All Sound is Music 33, May 2023
This month is an eclectic mix of music from around the world. Spain, China, Germany, Japan, Iceland and the U.S. are all represented.
Notes on the music:
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Camino al Desvan – La Contorsion de Pollo. In the early 80s the duo of Maria Dolores Garcia and Jordi Cabayol led the way for electronic ambient music in Spain. Their body of work consists of three obscure cassettes from the 80s. The Barcelona label La Olla Express has assembled those cassettes and is releasing them as a double CD set for the first time.
Hiroshi Ebina – It 2. Musician, composer and photographer Hiroshi Ebina has studied and performed traditional Japanese music as well as electronic ambient. His work relies on silence and texture as much as melody. Ebina has refered to stone gardens at zen temples, especially the one at Ryoanji, as inspiring the recording, It Just Is. Interestingly, only acoustic instruments were used to create the album. Hiroshi then processed all of these instruments using eurorack modules and tape machines.
Kult Koruth – Mother of Pearl. Prague-based artists Anna Ruth and Michael Nechvátal have performed together multiple times, but Kult Koruth is their first release as a duo. “With Nechvátal playing modular synth and Ruth contributing voice and loops, the pair makes music that is deceptively gentle, often starting calm and meditative before morphing into atmospheric storms.”
Robin Fox – Dream Sequence for Serge Resonant Filter. Fox is well-known in Australia for his huge laser and sound installations. He’s also founder and director of the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, history and study of electronic music. The organization houses a large collection of vintage electronic instruments whcih are available to use for anyone who wants to become a member.
Warren Burt – 4 Voice Just Intonation Canon. Burt has been involved with the development of electronic music systems since the late 60s. He is currently coordinating the Master’s Degree programs at Box Hill Institute in Melbourne as well as composing and producing new material.
The pieces by Burt and Fox both use Serge synthesizers. Synthesizer design is often categorized as either East Coast, represented by the Moog, and West Coast, usually represented by the Buchla. These two schools use different methods to make simple, electronic sine waves more musically interesting. Sometimes lost in this discussion is the west coast efforts of Serge Tcherepnin, Rich Gold and Randy Cohen. Originally called Tcherepnins, Serge and the others wanted to build a synthesizer along Buchla lines, but more affordable.
Yangfan – Moon Gate. Yangfan is a Chinese artist who got her start in the riot grrrl movement as a member of Hang on the Box. As a solo artist she has focused on ambient music and recorded a number of pieces for Chinese film and television.
LOG Eternal – LOG 9. LOG Eternal is a collaboration between Philadelphia-based Ulla & Berlin-based Perila. Both long time practitioners of ambient music, this collaboration features quiet backgrounds overlayed with delicate piano melodies.
mum – K-hálft Óhljóð. The Icelandic band mum (a name not intended to mean anything according to the band) use quiet vocals, traditional and electronic instrumentation and electronic effects to craft electronic folk music.
Rhys Chatham – Movement 4: No Trees Left Every Blade of Grass Screaming. Avant-garde New York City composer Rhys Chatham is best known for his large guitar ensemble. An Angel Moves too Fast to See was scored for 100 electric guitars, electric bass and drums. The album title is a quote from Haemin Sunim’s book “The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down.” Sunim points out, by quoting Buddha’s words, that the boundary between our mind and the world out there is illusionary. What we perceive is created in our mind, and thereby the world we experience does not come detached from our consciousness.
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All Sound is Music streams on the third Wednesday of each month at 8 pm MST on Rarity Rock Radio http://rarityrockradio.fm
Archives of past shows can be found at http://bit.ly/allsoundismusic
