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.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Three Works For Live Electronics

David Tudor - Three Works For Live Electronics (1996 compi, orig LP rel. 1984)

Circuit-frying explorations by John Cage's major collaborator David Tudor (1926-1996), from a time when Tudor was moving away from the prepared piano in favour of prepared electronics.  This collection comprises Tudor's 1984 LP on Lovely Music, which was simply called Pulsers/Untitled, plus an extra piece.

Gordon Mumma was the original designer of the modulator system used in Pulsers, then developed further by Tudor.  All it does is trigger phase-shifted feedback into endless throbbing rhythms, which sound a bit like someone's left an LP of Zero Set out in the sun too long.  After a few minutes, this is joined by an equally warped-sounding electric violin part by Takehisa Koshugi, and the end result is endlessly enjoyable.

Untitled was originally conceived in 1972 for Cage's voice; in this 1982 version, Koshugi supplies the vocalisations whilst much wilder electronics are set off in a long chain of manipulation from the original vocal input.  Lastly, the 31-minute Phonemes is just pure electronics, chopped into tiny fragments and further sorted and modified into a bubbling soup of sound; it was given a speech-related title purely because that's what the end result made Tudor think of.  All three electronic explorations are highly recommended.

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John Cage / David Tudor - Indeterminacy (1959)

John Milton Cage Jr, 1912-1992 - composer, music theorist, Zen Buddhist, all of these and more; here he is captured on tape in the late 50s holding forth on every facet of his life and interests.  Encouraged by long-time collaborator David Tudor to start delivering some lectures that were simply storytelling, Cage started compiling minute-long anecdotes on cue cards, and eventually decided to record some of them.

Even if this double-album of 90 stories was just purely a spoken-word recording, I'd still love it - Cage holding forth on everything from music to philosophy to charming autobiographical snapshots is a joy to experience on repeat listens.  The icing on the cake, however, is that Tudor accompanied him in the studio (well, in separate studios where they couldn't hear each other) playing and cutting in elements of Cage's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Fontana Mix.  Voice and musical/noise backing collide against each other, sometimes abraisively, sometimes dovetailing brilliantly in moments of wonderful serendipity.

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