore sonic thrills Tricoli has generated a profoundly unsettling soundtrack to whatever we imagine may be happening. His use of techniques pioneered by tape and studio masters of old, twinned with the subtle appliance of modern science, make this a stunning piece of work.

Shoreditch: Experimental Music School 1969

Truly outstanding film from the golden age of tape, a time when experimenting with music was not out of bounds. I've no idea how they teach music in schools today or if they even bother. In theory, to exploit this generation's obsession with technology, now should be a great time for exploring computer-based sound. I suspect, however, that it would be based on trying to make a hip-hop rhythm rather than looking to Stockhausen for inspiration. That would be a great shame. I'm not advocating a rigorous study of composition but the potential for play inherent in technology is obvious, as this film proves. Watch it and marvel... 

Electronic World Inc Recording Tape Music Fantasy

Found this in a charity shop at the week-end.

'I can't believe you're buying that!' Says LJ.

'It's only two quid!'

Look, it's a company based in New York. It's history! Tape music! Not just music recorded on tape. Tape music is what I'm dreaming of looking at it. Vladimir Ussachevsky or Otto Luening might have owned it, or looked at it, or just touched the box, being at the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center. Yes? But how old is it? Google the company: no results. It looks old enough. 

No, not just a tape recording, but recordings of taped sounds manipulated to make a new sonic mutation, to cut'n'paste sound - amazing! My dream was that it contained actual tape experiments, but it's unused. And besides, I'd never be able to play it. Yet just having the box perched on top of my speaker makes me feel good.

Daphne Oram At Home

Watching BBC4's Britain On Film last night, as we often do 'cause we love colour footage of the 60s (who doesn't?), when who should turn up but Daphne Oram - oh yes! There she was showing this fellow her home studio - I could hardly believe my eyes. The programme's here for UK residents. The footage of Daphne starts around the 13-minute mark. For the rest of you, here are some stills.

Rashad Becker - Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. I (PAN)

Field recordings from a distant planet; one that's inhabited by bio-mechanical mutant varieties of flying, crawling, slithering, walking, climbing beasts, in a jungle filled with exotic and terrifying plants capable of consuming humans attracted to the irresistible odours they emit, which resemble chocolate, and Chanel No.5. 

Here, as heard on Theme IV, one-eyed, furry babies come gurgling and crying into the world, wrenched from vomiting mechanical-human hybrids, watched over by hovering robo-doctors courtesy of Benway Incorporated.

Dances I presents music from an orchestra of psychotic automatons playing free-form on rusty trombones and cracked computers as well as vocalising; all spliced together by Pierre Schaeffer's ghost and viewed in a hall of mirrors. On Dances II they are joined by a cellist bred from the genes of Paul Tortelier and the Predator.

A fantasmagorical thrill for open ears.

Rashad Becker also makes other people's music sound good as an employee of Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin. If you want to know his thoughts on the process read this interview conducted by Robert Henke.

Get More Out Of Your Tape Recorder...Compose Electronic Music

Get in on the new school of abstract music! This feature surely spawned a host of would-be Pierre Schaeffers...who tried, failed and went back to just recording their kids. From Popular Mechanics, 1966.

IPEM: Institute For Psychoacoustics And Electronic Music: 50 years of Electronic And Electroacoustic Music At The Ghent University (Metaphon)

Tape compositions, electronic sound layers, looped fragments and concrete sounds - Lucien Goethals described his first forays into electronic composition as 'journeys' and we too journey through 18 tracks on the two CDs accompanying this book. It's one hell of a trip. Mind-bending, you might say; a fantastic voyage into a body of work made at the Institute For Psychoacoustics And Electronic Music starting in 1962 and ending in 1999.

Record, filter, decelerate, reverse and distort; such treatments suggest both an anarchic and reverential approach to sound - the search for what sounds right in a sonic universe free from rules. When is a piece finished and where to start? Of the concrete elements, there's a mezzo-soprano messed up and fused with electronics on Boudewijn Buckinx's 'Simparolo', folk whistles and log drums married with a Synthi 100 on Stephen Montague's 'Slow dance on a burial ground', and a six-piece acoustic performance warped beyond recognition on Helmut Lachenmann's 'Scenario'. Excuse the cliché but the latter, from 1965, sounds like it could have been made yesterday by the best modern exponents of electronic music. 

If you want pre-Hauntology (oh, I'm sure you do), look no further than Louis de Meester's 'Incantations', an astounding piece previewed at the 1958 Brussels World Fair featuring a cut up reading of text by Isidore Isou. Isou wrote: 'Each poet will integrate everything into Everything', and this compilation demonstrates the art of musical integration superbly; disparate elements made whole by these 'poets' of the studio.

Available from Boomkat 

Metaphon 

Composer Louis De Meester at work in IPEM's Technicum
studio (circa 1963).

Generator bank with sine wave oscillator group,
developed by Walter Landrieu.

The mechanics lab at IPEM's Muinkkaai space (1965–1970).

Composer Robin Heifetz on the piano at IPEM's Muinkkaai studio.

From Bach To The Future - Howard Goodall Falls At The Last Fence

In the final episode of his TV series Howard Goodall falls at the last fence - shock! - or not, since Classical buffs think they're being 'hip' (ha-ha) by mentioning The Beatles and Bob Dylan, as if proving that they really have kept up with developments in 20th century music.

Oh, Howard, with your jacket sleeves cut too long as if to look correct when playing your keyboard...even though you spent more time standing, thus demonstrating the sartorial error of your ways...

I had my doubts before watching, but was hoping he would summarise the last 100 years as authoritatively as he did the previous 300. Yet now I even doubt his wisdom on Classical music. That's the trouble with being ignorant on a subject; you tend to believe what supposed experts say. If a historian told me Richard III had a penchant for eating raw eggs off a bed of oak tree leaves, for instance, I'd believe them. Sadly, anyone taking Howard for his word would never know the crucial role electronic music played in the 20th century.

He dealt with Jazz but only as far as Be-Bop. More obviously, he should have mentioned Third Stream, which introduced Classical into Jazz in the late-50s. And if he'd really wanted to create some kind of unity, he could have referenced the Modern Jazz Quartet's Blues On Bach album from 1973. You see, Howard? That would have provided a nice, cyclical feel to your summary. You should have consulted me.

Worse still, he failed to mention another, more important Bach connection, Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach (1968), which sold half a million copies at the time. Whether you regard it as proper Classical music or merely a novelty version, it's impact cannot be denied. After all, it put Bach into all those homes. Come on, man! Perhaps he hates the record. He may even be oblivious to the amount of effort required to make it, thinking it was simply a matter of Carlos sitting at a Moog and playing.

No mention of Robert Moog, or the evolution of electronic music. Early pioneers were well acquainted (sometimes schooled in) modern Classical modes, so another connection was missed. Stockhausen? Kraftwerk? He could have dropped in Tangerine Dream since they referenced Classical music. I'm trying to help you here, Howard. I'm offering some much-needed continuity between the electronic and Classical, but it's too late now.

He mentioned Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain (1965), which supposedly made him 'the godfather of sampling', but Richard Maxfield got there earlier when, in 1960, he looped and totally radicalised recordings of a preacher on Amazing Grace. Poor Howard, did he not have a research team? Perhaps not, due to cutbacks. Imagine him, desperately pestering youngish people in the office next door:
   'Hey, you look modern, what do you know about the evolution of music in the 20th century?'
   (Young Person looks up from their Twitter page) 'What, like Lady Gaga, you mean?'
   'Er, yes!'
   Of course, that Young Person could have found out about early tape looped sampling in ten seconds, if Howard had asked. I think he was fed up with the workload by the time he had to deal with the Modern. He thought, 'Oh, fuck it, I'll just dissect a bit of a Beatles tune on the ol' Joanna like I did in my Channel 4 programme and skip all that computer shit.'

Talking of The Beatles, they were dragged in to represent avant-garde tape experiments on the Sgt. Pepper's album, but where did they get that idea from? Any thoughts? Do you think, along with George Martin, they invented it?

You might say he couldn't cover everything. Yes, but there's a process called editing which, if used skilfully, would have created some time to cover electronic music. Precious seconds were wasted telling us Stevie Wonder incorporated Cuban music into his own, and that Paul Simon flirted with World Music. Since he mentioned sampling, how long would it take to mention Pierre Schaeffer's creation of Musique Concrète whilst playing a snippet accompanied by a photo?

Well, Howard, you proved long of sleeve, but ultimately, short on information about some of the most important aspects of 20th century music.

Electronic Panorama Box Set

Paris.

Tokyo.

Utrecht.

Warszawa.

Luc Ferrari - Bernard Parmegiani - François Bayle - Guy Reibel & Arne Nordheim amongst the artists featured.

One of the best compilations of electronic music ever made. It's now been made available again via the Wolf Fifth collection as acquired by UbuWeb. Grab it here. 

In Search of a Concrete Music - Pierre Schaeffer (University of California Press)

'In other words, I wasted my life.' (interview, 1987)

The inventor of hip-hop scratch sample turntablism? No.

'I lower the pickup arm as one rhythmic group starts. I raise it just as it ends, I link it with another, and so on. How powerful our imagination is!' (p12)

'Not only were we interested in Musique Concrete but also in playing organ tone clusters and flute feedback sounds that added variety to the repeated note sequences that we recorded and mixed on tape.' (Ralph Hutter, Kraftwerk, 1981)

'The world of music is probably contained within DoRéMi, yes; but I'm saying that the world of sound is much larger than that.' (interview, 1987)

'But the readership for which it is intended is not very great at the moment,' (p188)

In search of In Search of a Concrete Music I ask the young man at the information counter in Foyles bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London. One left. He tells me it's going through a second printing. Due to popular demand? A book by Pierre Schaeffer?! Did they only print a thousand? Or are more people now interested in him? More than the publishers thought, obviously...

'In doing so, he (the concrete musician) claimed to discover and not to express in his work.' (p131)

Against Expression: An Anthology Of Conceptual Writing 

First: 'Étude aux chemins des fer' (1948)

'You can sense that engines can't like being performers.' (p11)

The birth of Hauntological sound? 

A cheap and easy reference. The desire to attach a precedence, seek a serious lineage, join pieces of the collage as if they belong together through similarity rather than contrasting representations of something. We long to unify. Schaeffer, against Music, sought only sound, but was haunted, still, by music.

Schaeffer, the caretaker of dreams in the haunted ballroom of sound?

'There is no instrument on which to play concrete music. That is the main difficulty.' (p18)

The difficulty today is that such instruments exist. The ease with which sounds can be conjured is the problem. Today's dilemma: making the right choice. The problem with sound today: sanitation. So-called Hauntological music seeks the soiled sound of the past? In nicotine-stained TV, in pre-video mythology, in decaying machinery of old industry. 

The effort then required to create distortions of the sound an object makes may now be achieved at the click of a mouse. It is that very effort, the rewind, alter pitch, manipulation, splicing of tape etc is what we love now, what we crave in this world of immediacy.

'Blessed are those who struggle' (Mark Stewart). 

'..'real' music seems like the repose of the blessed after the contortions of damnation.' (p90)

Inside the outsider - his contradictions, doubts, insecurities - voyeurs both academic and non may be surprised to learn that a human was responsible for capturing the voices of objects, albeit in mutated form, and creating compositions from them. The intellectual, the sound scientist has doubts? Human, all too human. 

'I do not know, and doubtless will not know for some time yet, if these attics are inhabitable, whether they are a temporary prison cell or will be apartments of the future.' (p115)

Over 50 years later, listeners enthralled by the sounds of Pierre Schaeffer do inhabit his 'apartments'. 

Composing With Tape Recorders - Terence Dwyer (Oxford University Press, 1971)

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How To Make Electronic Music