Infinity Gradient Trailer (for organ and 100 speakers) by Tristan Perich - Death of Classical video upload by Death of Classical
Note the above is a video of Tristan Perich's Infinity Gradient performance from March 22, 2022. You'll find details on his new book Pseudorandom, and upcoming performance further below. You might remember Tristan Perich from his 1-Bit synth featured in previous posts here.
Description for the Infinity Gradient performance above: "Composer Tristan Perich has made a name for himself creating sweeping, viscerally overwhelming soundscapes out of armies of 1-bit speakers playing synthesized sounds. We're pleased to present the U.S. Premiere of his newest work, Infinity Gradient, which takes his musical vision to the next level by combining 100 of those speakers with the soul-blasting power of all 7,069 pipes in the Miller-Scott Organ, housed amidst the magnificent Gothic architecture of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue and played by the inimitable James McVinnie."
"Book Release + Performance at Printed Matter, Feb 29
Tristan Perich's Pseudorandom is a companion release to his circuit album Noise Patterns. The new art book is a monolithic, unabridged 1024-page printout of the 16,777,215 numbers that comprise one complete cycle of the 3-byte random number generator from Noise Patterns' code.
Originally released as a circuitboard that plays its music through a headphone jack, Noise Patterns employed randomness at the core of its sound synthesis. However, true randomness is beyond the limitations of any deterministic computer algorithm. Because a digital computer’s memory is intrinsically finite, any attempt towards randomness will eventually exhaust every possible memory value. When those values are used up, the cycle must repeat. What results is termed “pseudorandom” — an approximation of randomness, and an illustration of the vast but fundamentally limited nature of computation.
Join me at Printed Matter on Feb 29 to celebrate the book release, with a solo performance of Noise Patterns + Q&A
Tristan Perich: Pseudorandom Book Release
Thursday, Feb 29, 6pm
Printed Matter
231 11th Ave, NYC ➝ Event Info ➝ Pre-Order"
You might remember the announcment for Lost Analog by Barry Schrader posted back in September. Not mentioned was some of the unique history and significance of this particular release featuring the Buchla 200 in the liner notes, including possibly the first quadraphonic electronic music score for a commercial film.
The liner notes for the release follow:
I’ve chosen to call this album Lost Analog not only with reference to my previous release, Lost Atlantis, but also because all of the works are analog electronic music, and parts of them are, indeed, lost. All of this music was created from 1972 through 1983, using the Buchla 200 analog modular synthesizer, also known as “The Electronic Music Box.” The music contained in this Lost Analog album was originally created in 4 channels, sometimes referred to as quadraphonic sound. In mixing and remastering these pieces as stereo files, some of the original aural intent has unavoidably been lost, another reason for calling this release Lost Analog. As I write this, realizing that some of this music hasn’t been heard in public for almost fifty years, I’m taken back to much earlier days in my life and career, which, although remembered, are also lost, as are all of our pasts.
Death of the Red Planet Suite” (1973) is made from parts of a score for the film “Death of the Red Planet." The 20-minute film was the first to be created from images made with lasers, and it toured theatres along with “Yessongs,” a concert film of the band Yes. It is, I think, the first quadraphonic electronic music score for a commercial film. This suite of the music from the score is all that I have of the original soundtrack. Whether or not the film still exists in its original theatrical format, I have no idea. More information on this film may be found here.
“Bestiary" (1972-74) is a five-movement work drawing on mythological creatures from medieval bestiaries, treatises about real and fictitious animals. Originally, I had planned seven movements, but ended up composing only five. The first and last movements are imaginings of mythological beasts convening and dispersing (the latter in an increasingly disorderly way), while the interior three sections focus, respectively, on sea serpents, a unicorn, and basilisks, the latter being venomous winged reptiles that supposedly lived in caves or deep wells. “Bestiary” is the first work of mine to fully incorporate what has become one of my main compositional concerns: the creation of new and transformational timbres.
After composing “Lost Atlantis”, I wanted to do something very different, and so I wrote "Classical Studies" (1977). These three short pieces use abstractions of old musical forms: canon, chorale, and perpetuum mobile. The timbres are almost always changing with each successive event in these works, very quickly so in “Perpetuum Mobile."
The”Moon-Whales Suite” presents three sections of a larger work, “Moon-Whales and Other Moon Songs" (1982-83). This is a seven-movement work for soprano and electronics. The even-numbered movements are for soprano accompanied by electronics, and the odd-numbered movements are for soprano solo followed by an electronic music section without voice. The three movements presented here, are the 2nd, 4th, and 6th sections of the work, without the soprano introductions. The work is based on poems by Ted Hughes, the British Poet Laureate from 1984 to 1998, taken from his collection “Moon-Whales and Other Moon Poems." The three poems referenced are also the titles of the pieces in this suite: “The Moon-Oak,” “The Moon-Bull,” and "Moon-Wings". Reading the poems will help to uncover the inspirations and ideas behind these works, but I think they also stand on their own as musical compositions. While the master tapes for the electronics of these pieces still exist, they are unplayable due to tape deterioration, yet another reason for this album to be called “Lost Analog."
Barry Schrader has announced the release of a new album, “Lost Analog.” This is a collection of previously unreleased works Schrader composed between 1972 and 1983 on the Buchla 200 synthesizer, aka The Electric Music Box. This album of definitive works of West Coast electronic music serves as a companion collection to Schrader’s famous “Lost Atlantis” release, widely regarded as a benchmark for classical electronic music works. The “Lost Analog” album contains music from the film “Death of the Red Planet”, the complete versions of “Bestiary” and “Classical Studies”, and an electronic suite of three movements from “Moon-Whales and Other Moon-Songs.”
The release date for “Lost Analog” is Friday, October 28, 2022. The limited-edition CD and the digital tracks will be sold on Bandcamp, and the tracks will also be sold on all major online music stores. Until then, you can hear previews of the tracks at https://barryschrader.hearnow.com/.
“…the music outsynthesized Tangerine Dream in its hypnotic electronic coloration.” - New York Times review of “Death of the Red Planet"
“Schrader's music has fascinatingly subtle shifts of color and volume. The listener could wrap himself in a development of metallic sounds seamlessly transformed from speaker to speaker, a delicate but penetrating pulsation of notes woven with a music-box effect, or a melange of dizzying, sliding, wind rushing patterns that make the revving-up of a jet plane seem demure.” - Los Angeles Times review of “Bestiary"
Those interested in getting the CD or digital download should sign up on Barry Schrader’s “Follow” mailing list on Bandcamp before October 28 in order to get special offers when the album is released.
Hi everyone! As you know Barry Schrader will be giving his farewell concert at CalArts on September 26. The following is the beginning of my interview with him. I opted to post the questions and answers as they come in. New QAs will get a new post so you do not miss them and they will be added to this post so we have one central post for the full interview. This should make it easier for all of us to consume in our busy lives, and it will allow you to send in any questions that may come to mind during the interview process. If you have anything you'd like to ask Barry, feel free to send it in to matrixsynth@gmail.com. This is a rare opportunity for us to get insight on a significant bit of synthesizer history, specifically with early Buchla systems, and I'd like to thank Barry for this opportunity. Thank you Barry!
"This was a recording I made last year after first acquiring the instrument. It consists of a simple 3 note pattern played on the SE's sequencer, and the sound is tweaked during the latter half of the recording. I recorded 2 tracks of guitar using a cheap classical acoustic, and some claves in the first part of the recording. I tried layering some sounds over the last half of it, but I was not happy with it and preferred the sound unaccompanied. This is along the lines of much of my recordings, I like simplicity, sometimes merely implied melodies, and a complete lack of drum machines.
A Death By Audio 'Ghost Delay' pedal was used on the synth, and generic reverb on the other sounds.
The video footage is taken from a summer walk in Northumberland, UK."
"Wavemakers pursues the legacy of an electronic musical instrument as fragile as it is magical: the Ondes Martenot. The Martenot so sensitive, so expressive, that nearly a century after its invention, musicians, artisans and scientists are still trying to unravel its secrets. Among them are the inventor’s son, Jean-Louis Martenot, Suzanne Binet-Audet, the 'Jimi Hendrix of the Martenot', and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead.
Integrating vérité, never-before-seen archival material and an entrancing soundtrack, this feature documentary explores the origins and workings of the Martenot, and draws us inexorably into its spell. A modern-day story set against a historical background, Wavemakers is a journey into the very heart of the mystery of music.
With Wavemakers, Caroline Martel returns with the signature approach that turned her first feature doc about telephone operators into a 'non-stop visual and intellectual stimulation… an enormously creative documentary.' (Variety). She pursues her fascination with culture and technology, using her distinctive blend of humanism, lyricism and experimentation."
Maurice Martenot dreamed of sound springing from silence. Amid the chaos of the Great War, the young French wireless telegraph operator became enthralled by the unusual interference produced by his radio’s vacuum tubes. He envisioned of an instrument that would turn the raw material of electricity into music, while allowing for the complete control of the performer: the Ondes musicales Martenot. Inspired by an ideal of human and live artistic expression, his electronic instrument is of such extraordinary sensitivity that nearly a century after its invention, musicians, artisans and scientists are still trying to unravel its secrets.
With an extremely wide spectrum of timbres able to evoke sounds ranging from the human voice to wind instruments, to the hum of a machine, the Martenot’s expressive capabilities are unequalled by any other electronic instrument. But what became of it? Since its introduction at the Paris Opera in 1928, it has been widely used in both classical and popular repertoires. From the first sound films of Abel Gance and Fritz Lang, to Hollywood classics, science-fiction TV series, and recent productions such as There Will Be Blood, the Martenot has also lent a distinctive colour to the music of Olivier Messiaen, Tristan Murail, Édith Piaf and Radiohead. Yet, while it has been part of the collective unconscious of entire generations, it is practically invisible today. After the accidental death of Maurice Martenot in 1980, the Martenot workshop gradually ceased production, leaving the instrument’s future up in the air. Of the 281 Martenots that were built, only about 70 remain, and the instrument is now threatened with extinction.
With its modern-day plot set against a historical background, Wavemakers pursues the uncompleted dream of the visionary man that was Maurice Martenot (1898–1980). This feature documentary follows an ensemble of Martenot aficionados, in France and Quebec, who search through studios, basements, science labs, and workshops to unravel the secrets of the instrument. Among them is Jean-Louis Martenot, striving to keep his father’s musical and pedagogical legacy alive. Suzanne Binet-Audet, the “Jimi Hendrix of the Martenot,” who meets backstage with Jonny Greenwood. A well-known member of the band Radiohead, Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist and composer leading a new generation of musicians who are rediscovering the Martenot. Jeanloup Dierstein, an electronic instrument maker in Paris’ 17th arrondissement, is working on a new Martenot prototype, and, like its inventor, “dreams of it day and night.” Dierstein allows us to be the timely witnesses of the rebirth of one of the 20th century’s major musical innovations."
YouTube via bellerob | February 02, 2011 | Tony Allgood of Oakley Sound "Takla Makan is the artist name of Tony Allgood. Tony has been producing music for three decades. His main influences are Jean Michel Jarre, Mike Oldfield and Tangerine Dream. However, over the years inspiration has come from many sources including the late 80s rave scene, classical works and film soundtracks. This mix and match of musical genres has come together in a style that is distinctly Tony's and won him considerable acclaim from listeners and EM critics all over the world. He has produced five albums and the last four are available as CD-Rs from the artist's website. For a long time Takla Makan had problems finding a home on a commercial label. Many have been approached but the difficulty in tying his music down to a particular genre has scared all too many of them. Even so, Tony has been selling CD-Rs direct to the public for many years. Nowadays his music is alo available through synthmusic direct. "Y garreg wen"is from Tony's brilliant album "1632". ( 2003 ) http://www.oakleysound.com/music.htm http://www.oakleysound.com/
Dafydd y Garreg Wen is a traditional Welsh air and folk song. David Owen, the famous blind harper and composer, lived near Porthmadog in Caernarfonshire, Wales in the first half of the 18th century, who was known locally as Dafydd y Garreg Wen, (English: David of the White Rock). The epithet Y Garreg Wen (English: The White Rock) was the name of the farm near Morfa Bychan in which he lived. Tradition has it that as Owen lay on his death bed, he called for his harp and composed the haunting air. He died at the age of 29 and was buried at St Cynhaearn's Church near Porthmadog.[1] The words were added nearly a hundred years later in by the poet John Ceiriog Hughes.
lyrics in Welsh: 'Cariwch', medd Dafydd, 'fy nhelyn i mi, Ceisiaf cyn marw roi tôn arni hi. Codwch fy nwylo i gyraedd y tant; Duw a'ch bendithio fy ngweddw a'm plant!' 'Neithiwr mi glywais lais angel fel hyn: "Dafydd, tyrd adref, a chwarae trwy'r glyn!" Delyn fy mebyd, ffarwel i dy dant! Duw a'ch bendithio fy ngweddw a'm plant!'
English translation: 'Bring me my harp', was David's sad sigh, 'I would play one more tune before I die. Help me, dear wife, put the hands to the strings, I wish my loved ones the blessing God brings.' 'Last night an angel called with heaven's breath: "David, play, and come through the gates of death!" Farewell, faithful harp, farewell to your strings, I wish my loved ones the blessing God brings.'"
"Hollywood, however, had already been utilizing instruments such as the theremin in movie scores for many years, and the first widespread American public exposure to the possibilities of the electronic medium occurred with the 1956 release of MGM's feature film Forbidden Planet. In addition to its elaborate space sets and advanced visual effects, Forbidden Planet featured an exclusively electronic musical score composed by Bebe Barron (b. 1927) and her husband Louis (1920-1989)....
Once they decided on the characters' moods and situations, the couple completed a series of electrical circuits which functioned electronically in ways analogous to the human nervous system. Decisions about the circuitry were strongly influenced by their studies of the science of cybernetics which proposes that certain natural laws of behavior are applicable to both animals and more complex modern machinary. The composers employed their noise-producing circuits to emulate such needed characterizations as serenity, anger, and love....
Bebe and Louis' success signaled the beginning of the effective use of electroacoustic music by the modern movie industry."
via Peter Grenader of Plan b:
"We have lost a bright little little light and a dear friend. Bebe Barron has passed. She has captivated us with her charm, her modesty and her enchanting smile and her memory will remain in our hearts, our art and our spiritforever."
It is with great sadness that I report the death of Bebe Barron on April 20, 2008 at the age of 82, of natural causes. Bebe was the last of the pioneering composers of classical studio electronic music. She was a close friend, an enthusiastic colleague, and a most gracious lady.
Bebe Barron was born Charlotte Wind in Minneapolis, on June 16, 1925. She received an MA in political science from the University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Roque Cordero, and she also spent a year studying composition and ethnomusicology at the University of Mexico. In 1947 she moved to New York and, while working as a researcher for Time-Life, studied composition with Wallingford Reigger and Henry Cowell. That same year, she met and married Louis Barron (1920 - 1989). Shortly thereafter, the Barrons began their experiments with the recording and manipulation of sound material by means of a tape recorder that they received as a wedding gift. They created a private studio in New York and, in 1955, composed the first electronic music score for a commercial film, Forbidden Planet. In 1962 the Barrons moved to Los Angeles; they divorced in 1970. In 1973, Bebe married Leonard Neubauer, a screen writer. Bebe became the first Secretary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) in 1985, and also served on the Board of Directors. In 1997 Bebe was presented the SEAMUS Award for the Barrons life work in the field of electro-acoustic music. She is survived by her husband, Leonard, and her son, Adam.
Bebe’s last public appearance was on January 12, 2008, at an event held at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, celebrating the work of her good friend, Anais Nin. Bebe was too ill to speak in public at this point, but she agreed to be interviewed for a video piece that was shown at the event. This is her final interview, and you can see it on YouTube.
Bebe’s final composition, Mixed Emotions (2000) was composed in the CREATE studios of the University of California at Santa Barbara. I'll be putting this work up on the Downloads 2 page of my website, along with some photos of Bebe and myself taken in 2005 at her home on the Photos page within the next week.
I first met Bebe Barron in the middle 1970s; I don't remember exactly when, but I think it was around 1975. I had asked Bebe and her former husband and composing partner Louis to attend a showing of Forbidden Planet that I had arranged as part of a class at CalArts. They agreed to do it, and I quickly became good friends with Bebe and we remained close over the years.
In writing about Bebe Barron, it's impossible not to focus on the pioneering work that she and Louis did in electronic music. They began their experiments in 1948, shortly after they were married. This early work was done using a tape recorder, preceding the work of Luening and Ussachevsky and the switch from disks to tape by Pierre Schaeffer and the GRM. But, to my knowledge, the Barrons' early experiments did not result in any completed works, a state of affairs not uncommon with early pioneers in the field. In 1949 they set up one of the earliest private electro-acoustic music studios and began their experiments with electronically generated sounds. They built their own circuits which they viewed as cybernetic organisms, having been influenced by Norbert Weiner's work on cybernetics. The circuits, built with vacuum tubes, would exhibit characteristic qualities of pitch, timbre, and rhythm, and had a sort of life cycle from their beginnings until they burned out.
The Barrons recorded the sounds from the amplification of these circuits and this formed the basis of their working library. They also employed tape manipulation techniques as part of their compositional procedures. The sound qualities of these various amplified tube circuits and the tape manipulations that they underwent formed the musical language that the Barrons created in their studio. Unlike some of the work being done elsewhere, the Barrons' music reveals long phrases, often stated in tape-delayed rhythms, with the stark finesse of the tube circuit timbres. They created a style that was uniquely their own yet married to the technology they were using.
The Barrons earliest finished work, Heavenly Menagerie (1951) does not seem to have survived in a complete form. But their score for Ian Hugo's film Bells of Atlantis (1952), based on a poem by Anais Nin, who appears on screen, does exist on the film sound track. This may be the earliest extant work of the Barrons and presages what was to come with Forbidden Planet, the music for which was composed in 1955, the film being released the
next year.
The music for Forbidden Planet is truly a landmark in electro-acoustic music. This was the first commercial film to use only electronic music, and the score for the movie displays an attitude towards film scoring that was different from anything that had happened before. In Forbidden Planet, while there are themes for characters and events in the film, as was traditional in the scoring of that day, the themes are composed and perceived as gestalts, rather than as melodies in traditional movie music. Even more important is the fact that the scoring of Forbidden Planet breaks down the traditional line between music and sound effects since the Barrons' electronic material is used for both. This not only creates a new type of unity in the film sound world, but also allows for a continuum between these two areas that the Barrons exploit in various ways. At some points it's actually impossible to say whether or not what you're hearing is music, sound effect, or both. In doing this, they foreshadowed by decades the now common role of the sound designer in modern film and video.
The Barrons composed many other works for tape, film, and the theater in the 1950s. Their studio became the home for John Cage's Project of Music for Magnetic Tape, and they assisted in the creation of Cage's first chance piece Williams Mix (1951-52), as well as works by other members of the group such as Earle Brown and Morton Feldman. As a studio for the creation of their own and other composers' works, the Barrons' studio served as a functioning center for electro-acoustic music at a time when there was no institutional support of the medium in the United States. It's curious, then, that, for many years, the Barrons, their studio, and their works were largely overlooked by composers and historians in the field. Fortunately, that injustice has since been corrected, and, in 1997, it was my great honor to present to Bebe and, posthumously, to Louis, the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. Bebe was involved with SEAMUS from the very beginning of the organization. She was one of the ten original members who responded to my organizational call and met at CalArts in November of 1984 to form the group, and she was SEAMUS's first secretary. There may have been a little strong-arming on my part to get her to be involved so actively, but Bebe was always ready to support the cause of electro-acoustic music in whatever way she could.
Bebe created a firm legacy in her music. If the importance of one's work is to be judged in any regard by it's influence, acceptance, longevity, and innovative qualities, then the score for Forbidden Planet is an enormous success. It remains the most widely known electro-acoustic music work on this planet. For me, Bebe Barron will always be the First Lady of electronic music." Update: BTW, if you have Netflix, you can watch Forbidden Planet online in IE here.
