Alvin Lucier - Clocker (1994)

Alvin Lucier's music frequently straddles the line between entertainment and science experiment, and sometimes the actual audible results are overshadowed by the acoustic concepts he is so intent on demonstrating. Whether or not that is the case here, each listener will have to decide for himself, but I personally find Clocker to be a rewarding, if fairly infrequent, listen.

The forty-five minute piece is an attempt to simulate the speeding up and slowing down of time, a highly abstract and ambitious goal to be sure. To achieve this, Lucier has affixed several galvanic skin response sensors to his body, and has rigged a clock to respond to the resulting signals, complete with a delay effect to make it sound cooler. And that's all there is, a ticking clock that changes its speed in response the resistance of the composer's skin. Sound boring? It's actually pretty cool.

As the clock changes speeds, the pitch of the clicks changes as well, so the fast bits are high and fluttery, while the slow bits are deep and ominous. You can also hear the overtones quite nicely, and dramatic sweeps create a kind of watery splooshing effect.

It could be argued that the whole thing goes on a little long, but there is surprising variety to be found. The presense of delay allows for some interesting interlocking rhythms, and there is a delightfully suspenseful moment when the ticking becomes too high and fast to hear and the resulting dramatic pause hangs in the air for just the right amount of time before the clock comes plunging back into the realm of audible frequencies.

Clocker is a high concept piece to be sure, and not for everyone, but for those interested in pursuing the frontiers of sonic possibilities, it can be a pretty neat trip.

Pauline Oliveros - The Wanderer (2007)

If you love the sound of the accordion, but polkas just aren't avant garde enough for your tastes, then this may be the record for you. Pauline Oliveros has long been a practitioner on the instrument and is not shy about using it in unusual ways.

"The Wanderer" collects three lengthy pieces recorded live in 1983 (resulting in the slightly irritating fact that we have to put up with occasional coughing and applauding from the audience), each featuring the instrument, and with the title track incorporating an entire accordion orchestra. The first track is a sparse affair, a duo for accordion and bandoneon that is characterized by long silences interrupted by sudden bursts of sound. It was originally performed by Oliveros and David Tudor atop a see saw and was meanth to explore the sonic changes resulting from the up and down motion. Such subtlety is, unfortunately, not captured on this disc, but once you stop listening for melodic or rhythmic paterns and learn to just appreciate the sound of the instrument itself, there is a definite beauty that emerges.

This is even more evident on the twenty minute title track where a group of more than twenty accordions play together, resulting in a mesmeric shimmering of reeds that surround simply modal melodies. Eight minutes in, percussion joins the mix and the piece erupts into energetic dance like rhythms. The various rhythms and contrapuntal patterns interlock wonderfully and it's a very exciting piece throughout.

The final track is called "Horse Sings From Cloud" and is loosely scored for any number and variety of instruments using simple words like "Sound," "Breath," "Listen," and "Change." The version here is for accordion, harmonium, bandoneon and concertina. It is primarily a drone piece and this combination of instruments works very well because of their similar, but not identical, timbres. Each one has a different limitation on the amount of time that they can sustain a given pitch, and this results in a sort of out of phase pulsing. It's the simplest piece here, but also probably the most lovely, although it can take some time to get over the seemingly harsh dissonances if you're new to this kind of music.

Philip Glass - Music With Changing Parts (1971)

Philip Glass is the man most people immediately think of when they hear the term "minimalist music," and while he was neither the first nor the most minimal of this school of composers, he was the most commercially successful and to the victor go the spoils. In recent years, he has been halfheartedly tossing off film scores while presumably rolling around in his piles of money, but back in the seventies he created some truly innovative and amazing music.

"Music With Changing Parts" is probably my favorite Glass piece from this period. It's an hour long, semi-improvisatory composition for his usual ensemble of woodwinds and keyboard instruments. It has since been dismissed by the composer as "too spacy" but personally, I think it's just spacy enough. It begins with a repetitive figure on a lone electric organ which is then quickly joined by other instruments. What I like about this piece is that it evolves so slowly that unless you are paying very close attention, you will not even notice that anything is changing. If you exerpt any given thrity seconds from the piece, it will sound like the same phrase repeared over and over again, but at the end of five or ten minutes, the music will sound nothing like it did in the beginning.

Although there is constant motion througout its length, the repetition gives the piece a drone like quality and it's easy to be swept away by it. Fans of psychedelia will probably find much to enjoy here. Indeed, the motion of Glass's music is not unlike that of a lava lamp.

The concepts explored here would be further developed on the marathon three-disc set of "Music in Twelve Parts," the principle difference being that that work is divided into twelve distinct sections of approximately twenty minutes each whereas this maintains its continuity for over an hour. Both are essential additions to any collection of minimalist music.

Terry Riley - Shri Camel (1980)

The New York Minimalist scene is often summed up in the trifecta of three popular composers, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Of the three, Riley has arguably been the most overtly experimental in his compositions, with groundbreaking pieces like "In C" and his pioneering use of tape delays to create overdubs in live performances. His music also tends to contain an element of spirituality, and like the old hippy that he is, he has not neglected the world of Eastern mysticism.

Shri Camel is Riley's exploration of the techniques he learned from years of studying Indian ragas. Indeed, his music has often been lauded as ideal for use in meditation. However, he has incorporated these techniques into his own style of composition and the music does not, in itself, sound particularly Indian. There are no sitars or tablas present, yet the complexity and form of the raga is present throughout and the pieces are at times extremely involved, with up to sixteen lines of counterpoint happening at once.

The album consists of four lengthy pieces, each performed live in the studio by Riley on a Yamaha organ, resulting in a musical palette that is somewhat monochromatic. Riley uses a similar technique to that which Brian Eno and Robert Fripp put to great use in the seventies, looping his performance and adding parts on top of it in real time. If done recklessly, this can result in aural chaos that is impossibly to make sense of, but Riley has been practicing the method for decades and takes care to maintain transparency across the various lines. He also differentiates the parts by changing the settings on his organ, altering timbres and percussiveness so that the listener can distinguish his phrasing. This gives the music more depth and color, wile still maintaining a unity of sound across all four pieces.

The other unique aspect of Shri Camel is the fact that Riley has tuned his instrument using the "Just Intonation" system which, in contrast to the equal temperament tuning used in 99.9% of Western Music, follows more closely the physical overtone series found in nature. The difference, in terms of sound, is that "Just Intonation" sounds slightly alien to the practiced ears of a modern Westerner. It strikes us as ever so slightly "off." This can be disconcerting at first, but once you are able to let go of your preconceived notions about tuning and appreciate sound for sound's sake, it comes as a welcome relief from the sameness of the music we hear every day.

Shri Camel is a wonderful example of what Riley does best, and while it may prove difficult listening to the average person due to its unusual tuning system and reliance on a single keyboard instrument for its entire duration, it will reward those with patience by providing them with a gentle beauty not eaily found in the music of today.

William Albright - Piano Rags (2002)

Classical music in the twentieth century - while boldly experimental, forward looking and original - has the disadvantage of being a largely humorless and unaccessible genre. Concert goers abandoned the symphony halls in droves, turning to jazz halls and rock venues for some respite from the tedium of serialism and aleatoric music that offered little in the way of memorable tunes. If you're sympathetic to these Art Music Blues, then William Albright may be just what the doctor ordered.

While he did compose his share of challengingly modern works, Albright never got over his infatuation with Scott Joplin and early ragtime. This collection offers a selection of sixteen of Albright's best rags composed between the late sixties and early eighties, but don't be too quick to write them off as merely nostalgic throwbacks. While the flavor of the 1890's is certainly present, no onewith any knowledge of music would mistkae these as belonging to that time. Inside the swinging rhythms, Albright throws in a slew of modern harmonies, technical challenges and bombastic tone clusters, which at times sound in danger of smashing the piano to bits.

The pianist, Nicola Melville, performs with grace as well as energy, never failing to bring out the humor of the music (yes, quite a few of these pieces are downright funny.) Titles like "Nightmare Fantasy Rag" and "Brass Knuckles" give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. Sudden tempo changes and rests in unexpected places keep the listener guessing and provide the music with a sencse of charm all to often lacking in the works of today's composers.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra (1981)

Aside from having one of the best album covers in the history of recorded music, this self-titled second album from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra is also one of the most unique, humorous and downright pleasant records I've ever encountered.

The Band is the creation of Simon Jeffes (alas, no longer with us) who wrote all the music and meticulously rehearsed his diverse group of extremely talented musicians. He also played about a dozen of the instruments himself. The sound he created is difficult to define. Most record stores list the PCO under New Age, which in my opinion is absurd. The truth is that the songs are a mishmash of Jeffes' eclectic influences including, but not limited to, jazz, world music, classical, ambient, lounge and maybe even a little pop. It's all instrumental and all acoustic, although I suspect there has been a certain amount of studio manipulation on one or two tracks, and all delightful.

I mentioned before that the music is humorous, and indeed it is, but not in a Frank Zappa, or even Spike Jones, kind of way. It makes you laugh in the same way a small child laughs when he sees something wonderful and utterly unexpected. It is the humor of joy unbridled. This is revealed in track titles like "Telephone and Rubber Band" and "The Ecstacy of Dancing Fleas." Elsewhere, the album ventures into slightly more sober territory, while still not taking itself too seriously. "Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter" remains one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. At times it's almost heartbreaking.

Let me tell you folks, to produce an album so relentlessly innocent and optimistic without it turning into insipid treacle is no small feat. Simon Jeffes has achieved it, and yet remains unjustly obscure.

Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting In A Room (1970)

Alvin Lucier is a composer who has always straddled the precarious line between art and science. His works usually consist of practical demonstrations of physical phenomena, and yet they always provide a fascinating, surprisingly musical listening experience.

In "I Am Sitting In A Room," the composer reads a short speech, then plays the tape back into the same room and rerecords it. This process is repeated over and over again, with the result that the sound quality gradually decays and the frequencies that are naturally amplified by the physical space are the only things that remain. In this way, Lucier is effectively "playing" the room, and the results would be different for any given enclosed space.

The performance on this disc lasts about forty-five minutes. At about the fifteen minute mark, most of the actual words are unintelligible, and the speech has taken on a somewhat melodic, almost bell-like sound. Lucier has a slight stutter, and it is interesting to hear how this factors into the sounds we ultimately end up hearing. For example, a stuttered "S" sound persists much longer than most of the other consonants, because of its fundamental lack of pitch. So even towards the end of the piece we are able to hear the occasional "s- s- sss" which then becomes something of a rhythmic figure.

The simplicity of the concept and ease of execution make "I Am Sitting In A Room" a fascinating classic of electro-acoustic music, not to mention its hypnotic qualities for the listener. This is something that could be reproduced by any of us at home, and remember that it need not be with a voice. Similar results could be achieved with an instrument, a band, a portion of a movie soundtrack or really anything that makes a sound. Try it for yourself and see!

Conlon Nancarrow - Player Piano 1 (2006)

Conlon Nancarrow was one of the strangest and most obsessive of the 20th century composers, and that's saying something. Wanting to write music in several different tempos at the same time, but finding no players capable of perforrming pieces of such complexity, he devoted almost his entire to career to composing works for the player piano.

Not only was the player piano precise enough to handle any combinations of tempos Nancarrow could throw at it, it could also play faster and was freed from the limitation of fingers, meaning that it could play dozens of notes simultaneously. Nancarrow spent years as a recluse in the mountains of Mexico, painstakingly punching thousands upon thousands of holes in piano rolls. Not surprisingly, the resulting music is insane.

The early studies on this collection are heavily influenced by jazz, as exemplified in study #3a (known as the "Boogie Woogie Suite") which sounds like Fats Waller in extreme fast motion.
As the disc progresses, the pieces get weirder, less jazzy, more atonal and more rhythmically chaotic. Nancarrow also betrays an admiration for Bach in his love of mathematical canons (although usually based on tempo instead of pitch.)

Despite being half a century old, these studies remain astonishingly unique, and if this disc leaves you hungry for more, never fear! It's only the first of three volumes!