CDOTD 10/16/2024

 Oskar Sala: My Fascinating Instrument (Erdenklang)

Purchased used at a Jerry's Records off-site sale

To again go autobiographical for a moment: I've just finished grading for the quarter. It doesn't put me in the mood to have the most faith in humanity. I know I shouldn't take these things personally, but I failed more students than usual this time. I have credible evidence of plagiarism in one case, who failed anyway. And even for some of the better submissions, too many of them don't follow simple instructions to submit work correctly. 

When sitting to listen and do my meditation of writing here, I could have either gone bleak, loud, and sever, or long, ambient, and less obtrusive. I realized as I looked over my collection of CDs how few things I have at hand that fall into the latter category. I guess I tend to like music with a lot of motion and tension. I've written about William Basinski and Maurizio Bianchi on here before, didn't want to go that route. Then I came across this and thought, yeah okay, not exactly the ambient album I was seeking but it will do.

When I attended Duquesne as a graduate student 2008-2010, I had to take a class in the history of electronic music. Each quarter we had to write a paper, more-or-less the topic being  pre-war the first quarter, post-war the second. I chose two German topics: the first paper was about the Trautonium, the second concerned the use and influence of the short wave radio in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The latter came closer to being an actual academic paper, with a point of view and defendable positions. I doubt I have a working hard drive from that time to retrieve that paper, though I could sum it up if asked. The former was closer to being like a newspaper article. I earned my A. 

The Trautonium, an interesting side note in electronic instrument history more than anything I suppose. The instrument was first developed in 1930 Friedrich Trautwein. It's basically an electronic monochord; depending on where you pushed a wire into a metal rod would determine the pitch. Short leather straps were placed over the rod so the player could get a sense of where to land the pitches. The tone production was created by neon tubes, rather than the difference tone in the manner of the Theremin or Ondes Martenot. It produced a richer sound. Paul Hindemith wrote a work for three Trautoniums, played by him, the inventor, and Oskar Sala.

Sala was a student of both Hindemith and Trautwein, equal parts technician and composer. He took up the development of the instrument with a passion, creating many innovations such as the foot pedal for volume, and subharmonic synthesis. Rather than multiply the frequency of the signal, it's divided and provides a deep richness to the sound.

There is this matter of Germany in the 1930s. Hindemith's work was labelled Entartete Musik by the Nazi Party, and the composer went into exile. Not so with Sala. He was a bit of a nazi sympathizer. To write that now sounds awful, but it should be understood that there was a LOT of that going on at the time. Painter Emil Nolde believed in the Nazi's populist message, the appeal to the common man, until his work was deemed "degenerate" by the Nazis as well. He continued to paint in secret during those years, only working in watercolor for fear that the odor of oil paints would attract unwanted attention. It's also well known that Stockhausen was part of the Hitler Youth, but he wasn't given a choice. 

Sala lost many friends due to his decision to stay in Germany. He continued to work on his instrument, developing a version that was played on the radio. The final version of his instrument, the MixturTrautonium, is what's heard on this disc. It has a rod for each hand, and a large bank of dials and toggles for sound synthesis. The album itself is a studio production and therefor not completely a live demonstration of what one single MixturTrautonium can do. Delays, modulations, autoharmonizations, they all seem to be part of the instrument's package.

"Fascinating" is as reasonble descriptor. Its range of sounds is impressive, and it's clearly not locked into a strict twelve-tone tuning system. One of the pieces on this disc includes vocals, which are at times processed and modulated. Was this done through the MixturTrautonium? If so, it made an impressive audio processor as well as instrument.

I have to wonder: would Sala's technical work have been more recognized had he not chosen to remain in Nazi-era Germany? The instrument's unique interface inherently limits its use; a keyboard-based instrument would have been instantly playable by anyone. His synthesis techniques were decades ahead of what we'd come to know from Donald Buchla. 

So, yes, I'll take a defendable position. I think Oskar Sala would be better remembered for his technical innovations had he chosen to leave Germany. At least we are left with some evidence of his work. 

VOTD 10/14/2024

Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Tamla)

Purchased at Dave Kuzy's yard sale

I'm back to thinking about the purpose of this blog. I guess it's partly autobiographical, so there's a certain "me me me" content that I push against in general. Maybe it's legacy, leaving behind more documentation of my life and thoughts. There's also the discipline of sitting and writing. 

I think I'm touching more on the autobiographical today.

Enough of obscurities like Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson and Henk Badings for now, onto music nearly everyone knows at least a little. 

Last week I saw Stevie Wonder at the PPG Paints Arena. My daughter Jeannine bought three tickets as a big "thank you" gift. We were up in the nosebleed seats, very stage left. Not close but it gave us a good birds-eye view of the stage.

The band: in addition to Stevie, there were two keyboardists, two guitarists, bass (who played synth bass on "Living for the City"), drums, congas, percussion, six background vocalists (five women, one man), and a five piece horn section (alt, tenor, bari, trumpet, trombone). My wife pointed out that we saw a band last year that had more people on stage, Parliament Funkadelic when everyone was on stage at the end. That is, until Stevie added a twelve piece string section and a conductor. Cred for keeping a lot of musicians employed. 

The tour theme (eleven cities at last count) was "Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart." He opened, solo, playing "Can We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart?" It was....okay. I thought going in, this is a man who could do a long concert of excellent non-hit album cuts and have it be great.

Jeannine said there was a Simpsons segment (we frequently quote the Simpsons in this family) in which Homer goes to see Bachman Turner Overdrive at the county fair. They announce they're going to play something from their new album, and Homer yells, "TCB! No new crap!"*

Yeah. 

The concert was good, Stevie was in largely good voice. He struggled a little near the end on "Isn't She Lovely", fluffed a few lyrics here and there. I can easily forgive that, given his age, and how much music he'd have to play in a night. Strangely, he came on forty minutes late, played for forty minutes, and took a half hour break. Strange for an arena show, which are usually tightly constructed. It was announced he was feeling a bit sick and needed an emergency bathroom trip. It was still over two hours of music, mostly hits.

He brought on a guest singer, Sheléa, who sang a song that Stevie wrote for Aretha Franklin. I have to say, it was almost as if I was hearing Aretha sing it. Very strong. But then they played a song from her forthcoming album, and it just seemed to go on and on and on and...

TCB! No new crap!

While I was looking forward to "I Wish", it was "Higher Ground" and "As" (from Songs in the Key of Life) that were really the highlights to my ears. I found it moving, seeing and hearing the guy who created those pieces doing them in person, even in an arena setting. For as good as the concert generally was, I'm also simply happy we got to see him play at least once. It's the reason I paid $$$ to see Herbie Hancock last year.

After the concert, Jeannine reminded me that I had once checked out a Stevie Wonder collection CD from the library. She was asking about it, and I handed it over and told her, "You should listen to this. Return it to the library whenever."

You know, I've been a pretty good Dad sometimes, if I may say so. She remember "As" from that collection was also really happy he played it. 

This particular album was Stevie's first Album of the Year from the Grammys, and in the era of incredible creativity for him: Music of my Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life. All were hit albums, most had hit singles, and were consistently creative. Quite a hell of a run, I'd say equal to any other artist in popular music. And for the first four, Stevie plays the great majority of the instruments in addition to composing and singing. 

One thought I had during the concert was, "Stevie sure likes his chord progressions." His songs often have dramatic chord changes and chromatic shifts. Still, "Higher Ground" is relatively simple harmonically and packs the biggest punch on this program in my opinion. While there's the clear influence of gospel on his songs, I guess I just like it best when he gets funky. 

Prince did something similar to Stevie, sometimes playing most of the instruments on an album. It's very impressive (and he was a great lead guitarist) but Stevie wins out in my opinion. 

VOTD 10/13/2024

Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson: La Jolla Good Friday I-II (CP )

Pretty certain I bought this at Jerry's Records

Let's see: it's on Paul Zukofsky's CP label. I'll pretty much buy anything on that label, price permitting. The releases are easy to spot, all (with one exception I know) have a silver cover with a colored rectangle somewhere in the middle. The single exception was a reissue of an Aki Takahashi triple LP set, which still maintained the rectangle.

Point two: an LP of electronic music realized in 1975. There's no indication in the liner notes what the composer used to create his work, but it's more than likely analog rather than digital. That's not critical but preferable. 

And finally...Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson? That name? Wouldn't you at least look?  Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson! 

So how was this made? There's really no information in that respect, only that the work was created at the Center for Music Experiment, UC San Diego. He cites a name, Warren Burt, who is someone I met some years ago through my friend tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE. Thorkell said Warren was "untiring in revealing some 'secret' patches..." (Warren, who I believe still lives in Australia, was one of the people who checked in with me by email after the Tree of Life shooting.) "Patches" suggests analog synthesis techniques. I'm thinking there's some combination of sequencer hardware and self-playing synth patching. 

As Victor Gauer told me, in the old electronic music studio at Pitt, one of the goals was to create autonomous, self-playing patches on the modular synths they had. He also told me he got Robert Moog mad with him when Victor told him the Moog wouldn't stay in tune.

As for Sigurbjörnsson's work, it's more or less one long continuous sound, though the tones fade in and out at the beginning, similar to breathing. It's imperfect as an LP and would have been better on CD format, and what's the likelihood that will ever happen? While new ideas, no musical lines pop up now and then, the work is in a constant state of transformation. Whatever might be happening, it's not fixed and will change into something else. As I observed about a Morton Feldman composition last week, it's not Minimalism, but it's not entirely removed from the ideas of Minimalism either. The piece isn't strictly a "process piece" such as Steve Reich's phasing works. Everything is in a state of flux until the end, which comes back around to the original tones. 

I'm reading on Wikipedia that Thorkell was a prolific composer and recognized both in his native country of Iceland, and also abroad. He also died in 2013. Hm. yet another composer who I wonder, does anyone perform Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson's music now? Maybe there's a bar somewhere in Iceland with a picture of Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson in it. 

VOTD 10/9/2024

 Henk Badings: Capriccio, Genese, Evolutions/Dick Raaijmakers: Contrasts (Limelight)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

Once again, I find an old LP of early electronic music and I had to buy it. One of the two names is familiar, Henk Badings. I have other records with his works, and both if I'm recalling correctly have some sort of electronic component to them. Perhaps most strangely, he had several works premiered and recorded by the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, which was a Pittsburgh-based ensemble that would perform on a barge on the rivers. One work, Armageddon, is set for soprano, wind symphony orchestra, and tape. The 1970s were a wild time. The barge was like a big concert shell. When the group was discontinued, the barge sat moored on the bank of the Monongahela for years, rusting. What a shame. I would have loved to have a floating concert stage! 

Capriccio on this record is set for solo violin with stereo tape. The tape element is entirely synthesized sounds. I find it curious in that Badings' writing for violin seems very rooted in late Romanticiscm. It's described as a mini-concerto, with the tape clearly acting as accompaniment. Despite the sounds, the violin writing itself wouldn't be out of place in a turn of the (20th) century work.

The other two pieces find Badings working entirely electronically. There are pitches, identifiable notes, but these mostly sound less 19th century. I write "mostly" because there are passages in Evolutions with chord progressions that wouldn't sound out of place in Romantic composing, or even arranged for jazz orchestra. One movement (it's six short movements created as a ballet) sounds specifically jazzy and even silly in the way that Raymond Scott's electronic music could at times, years before Scott started building his custom electronic instruments. My guess is some of the passages were scored traditionally in advance of their electronic realization.

Dick Raaijmakers' is unfamiliar to me. I know that it is probably more difficult to establish a unique voice for oneself, but the work wouldn't have felt out of place being credited to Badings. (Maybe it's a Dutch thing?) The opening of his Contrasts sounds a shade silly the way that some of Badings' ballet does. Among the contrasts of the title is some of the time taken up by percussion, up-front noise bursts, with quiet, extended, slowly shifting tones underneath. 

What a time, that era of the 1950s into the 60s. Like I've asked in previous posts, who pays attention to Henk Badings' or Dick Raaijmakers' music anymore, other than vinyl fanatics like me? Does Badings receive any performances any longer? And indeed, is there a need to play his music?

VOTD 10/6/2024

 Negativland: Points (Seeland)

I can't remember where I bought this, possibly at Eide's used.

I went to see Negativland last night. I took my wife. She wasn't happy. 

I won't go into details. Negativland was here with a documentary film, Stand By For Failure. She had a complaint that the film was too indirect, didn't really explain what Negativland was/is. And I can see that if you didn't know anything about them, the film could be frustrating. It's no less collage-style than their music, maybe even moreso.

I liked the film. Won't go as far as saying I loved it. It drew a tremendous amount of footage based on all of them filming or videotaping many parts of their lives, particularly "The Weatherman" David Wills and his family. David has the distinctively nasally voice heard on Negativland records. The film itself to me looked like a document of shifting media, from 8mm home movies to VHS, reel-to-reel analog tape, to Pro Tools, then Youtube, TikTok. During Q&A, I couldn't quite form the question but had it in my mind, did the look of these different media sources influence the film itself? But I think that's tautological, of course it did. 

The first Negativland LP came out in 1980 with entirely handmade covers. I admire that. Consistent band member Mark Hossler was in high school at the time. He and David, who does not tour but appears via tape or Facetime, are the consistent through-line of the band. Mark said that Ralph Records was interested in reissuing the first LP, but that they refused. The original artifact with its hand-rendered covers, needed to stay just that. (It's been reissued on CD.)

And this, their second LP? I hear what would make them interesting on later albums. EZ listening (with Reagan samples), David's mother playing the accordion, tape loops and general weirdness. I feel like they're still finding their direction. They're playing around with tapes, seeing what they can create. 

It seems to me that David's voice, The Weatherman, is one of the most distinctive characteristics of what they do. He'd be far more prominently featured on their 1983 LP, A Big 10-8 Place. That LP was a huge hit at WRCT at the time, to the point where some staff would turn the monitors to WDVE rather than listen to anything on that record another time. I was there, I saw it.

Points is okay but far from essential. 2/3 of them are college-aged kids (plus The Weatherman) fucking around with tapes and seeing what they come up with. I don't remember this record being mentioned in the film. It's more finely honed than the first Nurse With Wound LP, but not that far removed: people who couldn't actually play instruments going into the studio and messing around to see what comes out of it.

I think it might want to track down an original copy of A Big 10-8 Place, with all its materials included.

VOTD 10/4/2024

Various: Happy Days original motion picture soundtrack (Funky)

I bought this mail order, I think through discogs.com

Happy Days! Those happy days, Richie Cunningham, the Fonz, right?

Nope.

In far less litigious days, somehow there was a not only the TV series Happy Days, but also an XXX adult feature with the same title, also dating to 1974.

I am aware of some porn-related lawsuits, such as the XXX-rated Superwoman becoming Ms. Magnificent on release. How did this movie happen, to say nothing of a physical LP copy of the soundtrack? No idea. Maybe someone in a position of power decided it just wasn't worth it. Or was it so low-end that they didn't know until the movie had come and gone? That seems more likely. 

I pulled out this LP because I have a not-so-secret love of soundtracks of disreputable movies. Italian cannibal movies, porn soundtracks, and...I fail to think of anything lower. The former might be lower on the rung than the latter.

Have I seen the porn Happy Days? Nope. I'll admit to being intrigued, but let's be honest: we know what's going to happen. There surely must be at least one scene of backseat sex. And I'm not just saying that; if I'd seen it, I'd admit to it. I recognize the name Georgina Spelvin on the back cover credits, that's as far as I go. 

The music is clearly 1970s recreated 50s rock-n-roll. This was surely all recorded quickly, probably in an afternoon. If you slipped a track from this onto a lo-fi 50s r'n'r compilation, little of it would be too much out of place.

The front cover is an image you'd expect, of body parts emerging from the backseat of a 50s boat of a car. The back cover is is as plain as could be, like a vanity pressing or song poem collection. 

The meta-narrative is surely more interesting than the original narrative. I mean, how interesting could the XXX-Happy Days be?

The final track, "Let Me Breathe" (credited to Marcus Anthony) sounds about is contemporary to the 50s as the Bee Gee's "Grease" is to that film's version of the 50s. That is, not in the least.

VOTD 10/2/2024

 June Chikuma: Les Archives (Freedom to Spend)

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

Oooh here I go again, blogging, blogging about listening to music, spending money on records. I can afford this and more but I have so much stuff, so many things, I am concerned with what will become of it all. The records are very resellable for the most part, with a few being particularly valuable. Even if it's just a few things at a time, I'm trying to move some objects out of the house so someone else (my daughter) doesn't have to deal with them later. I felt proud of myself for dropping off a dozen books and CDs at little libraries around the neighborhood, and plan to do more. 

Yet there I was at Jerry's yesterday, and decided to blow a few bucks on three albums, this being one. I didn't know the name, but the first thing that caught my eye was the track title "Pataphysique" and I knew this wasn't another indie-rock band that populates that section where I found this in the store. Okay, they got my money.

My first impression: I'm reminded of Raymond Scott, but grungier. There's a twitchy energy similar to his Soothing Sounds for Babies (or as I call them, Annoying Sounds for Parents). June's music isn't as clean or leanly minimalistic as the Scott albums, there's more composition involved. But similar to Scott, it's highly sequenced, driving. 

The other comparisons I'd make are to early 80s-era The Residents without the vocals (June's music has a sort of wackiness to it) and the Liquid Sky soundtrack, credited to Slava Tsukerman, Brenda I. Hutcherson, and Clive Smith. Don't ask me who's most responsible for that work. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm trying to avoid the lazy music critic reference of "Raymond Scott meets The Residents meets Liquid Sky" but damned if that doesn't at least put you in the neighborhood. And I'm not a serious music critic or journalist now, am I?

The final track on the LP finds her ideas translated to string quartet. It's pretty, but something is missing. The drive? The slow development I might associate with Reich or Glass? I posted a similar question when blogging about Simeon Ten Holt: is it really Minimalism if it's basically Classicism simply repeated over and over?

I think it I DJed, I would find this album useful, but nobody will every ask me to do that. At least the more electronic-type works.