When I first got this album, I couldn’t get past the opening few seconds. Those days seem far away and inconceivable now, as much as when Berio’s Visages was unlistenable, or even farther back, when Carter’s double concerto was a jumble of random noises. Now this album is one exhilarating pleasure after another. Less […]

The first minute and a half of Altered Realities seems to be a minimal and slightly quirky bit of electroacoustic music. Near the end of that first 90 seconds, however, one begins to suspect that one has been listening to a rather long “hook,” and sure enough, a guitar enters playing a simple little tune […]

I bought the t-shirt first, and then decided I should probably get the cd, too, if I’m going to go around wearing their shirt. I don’t recommend that as a logical way to find good music, but it certainly worked this time. The opening to Cosmic Trigger is a favorite of mine, […]

This was the first Heiner Goebbels I heard, even though friends of mine had been praising Der Mann im Fahrstuhl for some time before. The opening is deceptively simple and naïve, so much so that my heart sank. But then the trombone cuts across that naive little tune, and then there’s some subtle but […]

Fritz Hauser is my favorite percussionist who doesn’t use objects and electronics. That is, he’s neither Chris Cutler nor Gino Robair. But for what he does, he’s the best, I think. And if I’m wrong, I want to know who’s better, so I can get all of their cds, too. Pensieri Bianchi is pretty […]

The first Gerhard I ever heard was the Prausnitz recording of this symphony on an Angel lp. If you’ve only heard this on the currently available cds, you haven’t really heard it, although Matthias Bamert’s recording is close. What neither of the cds do is play the tape part loud enough, so it sounds, even […]

This disc was my introduction to all four of these people. Needless to say, I soon had all the discs of all of them I could find. And I haunt the stores, looking for the next new one. With the first two, that used to be easy. It’s more difficult now, but you can […]

I’m tempted to say that this is the most col…. But no, I cannot. It is wildly beautiful, though. Dangerously low frequencies, that is if you’ve a good system and neighbors. Lovely bright hard sounds, too. You doubtless already like the scratchy sound at the beginnings or endings of lps….

Opens with long, breathy flute tones and moves slowly into loud, clattering, ringing, droning sounds. Nothing is abrupt in this piece. A couple of flipped flute sounds (attack at the end) are abrupt enough, I guess, but muted enough to not seem so. Muted is probably wrong. But even the loud sounds in […]

Of the three pieces on this disc, the one entitled axène is by far the shortest. (Far meaning “more than ten minutes.”) Perhaps neither ivraie/baragnes nor ressac/ressac make such a good album name. Perhaps the notes are correct, and the principle of “axène” informs all three pieces. The piece so named has […]