Hessel Veldman ‘Radio Times’

01 Radio Times I (31:00)
02 Radio Times II (30:55)

Total time 62:00
Cassette released on Exart Cassettes, EA037, The Netherlands, 1990?

With ‘Radio Times’, released ca. 1990, Hessel Veldman possibly wanted to compose a paean to radio and celebrate the decade he spent working with Willem De Ridder on numerous All Chemix Radio plays during innumerable recording sessions, either in his own Ijmuiden, The Netherlands studio, or De Ridder’s own Amsterdam home studio, or even the Radio Rabotnik studios. The ‘Radio Arts guild’ logo from the cover is a possible reference to De Ridder’s Radio Art Foundation. ‘Radio Times’ fits perfectly with other projects from around 1990, namely: Michael Snow’s ‘2 Radio Solos’ and Chris Meloche’s ‘Document 90′, posted earlier on this blog. The 2 sides of this cassette are build on layer upon layer of uninterrupted, processed radio transmissions from around the globe along various percussion, tapes, didjeridoo and female vocals. Veldman is not interested in radio tourism or exoticism, though, and the unrecognizable broadcasts are a mere source material for thick layers of static and electronic interferences where only hints of the original voices and music surfaces intermittently. Whether this was recorded live or painstakingly processed is not known to me, though the FNTC/All Chemix Radio ethos prescribed live recording only. Anyway ‘Radio Times’ can be heard as an impressive farewell to easy listening.

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Various ‘Inventionen II’

01 Takehito Shimazu Zytoplasma (10:55)
02 Boguslaw Schaeffer Maa’ts (9:55)
03 Rolf Enström Fractal (22:22)

Total time 43:12
LP released on Edition RZ, 1985

Take a look at Berlin’s 1984 Inventionen Festival’s program and you realise how consistent the choices of organizer Robert Zank were: NY sound artist Yoshi(masa) Wada; Montreal’s electro-acoustic improvising group Sondes; François Bayle and Bernard Parmegiani from INA-GRM; composers from South America and Sweden. The works on this LP were showcased and sometimes premiered during the Festival’s 2nd edition, hence the ‘Inventionen II’ title. Takehito Shimazu (b.1949) is a Japanese electronic and computer music composer whose works have been well received in Europe. His track ‘Zytoplasma’ is build on a constant electronic drone, growing in pitch and intensity for the first 7 minutes. It will be the basis to a rigid grid of electronic bleeps and buzzes, an evocation of a primary soup growing in intensity and diversity, starting with simple sound cells morphing into more complex sonic organisms (white noise, sort of). Thanks to its fine synthetic sounds, varied textures and un-hurried pace, the piece is a joy to listen to. Boguslaw Schaefer was featured on vol. I already – please refer to previous post for info. Composed at Stockholm’s EMS studios by Swedish Rolf Enström (b.1951), ‘Fractal’ was premiered at Inventionen ‘84. It is an ambitious electroacoustic composition based on processed sounds from classical instruments as well as synth and computer parts. The inspiration apparently comes from processed photos. The music is purely electroacoustic with great care to timbre: sounds are included for their timbral properties, mostly like musical objects under the scrutiny of the composer. To no surprise for an Edition RZ LP, sound quality is very good, appropriately for this kind of music. Is this reason enough not to reissue it on CD? – I wonder.

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Rimarimba ‘Below the horizon’

01 Steady State (4:27)
02 Metal (1:05)
03 Gone To Hell In A Bucket (6:00)
04 The Melting (6:32)
05 The One That Got Away (3:44)
06 Ships (1:47)
07 Bebag (21:20)

Robert Cox: marimba, guitars, keyboards

Total time 44:50
LP released by Cordelia Records, UK, 1985

Elaborating on 1960s’ Systems Music, Rimarimba aka Robert Cox adapted it to the 1980s’ New Aesthetic, ie bass+synth formula, programmed coldness and computer-repetition. In so doing he was part of an important trend in UK including: Andrew Poppy, The Dead Goldfish Ensemble, Peeved Records, and elsewhere Enrico Piva. ‘Below The Horizon’ was originally released as a cassette on Unlikely Records in 1983 (URT81), then reissued on Peeved Records the same year (PV007) and finally reissued on LP by Cordelia in 1985 (ERICAT 008). Now what’s so special about this album? The obvious answer is that Cox is a skilled composer able to coin ear-catching melodies, an apt guitar player and sensible effect pedal user at ease with complex yet square rhythms. The fact all this takes place inside the simple time-frame of repetitive synth loops is all the more remarkable. Track #05 The One That Got Away and #07 Bebag have more than one hint to Steve Reich’s Nagoya Marimba (c. 1994) played by a New Wave band. The acoustic-electronic balance is fine throughout on this remarkable album. [See 'In The Woods' here.]

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Poetry Out Loud – Number Seven

1. The Harlemans and Klyd and Linda Watkins
   Magic (1:16)
2. Klyd Watkins+Tony Cowan
   Amen Absen From The Time Garden (2:55)
3. Klyd & Linda Watkins+The Harlemans
   Help Him Into Holiness (1:43)
4. The Harlemans
   Keep Away (2:04)
5. Klyd Watkins with Tony Cowan
   Plato’s Pool Room (1:33)
6. Bernard Heidsieck+Françoise Janicot
   Poem For Brion Part I (2:41)
7. Tony Cowan 29 Cats (0:20)
8. Klyd Watkins Quarter (7:16)
9. The Harlemans If You Want To Fly (2:28)
10. Patricia Harleman This Fever (3:00)
11. Bernard Heidsieck+Françoise Janicot
    Poem For Brion Part II (2:53)
12. The Harlemans White Church Morning (4:03)
13. Linda Watkins Hiway (0:51)
14. Peter Harleman Silence (0:53)
15. Klyd Watkins with Tony Cowan The Riddle (1:58)
16. Peter Harleman The Dance (3:12)

Total time 39:30
LP released by Out Loud Productions, US, 1973

Out Loud Productions
P. O. BOX 96
Madison, New Jersey 07940

May 8, 1971

Dear subscriber,

In the next few weeks, the fourth number of Poetry Out Loud will appear. In the short time since the appearance of its first number, Poetry Out Loud has taken enormous strides toward its primary goal of restoring the vitality of the human voice to contemporary poetry.

Radio stations across the country have given substantial air play to Poetry Out Loud and WBAI-FM in New York has made it the subject of two, one hour long special programs.

Magazines have continued reviewing Poetry Out Loud, and a copy of a recent review in ROLLING STONE is enclosed with this letter.

Frankly, the future looks very bright for extending the influence of our “magazine” of oral poetry. Out Loud poets have been and are currently appearing at a number of colleges, universities, coffee houses and bars.

Needless to say, the issues of the “magazine” itself are reflecting this spark and vitality of live audiences. Number Four—and more records after it— is on the way. Now’s the time for you to keep a good thing going by filling out the enclosed subscription renewal card and returning it to us.

Sincerely,
Peter Harleman

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

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Jean-Marc Foussat ‘Abattage’

01 Grillage (1:13)
02 Images & Jalousies (9:26)
03 Ruines (4:17)
04 Petit Paysage (1:33)
05 Petit Paysage (0:09)
06 Hontes, Inquiétude & Quevœjotto (2:40)
07 Abattage (13:49)

Total time 33:00
LP released by Pyjama, France, 1983

Jean-Marc Foussat (b.1955) is a French guitar player, VCS synth player, label founder and recording engineer. He played with a band called Mandragore in the 1970s, as wel as collaborating with Jean-François Pauvros, Jac Berrocal, Roger Turner, Raymond Boni and Claude Parle. In the 1980s he worked as a recording engineer for Incus, Hat Hut, Po Torch, Rec Rec, Celluloid, etc. He founded Potlatch Records along Jacques Oger in 1997.  On ‘Abattage’ (1983), he self released his studio experiments under his own Pyjama imprint. The tracks were apparently recorded between 1975 and 1981 and feature extensive use of field recordings from out of the window (see cover), as well as piano, guitar, VCS III synth and found vocals. The main instrument has to be the recording studio, though, with obsessive care in balance, transitions and dynamic, that is: much definition in the very low sounds and lots of details in the loudest sounds. #3 Ruines is a solo piano (played by Jean-François Ballèvre); #4 Petit Paysage is a street cleaner engine recording; #5 Petit Paysage is someone lighting a cigarette; #6 includes people laughing and coughing, electric guitar; and then monumental #7 starts as a jackhammer+piano duo, before morphing into a fierce VCS solo. Noise art of the highest caliber!

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.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Discography:
1983 Abattage, LP, Pyjama records
1992 Nouvelles, cassette release
2001 Nouvelles, Potlatch CD reissue
2001 Abattage, CD-r reissue

References:
Interview with Foussat in The Sound Projector #12, 2004, UK.
Dominique Grimaud ‘L’underground musical en France’, Le Mot et le Reste publisher, 2008, France

Federico Barabino y Don Campau ‘Zamba’

01 Dejando ser (7:45)
02 Zamba (13:25)
03 Liberando al sonido interno (7:46)

Total time 28:55
CD-r released on Lonely Whistle Music, USA, 2006

Federico Barabino: guitar, environmental sounds
Don Campau: chimes, percussion, tibetan bowl, handmade rainstick, triangle, ocean drum, flywheel, harmonica, moog

For this release, home-taping legend Don Campau [see bio here] teams up with Argentinian guitar genius Federico Barabino [see bio here] in a mail collaboration where classical guitar and field recordings reign supreme. Environmental sounds like water dripping, rain, storm, motorbike, birds and various outdoor activities form the spine of ‘Zamba’, to which various acoustic instruments are discretely added to form a homogeneous blend that definitely owes something to Sound Ecology, i.e. active listening to environmental sounds, let nature make the music, etc (cf Murray Schafer). Not being thrown at you like in pop music, the sounds tend to fill up the available acoustic space of your living room in an unintrusive way. As a consequence, how much you’ll enjoy ‘Zamba’ depends on the way you’ll listen to it. I’d suggest consider it a morning raga – and indeed, there are ragas meant to bring the rain. Guitar playing is luminous and serene, with a tremendous sound quality that enhances the sharpness of Barabino’s technique. Cover is a digital print on lovely handmade paper, courtesy of Don Campau’s own Lonely Whistle Music’s exquisite taste. Thanks to Don for allowing this one to appear on Continuo’s.

Federico Barabino’s blog.
Don Campau dot com.

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Didier Blanchard & Georges Bloch ‘Le son d’un château d’eau de Le Corbusier’

Didier Blanchard:
01 Composition n°20 – Un  corps sonore (34:44)

Georges Bloch: ‘Fragments Corbuséens Palmés’
02 Vocalise (1:57)
03 Antécédant-conséquent (0:48)
04 Hystérie 1 (2:42)
05 Valse ? (4:45)
06 Interaction 1 (10:23)
07 Hystérie 2 (8:17)
08 Interaction 2 (6:24)
09 Totale (2:09)
10 Tango (2:15)
11 Ganz zum ûberfluss (1:47)

Total time 76:10
CD privately released by ‘Groupe des 5′, France, 1996

Le Corbusier’s relation to music is tangible, if infrequent. He took care of his cousin Louis Soutter, a former professional violinist, inpatient in a Swiss psychiatric hospital for 20 years until his death in 1942. In 1958, he build the Monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette complete with a large acoustic conch on the church roof to transmit liturgical chants, “a sonorous machine producing a new style of electronic broadcast”, he said. The same year, assisted by Iannis Xenakis, he famously designed the Philips Pavillon in Brussels, using Edgard Varèse’s Poème Electronique as musical score.

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) build the water tower pictured above in Podensac, near Bordeaux, in 1918, aged 21, when he was still called “Charles Edouard Jeanneret”, his real name. It is said to be his first professional release and of course makes extensive use of concrete (what else?). Back in 1986, it was in a state of dereliction when an association called ‘Groupe des 5′ decided to save the building from collapsing. Part of their plan was to use the disused water tower for cultural events, including these specially comissionned electroacoustic compositions in 1995, whose title translates ‘The sound of a Le Corbusier water tower’. Didier Blanchard (b.1967) is an acoustics engineer interested by architecture’s relation to music. He sat up a microphone inside the water tower to record all the latter’s vibrations. The signal is then fed to a computer for further electronic processing and feedback monitoring, and then send to a large metallic plate whose vibrations produces the music (see picture above). The vibrations are of course re-injected in the process via the microphone. Any sound inside or outside the building (visitors’ voices, steps on the stairs, cars, rain, wind) can activate the resonances. The recording on this CD probably can’t do justice to the sound installation itself, but the feedback sounds are really gorgeous, if a bit monochromatic, close to Harry Bertoia’s steel sculptures recordings, for instance.

‘Fragments Corbuséens Palmés’ is an electroacoustic suite composed by IRCAM associate Georges Bloch (b.1956) for resonating steel plate, voice and readings from Le Corbusier. Mezzo-soprano Sylvie Deguy is slowly climbing the water tower’s stairs while vocalizing and hitting the stairs railing with a stick. The work is a dialog between controlled feedback and singer, making full use of the water tower’s acoustic properties.

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Gede Manik ‘Bali Barong’

01 Bereta Yuda (5:19)
02 Golang Kanjin (6:20)
03 Improvisation (4:46)
04 2e Improvisation (2:51)
05 Lambata Sari Anom (7:06)
06 Puapr Sari Yuda (6:04)
07 Taruna Jaya (10:10)

Total time 42:30
LP released on Disjuncta Records, France, 1975

Richard Pinhas created Disjuncta Records in 1974 to release his own project Heldon as well as other French musicians like Alain Renaud, Zao or Nyl. Disjuncta was arguably the first totally independent French label, benefiting from Pinhas’ home studio facility. They sell their records to independent stores and through mail-order only. This LP was recorded by Jean-François Bizot (1944-2007, founder of Actuel magazine and Radio Nova independent radio) during the shooting of his film ‘La Route’ (French for The Road) in 1972 in Bali. The technical team recorded Gede Manik (aka I Gede Manik), the world famous kebyar-style gamelan composer and choreographer in Jagaraga, the most important musical center of North Bali. The liner notes by Jean François Pinseau (aka Jean-François Bizot himself) quotes from Artaud Theater Of Cruelty. If you’re familiar with kebyar gamelan, you know what to expect: ultra fast gamelan percussion with occasional flute. This was recorded during an informal setting with Gede Manik conducting.

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