Iannis Xenakis - Evryali/Herma & Olivier Messian - Quatre Études De Rythme (Yuji Takahashi, 1976)

Knotty but immensely satisfying piano acrobatics from Japanese musician, conductor and composer Yuji Takahashi (b. 1938).  He'd studied under Iannis Xenakis in the early 60s, so was well placed to tackle Xenakis' two foremost pieces for solo piano that kick off this album.

Evryali (1973) is apparently impossible to play in full, and each interpreter has to decide how much of the piece they are able to take on.  Packed with gamelan influences, "stochastic clouds" and "polyphonic arborescences", it probably takes a PhD to fully understand, but is a blast to just listen to in its typically Xenakian insanity.  This is complemented by Herma (1962), dating from Takahashi's time with Xenakis, who dedicated it to him, and is based on set operations from Boolean algebra... nope, me neither.  Still great.

Olivier Messiaen's Four Rhythmic Studies date from 1949-50, with the 'Island Of Fire' pieces at the bookends inspired by melodies from Papua New Guinea.  In between, Messiaen experiments with numerical organisations of pitch, duration & timbre, and with Gregorian neumes, in a fascinating break from his usual concerns of naturalistic and spiritual wonder.  Takahashi excels again at this beautifully odd music, and the whole album sounds as pristine as you'd expect from a digital recording from 1976.  Yep, Denon had been pioneering PCM recording onto videotape for a full five years at this point.

link
pw: sgtg

Iannis Xenakis at SGTG:
Phlegra, Jalons etc
Oresteïa
Synaphaï
Persephassa
Ata, Jonchaies etc
Pléiades/Psappha
Bohor etc
Kraanerg
Terretektorh/Nomos Gamma
La Légende D'Eer
Persepolis
Olivier Messiaen at SGTG:
Des Canyons Aux Étoiles
Turangalîla Symphony / L'ascension
Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum, etc

Peeter Vähi - The Path To The Heart Of Asia (1992)

Superior New Age/world music/electronics suite from Estonian composer & musician Peeter Vähi, born 1955 in Tartu.  These ten 'Legends', plus a finale called Legend Zero, do pretty much what the album title suggests, in a continental tour taking in Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Turkey.

Vähi performs with several of the participants from the Orient 92 music festival that took place in Tallinn: a Cambodian flautist playing in circular breathing on the opener and vocalist on the Khmer folk tune of Legend Three, a Taiwanese group on Four, Tuvinian overtone singers on Five and Eight, and so on until the appearance of a South-Siberian shaman on Ten.  This might not have worked in lesser hands, and could've been a bit of a pretentious gloop, but it's all extremely well produced, in a spare, austere sound with additional keyboards and percussion from Vähi only when necessary.  Highly listenable and recommended.

link
pw: sgtg

Arild Andersen Quartet - Green Shading Into Blue (1978)

The follow-up to the gorgeous Shimri (link below) found Arild Andersen's quartet still as light and refreshing as an autumn breeze, but capable of channelling more blustery weather as well.  Sole hits a wonderfully light groove, with Lars Jansson judiciously introducing electronic keys for the first time.  The Guitarist really ought to have been named The Flautist, and is a serene breathing space before the next lengthy track, Jansson's Anima.  Juhani Aaltonen switches back to sax for some of his most firey playing on the album, whilst Jansson and Andersen provide mellower interludes.

Side Two kicks off with a groovy tribute to Andersen's partner of the time, Radka Toneff, before settling down into the rural twilight of the album cover.  The title track finds Jansson back on understated synth, as Andersen, rock-solid as ever, leads the way for Aaltonen's sax.  The home stretch of Jana is an upbeat drive home as the last light fades, capping off a typically gorgeous and evocative Andersen album.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Shimri
Molde Concert
and featuring Arild Andersen:
Afric Pepperbird
Triptykon
Popofoni
In Line
Bluish

Nurse With Wound - A Sucked Orange/Scrag (2012 reiss of compis from 1989 & 87)

A clearout exercise by Steven Stapleton, in which piles of tape offcuts destined for the bin were salvaged at a friend's suggestion and released in a Faust Tapes-style random collage.  The first attempt at this appeared in 1987 as a 28-minute cassette entitled Scrag, which wouldn't be digitally reissued until this double-CD edition in 2012.  Stapleton then fleshed out the concept to album-length in 1990, and called it A Sucked Orange, with one of his most eye-popping, memorable album covers.

The "bits and bobs" of tape were often worn and frayed from experimental abuse undertaken in the process of creating the early NWW records. Indeed, anyone familiar with Homotopy To Marie, Sylvie & Babs and Spiral Insana will recognise the sound of these albums starting to come together in occasional fragments.  Elsewhere, Stapleton has a go at a Steve Reich-esque tape phase experiment with a fragment of Trout Mask Replica, records various friends singing (or attempting to, and fluffing it), and much more.  In the end, he managed to create not just an outtakes compilation but a thoroughly enjoyable Nurse With Wound album in its own right from detritus that was about to end up as landfill.

Disc 1 (A Sucked Orange) link
Disc 2 (Scrag) link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl
Merzbild Schwet
Insect And Individual Silenced
Homotopy To Marie
Gyllensköld, Geijerstam And I At Rydberg's
The Sylvie And Babs High-Thigh Companion
Spiral Insana
Lumb's Sister
Soliloquy For Lilith
Thunder Perfect Mind
Alice The Goon
A Missing Sense
Salt Marie Celeste
Angry Eelectric Finger: Spitch'cock One
Paranoia In Hi-Fi
The Surveillance Lounge 
Painting With Priests

Giacinto Scelsi - Hurqualia/Hymnos/Chukrum (1990)

Another trip into the strange, formless void of Giacinto Scelsi's mature period, previously explored early on in this blog when I first heard an album of his music.  This series of albums on the Accord label served as the first attempt at a major reappraisal of the bewitching, monochordal and microtonal Scelsi sound, just after his death in 1988.  So obscure had Scelsi became that nothing on this album had even been performed until the mid-late 80s.  A series of concerts, the rehearsals of which Scelsi oversaw in the final year of his life, and then these albums, kickstarted a long overdue and ongoing appreciation of his music. 

First up here is the four-part Hurqualia, with some of Scelsi's most dramatic and dynamic symphonic writing, focusing on the power of the brass and percussion.  Then there's the single-movement Hymnos, his longest self-contained piece with the grandest orchestral forces he wrote for (86 musicians), with Brucknerian influences but still centred on that unwavering, hypnotic Scelsi drone.  Closing the album is some of his most fearsome writing for string orchestra in another four-parter, Chukrum.  Truly stunning music for deep listening.

link
pw:sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: 
Quatro Pezzi Per Orchestra/Anahit/Uaxuctum
Tre Pezzi (Daniel Kientzy, saxophone)

Coil - Black Antlers (2004-6)

Jhonn Balance's tragic death amidst unfinished recordings meant that there was no clear-cut "last Coil album".  The original version of this one might've been the last Coil album released in Balance's lifetime, but even so it was presented as a work in progress; CDRs handed out on tour.  As far as I'm concerned, though, Black Antlers has always felt like just as fitting and satisfying an end to the Coil discography proper, as the more polished Ape Of Naples.

The Gimp (Sometimes) starts proceedings with a full five minutes of discomforting squiggles before settling down into a wearied lament, Sleazy & Thighpaulsandra's electronics reaching ever further into other dimensions.  The late-Coil collection of sardonic and surreal Balance narratives hits a high point with Sex With Sun Ra, and Wraiths And Strays captured how dynamic and exciting their live work had become.  In 2006, three more tracks were added by Sleazy to round off one of the most satisfying Coil releases, and most poignant in showing what they still had to give.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Astral Disaster
Musick To Play In The Dark
...and the ambulance died in his arms

Charles Mingus - Changes One & Two (1975)

Some more late Mingus, in a pair of magnificent quintet records that were recorded at the same December 1974 sessions, then released separately and also as a double-album.  The opening minutes of Changes One find Mingus' political fire undimmed in the title Remember Rockefeller At Attica, but the music is incongrously bright and breezy.  Perhaps it started out with satirical lyrics a la Fables Of Faubus, who knows.  This is followed by the 17 sublime minutes of Sue's Changes, that rank among Mingus' most enduring music.  On the second half of the album, a riotous blues calls back to the Oh Yeah era, then the gorgeous Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love is the perfect closer.

Changes Two starts out following the same pattern as its sister album.  Free Cell Block F, 'Tis Nazi USA swings like it ought to have a much less weighty title, but in the cases of both openers Mingus will have known exactly what he was doing.  This is followed by another 17-minute epic, a freshly minted reworking of the Mingus classic Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Silk Blue.  Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love makes another appearance, this time with a Jackie Paris vocal, and is bookended by great compositions from band member Jack Walrath and arranger Sy Johnson.  Both albums are hugely recommended pinnacles of Mingus' career, alongside the other late classic Let My Children Hear Music.

Changes One
Changes Two
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:  
Oh Yeah  
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

John Adams - Shaker Loops/Light Over Water (1987 compi, rec. 1979 & 1983)

Early Adams at his hypnotic best, starting in 1979 with his well-known Shaker Loops in its original score for string septet.  Starting life as a piece called Wavemaker, intended to evoke a ripple effect on a body of water, it was retitled both in reference to the shaking effect of the strings and the ecstatic dancing of the Shaker sect.  Compare & contrast with the through-composed (the original here has a modular score), orchestrated version that had its recorded premiere under Edo DeWaart - links below.

This compilation pairs the original Shaker Loops with a 1983 dance commission, for Lucinda Childs' Available Light.  The music, which Adams titled Light Over Water, was originally released on its own LP in 1985, and to my ears is the Adams work that sounds closest to Philip Glass.  Much of this is due to the kind of music the dance work required, in a continuous arch rather than in small discrete movements. 

Adams also used synths as the primary instruments, then fleshed out the 46-minute piece with judicious use of a brass septet, to act as "the music's shadow".  For a much more in-depth discussion of Light Over Water, and Adams' relationship to electronic music, there's a great piece by Ingram Marshall here.  Adams might have found this a daunting commission, and wasn't a huge fan of working electronically, but the results were sublime.  Highly recommended.

link
pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
The orchestral version of Shaker Loops
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
Road Movies, etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

The Teddy Charles Tentet - s/t (1956)

Fresh from some inspiring times in Charles Mingus' Jazz Composers' Workshop, a session with Mingus and Miles Davis and some ambitious releases of his own, vibraphonist Teddy Charles pushed the boat out further when signing to Atlantic.  This January 1956 session took some inspiration from Mingus, some from Gil Evans' late 1940s work with Miles (Evans and George Russell are two of the arrangers here), and also from the likes of Stravinsky. 

All this made the ten-piece group's self-titled album highly sophisticated for its day, beating Miles to the punch by two years in the closing track's modal progression, and even looking forward to free jazz in The Emperor, Charles' most striking composition here.  All of the crack team of players are great here, with Charles himself best highlighted on vibes on Nature Boy, which also appeared on Blue Moods (link above).  Highly recommended.

link
pw: sgtg

Iancu Dumitrescu/Ana-Maria Avram - Etoiles Brisees (1998)

An hour-long trip into the hellscape of Romanian spectralism's two greatest dark mages, featuring only four tracks - and only three pieces, as Iancu Dumitrescu on this release only contributed the title track, done two ways.  But there's still enough unhinged genius packed in here to get immersed in for the foreseeable future.  Basically the average Edition Modern CD then.

Etoiles Brisees is first presented as an entirely computer-music based sound world, by turns eerily subdued and subaquatic, then blasting full-on digital noise into your synapses.  Straight afterwards, the piece repeats in an orchestrated version, but still with some noticeable electronic elements.  Ana-Maria Avram's two contributions here are both full-bodied string orchestra torture of the most exquisite kind, with the ghostly drones, moans and creaks of Seconde Axe particularly recommended.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted on SGTG:
ED.MN.1001 - Medium/Cogito
ED.MN.1002 - Au Dela De Movemur
ED.MN.1003 - Pierres Sacreés
ED.MN.1004 - Musique de Paroles
ED.MN.1005 - Galaxy
ED.MM.1006 - A Priori
ED.MN.1008 - Five Pieces
ED.MN.1009 - Ouranos II 
ED.MN.1010 - Meteors & Pulsars 
ED.MN.1011 - Musique Action '98
ED.MN.1014 - Orbit of Eternal Grace
ED.MN.1018 - Remote Pulsar
ED.MN.1019 - In Tokyo

Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum (1985)

Double album of dark psych-pop, post-punk prog weirdness and god knows what else, from Anglo-Dutch cult legends who are still on the go after 40 years.  This is the first album of theirs I've taken a chance on after being vaguely aware of them for ages, so any pointers as to where to go next would be much appreciated.  The attraction of this one from the mid 80s was the editing participation of one Steven Stapleton, which on listening appears to be limited to the strangest tracks at the end, but I could be wrong.

Whether or not Asylum is a good entry point to the Legendary Pink Dots, I loved it, and found it well structured - the short songs at the beginning gradually give way to more ambitious, longer tracks and finally full-on avant-garde insanity on the original Side 4.  The lazy description of this band might be that they're like a post-punk version of Barrett-era Floyd, which has a grain of truth, but there's so much more besides that.

For instance: love the violin sound (although I gather they had numerous lineup changes), Edward Ka-Spel's voice, especially on the spoken-word epic So Gallantly Screaming, and the two gorgeous tracks with a female lead vocal, from Attrition's Julia Niblock.  The keyboard sounds and production values might not be to everyone's taste, but for me they were spot on for an album of this style and vintage.  I'm looking forward to further exploration.

link
pw: sgtg

Terry Riley - Shri Camel (1980)

Some more (see last two links below) of Terry Riley's just-intonation electric organ flights into deepest inner space.  Shri Camel began as a commission for Radio Bremen in 1975, with an early performance the following year; this CBS studio recording dates from 1978, and was finally released two years later.

This puts its sound closest to Descending Moonshine Dervishes, also dating from 1975 but not released until the early 80s.  By the mid 70s, Riley had fully integrated his earlier studies under Pandit Pran Nath into his tape delay (and then digital delay) sound on the organ, and could play ever more intricate counterpoint and variations over the ongoing pattern.  In the studio for Shri Camel, this unique Eastern-Western fusion was still all recorded live to 16-track - no overdubs, just Riley and the delay system.

The mind-melting sound that emerges works just as well here on the four shorter tracks required by a single LP as it did on Riley's hour-plus concerts.  Anthem Of The Trinity effectively acts as a 9-minute prologue, before the 11-minute Celestial Valley takes off in earnest, spinning endless notes into the cosmos.  The album's second half repeats the same formula, with the seven minutes of Across The Lake Of The Ancient Word setting the listener up for the epic finale of Desert Of Ice.

Live performance of Shri Camel, Holland Festival 1977

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
In C
Rainbow In Cologne
Descending Moonshine Dervishes

Mikhail Chekalin - Concerto Grosso No. 1 (2000 compi, rec. 1989-92)

Another instalment (see links below) in the 12-LP series from the early 90s that gave Russian symphonic-synthesist Mikhail Chekalin his breakthrough, Concerto Grosso No. 1 was recorded in 1989.  The album opens with the 14 minutes of Meditation (Russian Mystery), finding Chekalin in dark ambient mode with plenty of odd industrial sounds, wordless vocals and eerie piano over the top of the droning base.

The haunted circus atmosphere of Fascination and synth-strings of Chamber Music show Chekalin continuing to show promise in the soundtrack field that he'd move into, with his hardware updated to include Yamaha, Kurzweil and Roland keyboards.  On the second half of the orignal LP, To Appreciate The March offers some of his weirdest vocal experiments, and the 11-minute Symphony Of Lamentations is possibly the album's highlight - it's just plain odd, with more wild vocalisations and strange sound effects wafting through the ether.  Of the three early 90s bonus tracks, the 20-minute Dissonata is the definite pick, working through a similar sustained, warped atmosphere as the two long tracks on the album.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Meditative Music For A Prepared Organ, Vol. 1 & 2
The Symphony-Phonogram
Between Spring And Autumn By Stealth