Kenneth Gaburo - Five Works For Voices, Instruments And Electronics (2002 compi, rec. 1968-87)

Collection with self-explanatory title, giving a nice overview of the compositional and linguistic interests of New Jersey-born Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993).  The first track here, Antiphony IV (Poised) from 1967, takes us straight into Gaburo's concept of "compositional linguistics", taking fragments of a poem by Virignia Hommel and contrasting the timbres of voice, piccolo, trombone and double bass, over a bed of electronic sounds.

A single-movement string quartet then briefly highlights Gaburo's early work (it was written in 1956), before we're back into more incredibly strange vocal sounds, this time sung through a trumpet in Mouth Piece (1970).  Another Antiphony piece follows, again using words from a Hommel poem.  Antiphony III (Pearl-White Moments) (1962) structures the pure sung phonemes in counterpoint with taped versions, electronically modified versions, and pure electronics for 16 ear-bending minutes.

The best is saved for last, though.  The Flow Of (u) (1974) might just consist of "one note sung by three singers for 23 minutes", but the hypnotic effect of the drone is transcendent.  Incredibly soothing, like a deep-brain head massage.

link
pw:sgtg