Another one of my electroacoustic threads

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I just want to ask, for I am rather curious, what in electroacoustic music do you enjoy most of all? What makes an electroacoustic piece sound good to you? Would you be able to give some YouTube examples and describe what these are and why you like them?

Lately I've really come to enjoy the music of Daniel Blinkhorn, whose pieces typically feature very very crisp, detailed recorded sounds manipulated to create a really strong sense of depth of field when listening in stereo.

[king ubu]

Different trajectory, I assume, but there was a period when I was quite into eai (electro-acoustic improvisation that is). Would have to dig up that - rather small, 10 or 15 maybe - pile of discs, but some names include Keith Rowe, Axel Dörner (whom I know from jazz projects as well), Jérôme Noetinger/ErikM, Alvin Curran ... labels include Erstwhile and Potlatch ... and that later is probably more relevant to me, as it also includes performances of live music, yet from the soundscapes created some are not so far from eai (which with Dörner and the likes also includes performers actually doing stuff with instruments). Actually, coming to think of it and checking the catalogue on Potlatch's homepage, there's probably no pure ea music there, rather it's always a combination of instruments and electronics (i.e. Sophie Agnel with Jérôme Noetinger and Lionel Marchetti).

But I don't want to disturb here if you feel that's a subject for a different thread.

[some guy]

Those are some good guys there, king ubu. Very talented and very sweet people as well. My incomplete and suggestive only additions to that list would include Andrea Neumann, Sachiko M (who has worked with the guys you mentioned), and Beatriz Ferreyra and Christine Groult (who, among other things, constitute an eai duo along the lines of Lionel Marchetti and Jérôme Noetinger). Natasha Barrett does some pretty exciting eai as well.

And very nice labels as well. I'd add (again, incomplete and suggestive only) sub rosa and metamkine and emprientes digitales.

But now, on to the question. I doubt if I could tell you why I like Dvořák (or Janáček or Czech music generally). I might have a go at Berlioz, but that's because I didn't used to like Berlioz, finding his music empty and lacking, and then I loved Berlioz above almost all others. Certainly above all composers prior to 1906 or so. And so I've thought a lot about Berlioz and why and how ennui turned into passionate addiction. But otherwise....

What I can do is mention that I started out with Varèse' Poème électronique and at first enjoyed things that were like that more than things that weren't. (So I started out liking Xenakis' Orient/Occident the most, moving from there to liking Bohor and Persepolis. Same is true here as for Czech music. I always liked electroacoustic, and I always liked Czech music. So the question "why?" never really arose. Things I didn't used to like and now do very much, like Berlioz and Radigue (and drone minimalism generally), are easier to explain "why?"

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Hahaha now I come to realise it, asking 'why' is a silly thing to ask anyway.

Probably easier to say what we like, in comparison with other things rather than attempt to explain 'why' without a frame of reference.

[king ubu]

Okay, the why is probably really difficult to answer indeed ... even more difficult than with conventional music, where it's difficult enough (and that is not to say electroacoustic music didn't create its own conventions, but I guess you understand where I'm aiming at ... i.e. why do I prefer Mozart 40 over Mozart 41? Why did Tchaikovsky only compose three - if at all - symphonies?)

Dug up that pile, it's a wild mix of played and soundscaped (or whatever you call that) stuff. And the other label whose name I couldn't recall earlier is Rossbin.

Some favourites, but going from quite distant memory:



Alvin Curran/Domenico Sciajno - Our Ur (Rossbin, 2004)



Günter Müller/Otomo Yoshihide - Time Travel (Erstwhile, 2003)



Axel Dörner/Kevin Drumm (Erstwhile, 2001)



Sophie Agnel/Lionel Marchetti/Jérôme Noetinger - Rouge Gris Bruit (Potlatch, 2001)



Fe-Mail feat. Lasse Marhaug - All Men Are Pigs (Gameboy, 2004) (not just for the cover, mind me ...)

Then there's Polwechsel ... both on hat[now]art and Erstwhile. And the stack also holds some CD-Rs by the label lIMItEd SEdItION out of Oakland, but there's little electronics involved there, I think.

Also, local guy Stephan Wittwer, started out as a guitar player (there's a solo disc on Intakt, an album with Christy Doran on ECM, stuff with Brötzmann, a duo with Radu Malfatti on FMP, etc.) and then went into electronics - saw him perform live, which was quite something, though I'm not really sure *what* it was ...

The other Potlatch discs I have (a dozen or so) are all played, though the soundscapes sometimes do become similar.

One more thing that came to mind, mulling over these things: Phill Niblock. Got a double and a triple disc of his, I think all solo pieces - quite harsh stuff and hard on the ears if you turn it up (which you have to). He starts with recorded tones (single ones, I think) which he records from actual musicians, and then treats those digitally, shaping his pieces with them.

--

And a part of the pile must have wandered elsewhere, but I'm not going to look for it right now ... it contains, among other discs, this one, which again is mostly played on common instruments:



Axel Dörner/Greg Kelley/Andrea Neumann/Bhob Rainey - Thanks Cash (Sedimental, 2001)


And this one (next edit):



nmperign/Günter Müller - More Gloom, More Light (Rossbin, 2003)

[some guy]

Rossbin.

Never heard of it, before.

Thanks, king ubu!!

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Are those examples of the music you mentioned which are a mixture of electroacoustic and instrumental? I'm not familiar with any, which is great because now I certainly do have more to explore!

Just going back to the original question though....what sort of things are in the actual music that you find interesting? If that's a question that you find possible to answer, then I'm interested to hear your thoughts. If not, thanks for the overview of stuff you like! I'm interested to hear about that anyway.

[king ubu]

@some guy: interesting that you mentioned Varèse - the two-disc set on Decca with Chailly et al. was one of the very few "classical" (ha, not quite) releases I bought early on, a dozen or more years before I started exploring classical music in general. Some great music there!

@jessop: yes, most or all of these present a mixture of instruments (i.e. Dörner plays trumpet, but sometimes that's just air, and he adds effects or whatever you call that; Agnel is a piano player, may again inlude effects and preparation of the piano etc.) and electronics.

I'd really need to revisit some of these in order to be able to get more specific, but in general I'd just say it's the soundscapes that interest me (or don't), and that's quite difficult to describe to me with such music. There's other similar stuff that's completely played yet creates similar soundscapes, and to me - coming from jazz and improvised music - that's more naturally attractive in many ways, and it can be a total thrill to hear live!

One more I forgot is the duo of Zeena Parkins (harp/electric harp, she uses loads of pedals for effects, below is a photo I took last summer before her solo set at Météo festival in Mulhouse) and Ikue Mori (who sits behind some Macbook usually, I also saw her as part of a more conventional jazz group) - that duo was a blast to hear live, they go by the name of "Phantom Orchard" and have a fine disc out (on Mego, I think that label does no longer exist). More recently, there was a "Phantom Orchard Orchestra" disc on Zorn's Tzadik label, but that then is way back into instruments being used.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I checked out some of king ubu's suggested artists (could not sampe those exact albums on Spotify, will have to sample them elsewhere if i can) and I did enjoy what I heard. I'd probably have to listen to it more to really get into it though. I certainly plan to. Thanks very much!

I have a lot of thoughts here but I'll wait till I'm less drowsy first 

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[amw]

Luc Ferrari is possibly my favourite electroacoustic composer ever—his music is important to me first and foremost for the emotional effect it has on me, which I guess is a tautology. The use of language, field recordings, everyday sounds, snatches of music, all linked within a structure that is articulated by electronic manipulation and the introduction of electronic sounds, effects a gradual derealisation or hyper-realisation of the everyday. My emotional response to his work is unlike any other music I've responded to: like a sense of ordinariness, of life going on, with a sense of something irrevocably lost but also a sense of gratefulness and optimism. I feel like this is too personal to be useful to anyone else, though.

(Another composer who has a similar effect on me is Yannis Kyriakides, although he uses acoustic instruments much more, and his music is more concrète/constructed sounding.)

[king ubu]

I checked out some of king ubu's suggested artists (could not sampe those exact albums on Spotify, will have to sample them elsewhere if i can) and I did enjoy what I heard. I'd probably have to listen to it more to really get into it though. I certainly plan to. Thanks very much!

Thanks for that feedback, happy to hear so! Of course your thread has added to my desire to revisit some of these discs. The other half (or less) of the pile that I didn't find yesterday is actually in a different place, I assume, as I already took them out for revisiting a while ago ... (which is the main reason for dislocating discs in my home, alas).

[millionrainbows]

I started out with Varese (coming from Zappa), and the Poem Electronique, and the tape-interpolated version of "Deserts."

Then, going through the vinyl cut-out bins of K-Mart, I discovered John Cage's "Fontana Mix", and DG cut-outs of Stockhausen, "Song of the Youths." These will always be closest to my heart, and real classics.

Also, I remember some good Ilhan Mimoraglu, and Walter Carlos' student works on LP.

Henri Pousseur's "Three Visions of Leige" will always stick in my memory as "poetry" (rouge, rouge, rouge) and also Babbitt's "Philomel." I got both LPs in the mail as a mistake when I was in the Columbia Record Club, so it must have been providence!

[millionrainbows]

Williams' Mix is very similar to Fontana Mix. It's available on the John Cage Retrospective Concert on Wergo.

Babbitt's Ensembles for Synthesizer was another important early work.