by Brandon Conway
In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, Xenakis worked with GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales) in Paris to produce several pieces for electromagnetic tape, including Orient-Occident, a piece often overshadowed by works like Concrete PH and Bohor, which are rightly considered more groundbreaking pieces in Xenakis’s early oeuvre, particularly Bohor, with its unique [...]

Randy Yau is the graphics designer responsible for the distinctive design that makes shopping for Ground Fault cds so easy and that makes owning them a visual treat as well as a sonic one. As R.H.Y. Yau, Randy is also a fiercely talented musician whose The Hidden Tongue is a sonic treat for sure. Sharp, [...]

The first section, of three, opens with low jet engine-like rumblings, interrupted by loud, short sounds with such short decays that I still hesitate to guess whether they’re metal or glass. Which is OK, as that gives you as good a sense of their quality as anything else. I was most taken [...]

Long slow crescendo. Short decrescendo. Long slow crescendo. Long decrescendo. Lovely rich deep, dark drones. Lovely high, bright tones. Extremely distorted voices. Some pitched electronic sounds that make a tune of sorts. And many wave-like motifs (short cresc/decresc), some sounding like actual waves. No abrupt changes; each layer moves slowly and majestically [...]

Mostly steady state stuff, either loops or long drones (are there short drones?) or static. But also lot of different and unrelated styles, all jumbled together, as one would expect from turntable music, after all. But it won’t remind you, or only rarely, of the other turntable stuff you may know, Marclay or [...]