David Tudor - Microphone (1978)

More from David Tudor, whose electronic music we heard a few weeks back.  This work was a simpler proposition: just point two shotgun microphones at an array of loudspeakers and mix the resulting feedback into alien sounds, using a processor again designed by Tudor's colleague Gordon Mumma.

Microphone was originally designed for the Pepsi Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, with 37 speakers in a rhombic grid and headsets given to visitors in order to listen in.  This later version, recorded for an LP on the Cramps label's Nova Musicha series, features two half-hour-long renderings of Microphone.  Low growls, high-pitched whines and many other variations of processed feedback flit through the mix, come to sudden stops or fritter away into new sounds.  Crank it up loud.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Three Works For Live Electronics