William Penn ‘Crystal Rainbows’

01 Reflections in a Plastic Vase (6:20)
02 Interlude: Crystal Rainbow (2:18)
03 Moonshine (7:22)
04 Gossamer Looms (6:58)
05 Iridescent Stillness Through Curved Space (6:36)
06 Reprise: Crystal Rainbow (2:32)

Total time 32:00
LP released by Sounds Reasonable, Inc. (SRI) SR 7801, Washington, D.C., 1978

This record is based on an exhibition held at the Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C., home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s craft and decorative arts program since 1972. The exhibition was titled ‘The Harmonious Craft: American Musical Instruments’, and was on show in 1978 and 79, including ‘unique and esoteric American handcrafted musical instruments’. Composer William Penn (b. 1943) was asked by Sounds Reasonable Associates to compose music based on the instruments on display. Penn graduated from Buffalo University in 1967 where he studied Northern Renaissance music, Theater Music with Maurizio Kagel and serialism with Belgian composer Henri Pousseur. At one point, he played in a band called The Creative Associates including Lukas Foss, George Crumb and Kagel. He turned to more academic music as a composer and producer for Arizona University Recordings, and nowadays writes scores for theater productions. Penn has records out on CRI, Smithsonian, Hebra, Advance, etc. On a side note, in 1974, the Washington, D.C. Sounds Reasonable label released an intriguing 7” single by The Stereofernic Orchidstra, an orchestra of plants triggering electronic sounds from an ARP 2600 synthesizer. The Orchidstra was the brain-child of physics student Norman Lederman with help from Jeff Bagato and Gary Burke. It seems S.R.I. producer Edmund Barnett was quite an adventurous person as a producer.

To compose the tracks on Crystal Rainbows, Penn grasped some of the instruments on display at the exhibition: the Cloud Chamber Bowls built by Skip LaPlante and designed by Harry Partch; the Single String Stainless Steel Cello by Robert Rutman; the Electronic Jawbone by Bob Natalini; the Triple Ocarina by Susan Rawcliffe; the Steel String Guitar by Max Krimmel; the Bicentennial Turkey Tambourine by Jan Brooks Loyd; the Portative Organ by John Brombaugh and George Taylor; the Music By The Inch by Bob Hanson or the Appalachian Dulcimer by Rufus Jacoby. To this Penn added his own rubber piano, jaw harp and ARP 2600 synth. Dominick Labino plays Glass Harmonica on two solo tracks (#2 & 6). All other instruments are played by Penn himself, except:

• Carol J. McCloud: bagpipes
• Magruder Dent III: Steel String Guitar
• Tom McCarthy: Fender bass
• Elizabeth Garrett Bunker, Robert Wieczorowski: voice
• Dominick Labino: glass harmonica
• Jim Harmon: piano (on Reflections)

The music is unlike any other music from self-build instruments I can think of, for William Penn is a trained composer, making full use of counterpoint and other elaborate techniques in composing. Some passages are freely improvised, like the powerful sounds emitted by the Stainless Steel Cello on #4 Gossamer Looms. In this case, the menacing sounds are counterbalanced by Jew’s harp and Sanza Finger piano. #3 Moonshine gets very close to a Jean-Jacques Perrey hit on self-build instruments. While this LP is far from the avantgarde of the time, its charm lies in the exquisite arrangements and originality of instrumentation.

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Below: instrument builders