The Art of Noise: Soundscapes of the Italian Futurists

The Technological and Mechanical Innovations that began in the age of the Industrial Revolution have exponentially, infiltrated every aspect of the human experience. Our modern methods of consumption, construction and conception are all “machine aided” and modern methods of Transportation and communication have made possible the notion of a Global Village. As we enter what might be termed the third age of industrialisation, however, many … Continue reading The Art of Noise: Soundscapes of the Italian Futurists

Profile: Johanna Beyer – Enigmatic Modernist

The accepted timeline of Twentieth Century experimental music is one dominated by White men; with female composers emerging only after the cultural revolutions of the ’50s and ’60s. And whilst this is no doubt a product of contemporary institutionalized sexism that simply didn’t afford women the same opportunities as Men; thought, as they were, better left to “light music” and whimsical chamber works or perceived … Continue reading Profile: Johanna Beyer – Enigmatic Modernist

Profile: The Trautonium – Forgotten Sounds from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds

One of the many things that make 1963 classic The Birds so chilling is the lack of any incidental music or conventional soundtrack. It is perhaps a testament to the faith that Universal Pictures placed in Hitchcock as an auteur that such a move was sanctioned. The prevailing wisdom being that audiences were incapable of responding properly to the emotions present in a scene if … Continue reading Profile: The Trautonium – Forgotten Sounds from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds

News: Latest Album from William Basinski Features 1.3 billion-Year-Old Source Recordings

On Time Out of Times is a collection of works originally commissioned for Berlin’s gallery Martin-Gropius-Bau’s 2017 Limits of Knowing. An immersive multi-installation exhibition that explored sensory perception, emotion and the borders of our understanding. Part of Evelina Domnitch’s ER=EPR and Dmitry Gelfand’s Orbihedron installations the music featured here takes as sonic raw material, among other things, recordings from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. And … Continue reading News: Latest Album from William Basinski Features 1.3 billion-Year-Old Source Recordings

Profile: Modern Trends In Tape Music and Contemporary Artists in The Field

This article is a follow-up piece to Profile: Vladamir Ussachevsky – American Tape music and the Electro revolution Background The history of so-called Electronic music, under the umbrella of which Tape music loosely shelters, is by definition short. The very first Electroacoustic compositions began to emerge in the 1930s with Walter Ruttman’s Weekend (1930) Johanna Beyers mysterious Music of the Spheres (1938) and John Cage’s … Continue reading Profile: Modern Trends In Tape Music and Contemporary Artists in The Field

Walter Ruttmann’s Weekend: The Genesis of Sound Collage and Radiophonic Art.

Weekend is not a piece that often features in discussions concerning the history of Electroacoustic music. It, however, predates the French School of Musique Concrete by at least a decade and is perhaps the only work of its kind recorded in the so-called “optical medium”; an early method of encoding sound onto cine-film. Originally commissioned and broadcast by Berlin Radio Hour, the piece was two years in the making and completely unique. Its’ … Continue reading Walter Ruttmann’s Weekend: The Genesis of Sound Collage and Radiophonic Art.

Profile: Vladamir Ussachevsky – American Tape music and the Electro revolution

…the moment you get away from the handicraft aspect of electronic music — …working with tapes and measuring the tape and cutting the tape, and mixing several tape recorders — …the moment you go completely to a keyboard, with the digital availability of various pre-made timbres and so forth, it’s a different attitude. Ussachevsky (1987) A new wave In The autumn of 1952 a concert took place at the New … Continue reading Profile: Vladamir Ussachevsky – American Tape music and the Electro revolution