Duet for Contrabass and Piano, Duet for Violin and Piano, Baritone Voice and String Quartet, Piano Duet #1, The Visibility of Thought, Piano Improvisation Muhal Richard Abrams, Thomas Buckner, Philip Bush, Jon Deak, Mark Feldman, Joseph Kubera, ETHEL: Ralph Farris, Dorothy Lawson, Todd Reynolds, Mary Rowell

Tone paintings of Alaska and Okefenokee Swamp, performed by the Arctic Chamber Orchestra and the Atlanta Singers. Recorded on the New Albion CD.

"No, not that John Adams. This one is from Alaska and his music is appropriately icy, distant and spacious." John Schaefer, New Sounds

A collaboration with Alaskan poet, John Haines, performed by the Arctic Chamber Orchestra and Choir. "...a work which is both moving and coherent, with a message whose time has come." Chorus!

Akao observes that "performing artists blow a new wind through closed societies. They are the modern-day shamans who use their bodies as the medium to link people to the natural world." Yokobue (transverse bamboo flutes) master, Michiko Akao, and percussionist, Midori Takada, perform music evocative of ancient Japanese traditions - from folk songs to the kagura, the rites of music and dance used to invoke the presence of deities and from which form emerges the very basis of Japan's performing arts. Distributed by Deep Listening® Publications.

Continued explorations into the mythic origins of the sound of the yokobue, the family of Japanese transverse bamboo flutes. Five commissions (and premieres) of music from 1982 to 1991 with Akao on flutes, Nachiko Maekane, percussion, Carl Stone, electronics, and Kodo on Japanese drums. Featured composers are Masanori Fujita, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Isao Matsushita, Carl Stone and Maki Ishii. Distributed by Deep Listening® Publications.

Akao's most recent recording includes works by Michiko Akao, Somei Satoh, Akira Nishimura, Haruna Miyake and Teizo Matsumura. An exceptional release featuring compositions still very new and relatively obscure to listeners outside of Japan. Distributed by Deep Listening® Publications.

This CD has pieces with an auctioneer, a Kentucky farm with birds & clover, a jazz dancer, a quivering, vibrating, sexually tinged piece full of women saying supplication, a saint dying in flames, a drum piece about frustration, mother/daughter miscommunication, a pipe organ, and punk rap with overtones of yoga. Many of Anderson's compositions from 1973-1979 use words or parts of words to make either all or part of the music. Sometimes the music is derived from the words. Some of it is considered to be part of the genre known as text-sound.

"Pequena Peça para Mi bequadro e Harmônicos" (1961); "Valsa Sideral" (1962); "Música para Varreduras de Freqüências" (1963); "Fluxo Luminoso para Sons Brancos I" (1964); "Contrapunctus contra Contrapunctus" (1965); "Três Estudos Cromofônicos" (1966); "Canto Selvagem" (1967); "Movimento Browniano" (1968); "Canto do Pedreiro" (1968); "Cinta Cita" (1969); "Auto-Retrato sobre Paisaje Porteño" (1969/1970); "Historia de um Pueblo por Nacer or Carta Abierta a Vassili Vasilikos y a todos los Pesimistas" (1970)

Although David Arner’s SOLO PIANO, on Dogstar Records, has been released for awhile, it has recently come to my attention. Arner is a member of the audience at many of the concerts of improvised music which I attend. Based on this fact, I thought to find his music to listen to and see if the correlation in our tastes translated to his own musical invention. It was no surprise that it did.

The origins of Arner’s pianistic vocabulary is unquestionably clear in the first phrases that he plays. I was going to use the word “measures” instead of phrases to describe what he plays but this would put his improvisation into a false context. The idea of meter and classical composition comes forth starkly in this recording and he alludes to the music of specific classical composers, yet when comparing Arner’s phraseology to that of composed music, I can hear the difference. Arner’s music, though incredibly detailed and formal, is free. It is music that is created as a result of the assimilation of a vast body of knowledge about the classical music of the era that changed the way music composition was approached in some cases and how music changed as a result of cultural milieu, particularly in the mid 20th century.

This music is not angry; it is direct. This music is sometimes playful, not messy. This music touches on an entire body of methodologies, extending, for example, to that of early piano jazz and songbook jazz. This music demonstrates how Arner casts a huge net of thoughtful expressionism over an intelligent group of statements to be collected and placed into a recording that has great continuity within absolute contrast, one cut to the other. Arner knows internally the vastness of the task of honing in on appropriate means of assembling within one recording a balance of experience with innovation.

With Glenn Gould perseverance, Arner has planted a valuable seed in the improvised piano field of dreams. What is extremely tantalizing is his ability to go through the entire recording pulling, and tugging, and springing off the keyboard to burst out at times with a powerfully rhythmic hammering of the keys, glissandos, studious mid-register repetitions, or simply, a mild scattering of notes & chords counteracted with carefully chosen nearly twelve tone pitch arrays that travel to a just end.

Arner’s fingers speak with a soft gentle intention. He is dedicated to the service of the mastery of the acoustic piano keyboard. A reverence to it is so blatantly indicated that his music can inspire graciously and thankfully a deep emotional response to its sincere seriousness.

Reviewed by: Lyn Horton

Exercising both the inside and outside of the piano means that you are dealing with the entire instrument. It means that you are dealing with all of the piano’s dynamics. And discovering what is possible within the realm of possibilities which you know, as a musician, you cannot possibly exhaust.

David Arner’s piano vocabulary in his new solo recording is extraordinarily rich. He has augmented his musical vocabulary with this one instrument volumetrically.

His sense of the piano is extremely acute. He knows the piano’s relationship to how the sound will rise out of it. The key to the relationship is the attack he will choose: planting his fingers on the keys, using his fingers to pluck the strings on the sounding board, holding a mallet to bounce on the strings… Then, comes the music. How the notes are put together, how the phases become sensible, and how pushing the envelope on repetitions of phrases imbues great power in a sonorous atmosphere to build its omnipresence and incessant tempo. This atmosphere is juxtaposed to quietude, and equally present are runs and trills, silence and deeply felt and internally driven accents and sustenutos and dampening resonance. The music is in a perfect balance.

Arner’s playing has characteristics that qualify as signature. There are times when he executes his music as if it were played on a piano roll. It is really quite amazing. He can manufacture brilliant continuity with the left hand which simultaneously is countered by a right-handed series of separated single, double, triple notes. Then the two hands switch roles and the continuity evolves in another way. Just as intense as the multiplicitous ranges of note and phrase series could be a repeated, very evenly timed single note cadenza. Arner’s choice of how to combine the tonal with the percussive gives substance to the origin of both, which is the same.

Arner approaches his improvisations with exquisite conception. The rapidity and clarity with which his pieces precisely unfold are remarkable. It is with certainty that I feel that his idea of time corresponds with its passage. It is as if he doesn’t want to let one increment of time pass unnoticed, undocumented, unused. In this way, he is bearing witness to time in its penultimate form. For the process of improvisation is, in itself, a means to document time. It is a means for the mind, emotion and universal view to blend into an unfettered, irrevocable, inimitable sound force. The ramifications of that marriage are completely absorbing and a lesson in how vast is the capacity of this pianist to create exciting, energized and unforgettable music.

Arner steps beyond the academic. It is that step which takes him into musical zones that not only require rapt attention but also render rapt attention an automatic response to the music.

Reviewed by: Lyn Horton, Jazzreview

Includes Stars, Protoforms: Fractals for Computer Band, Phoenix, 1976, and Quadrants.

Recorded at Montgomery Chapel, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California. This recording was produced in M-S stereo using a Neumann SM-69 microphone and was recorded using Dolby process. Recording engineer: Bob Shumaker. Lp was originally released as1750 Arch Records

As befits one who took her degree in English literature for fear of having too much sheer fun in the study of music, Baczewska's solo compositions derive essentially from an a capella sensibility, the voice as orchestra with consonants, pause and juncture, the click of affricatives as primary, if not sole, percussion. In 1974, she was co-founder of Care of the Cow, a cutting-edge performance group which developed quite a following through the early 1980s. During 1981's Like Feeding Pork to Pigs, Baczewska had a breakthrough: the home of the human voice is the brain. Ultimately, the expanding voice can be made to take any shape, fill any space, or convey any message. Her focus on the voice and solo performance evolves from this experience. She has concertized extensively and has recently worked on several important collaborations: with video artist Irit Batsry on vocals for video soundtracks; with Fritz Lang, to compose and perform the soundtrack for Lang's film Woman in the Moon: and, with dancer/choreographer Dennis O'Connor (with whose company she toured the United States and Europe in 1994.) She continues to explore the voice as instrument, sometimes performing with props like a weaving loom, and sometimes incorporating the multitrack capabilities of the recording studio as an added compositional tool.

As befits one who took her degree in English literature for fear of having too much sheer fun in the study of music, Baczewska's solo compositions derive essentially from an a capella sensibility, the voice as orchestra with consonants, pause and juncture, the click of affricatives as primary, if not sole, percussion. In 1974, she was co-founder of Care of the Cow, a cutting-edge performance group which developed quite a following through the early 1980s. During 1981's Like Feeding Pork to Pigs, Baczewska had a breakthrough: the home of the human voice is the brain. Ultimately, the expanding voice can be made to take any shape, fill any space, or convey any message. Her focus on the voice and solo performance evolves from this experience. She has concertized extensively and has recently worked on several important collaborations: with video artist Irit Batsry on vocals for video soundtracks; with Fritz Lang, to compose and perform the soundtrack for Lang's film Woman in the Moon: and, with dancer/choreographer Dennis O'Connor (with whose company she toured the United States and Europe in 1994.) She continues to explore the voice as instrument, sometimes performing with props like a weaving loom, and sometimes incorporating the multitrack capabilities of the recording studio as an added compositional tool.

XI has released Ellen Band's first full-length CD. The CD includes her well-known piece 'Railroad Gamelan', an excerpt from her oldest analogue piece 'Closet Bird', and a binaural recording of 'Minimally Tough', a performance piece for leather jackets in motion.

"...her 'sound art' ...is celestial in its implications and down to earth in its reverence for everyday noises." - Kyle Gann, Village Voice

Bartlett's only available recording exemplifies his unique musical explorations - creating not only the music but special tunings and interactions between instruments and electronics. The music is a unique blend of lively rhythmic and melodic elements with distinctive tunings and timbres, which provide a listening experience that transcends traditional categories of "classical," "electroacoustic," or "ethnic."

Unforeseen Events is the latest of many pieces Behrman has made with computer software designed to interact in real time with a solo performer. The four sections recorded here were made specifically with Ben Neill's performance style in mind. The electronic timbres are intended to complement the sounds of his instrument --the admirable and humorous mutantrumpet, with its three separately-mutable and playable bells. Refractive Light consists of three small pieces based on an interweaving and overlapping of simple phrases. A musician strikes pitches which trigger responses in the form of sustained tones. The tones die out after a few seconds. While a tone is on it deflects the pitches of other "on" tones, so that harmonic changes occur at the on-and-off edges of overlappping layers. The idea can give rise to a kind of fanning or breathing rhythm which adapts itself to different styles of playing, and to a harmonic vocabulary with dozens or scores of family members.

Five of BCO's greatest performed by dAS, Robo, Daevid Allen, Brook Hinton, Mic Gendreau. Four test tones specially mixed by John Duncan, Monte Cazazza, G. X. Jupitter-Larsen.

"Bischoff's ARTIFICIAL HORIZON...is moving and evocative. I was especially attracted to AUDIO WAVE. It is music as idiomatic to the computer as a Paganini piece is to the violin."
Erling Wold, COMPUTER MUSIC JOURNAL, Winter 1991

Bischoff qualifies his work as the realization of a "reflective intention," where he determines sonic structure not only through the predetermined elements which go into a piece, but also through the active process of listening to the music as it happens and responding accordingly. Aperture opens the possibility for multiple readings through a series of diverse techniques ranging from additive synthesis to FM synthesis to sampled-based processes. Each of the pieces within the album was recorded in real-time with no overdubs.

Spontaneous, unedited improvisations recorded live at the Second National Tuba - Euphonium Symposium Workshop on May 20, 1980, and at the North Texas State University Art Gallery on January 24, 1980. The BL Lacerta Ensemble combines the fundamental orchestral sounds of strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion with invented instruments, electronically generated timbres and the rich sonic capabilities of the human voice. Musicians include: Robert Price, Les Gay, Maurice Hood and David Anderson.

Big Black, tumbas and bongos; Anthony Wheaton, guitar

Australian Ross Bolleter's new disc features five compositions. Four of them are solo works: "Unfinished Business" for ruined piano; "Under Rookwood" for double bass; "Labyrinth Tango" for accordion; and "Piano Dreaming" for ruined pianola. "That Time (Simulplay II)" is for a duo of prepared piano and double bass.

The Continuing Story Of Counterpoint is a remarkable 12 part musical cycle that Borden composed between 1976-87. Lasting 3 hours, Cuneiform has released this seminal work on 3 CDs, each containing 4 parts. The music is a pleasing and highly listenable mixture of classical forms, dense textures, strict counterpoint, and high energy electronics. AUDIO Magazine had this to say about the series: "When released in its entirety, this series may stand as the 'Goldberg Variations' of minimalism, a canon of work that defines a style and an era."

The release of The Continuing Story Of Counterpoint, Parts 5-8 caused one reviewer to note that "David Borden's music has always stood alone with its logic of motion, elegance of line and form, and deft use of state of the art technology."

The Continuing Story Of Counterpoint is a remarkable 12 part musical cycle that Borden composed between 1976-87. Lasting 3 hours, Cuneiform has released this seminal work on 3 CDs, each containing 4 parts. The music is a pleasing and highly listenable mixture of classical forms, dense textures, strict counterpoint, and high energy electronics. AUDIO Magazine had this to say about the series: "When released in its entirety, this series may stand as the 'Goldberg Variations' of minimalism, a canon of work that defines a style and an era."

Places, Times & People is a collection of ten medium length, mostly solely keyboard performances. It showcases a broad spectrum of Borden's compositional skills. Compositions on this disc range from piano duets, to electronic soundscapes, to dense, interlocking multi-keyboard works. Places, Times & People contains something for everyone, for all established Borden fans and newcomers alike.

Dearness features Fred Frith, certainly one of the great contributors to adventurous new music, John Oswald, (in)famous for his landmark plunderphonics work, and Anne Bourne, who carries her sense of musical adventure along with her cello gracefully across the musical spectrum. This concert recording captures the trio at the Rivoli in Toronto, Canada in 1998, kicking up a sonic dust storm.

The core of the project "Global Reflections" is a collection of Binaural Soundscapes which were recorded between the years of 1998 and 2006. They are presented on the odd tracks of this CD. What has fascinated me most about these pieces is nature's ability to align independent events to form interesting patterns. For this, I took the standpoint of the observer; my credits are merely due to choosing the time and place of the recording. Consequently, the effect is often similar to aleatoric works of music. I hope you will share my enthusiasm about the variety of auditory icons in each Soundscape, which makes a city identifiable. All even tracks contain pieces of my own work. The solo improvisations in Tracks 2, 6, 10, and 14
can be seen as an abstract transformation of my perceived environment. Only the beginning theme in Track 2 was fixed before the recording. In Track 10, you might be able to notice my affection for repetitive and machinery like sounds.

Tracks 4, 8, and 12 consist of ensemble recordings with soprano saxophone, Moog bass, and Soundscape fragments. One goal was to preserve the original character of each instrument or environmental sound opposed to making their origin unidentifiable through extensive electronic processing. Indeed in some cases, the lengthy Soundscapes shape the character of the piece, and again I am surprised how often their aleatoric elements tend to fit perfectly into the music. "A Night in Battambang" was written in 1995 while visiting my parents in Cambodia. The piece was performed using the classic rock trio formation of lead instrument, bass and drums when I arranged the song for this CD. "Time to Move On" is based on a Turkish 9/8 rhythm, the Karsilama. Originally, the piece had a theme but in the end, I liked the track better without it. I decided to counterpoint the long, circular-breathed saxophone phrases with abrupt changes for the remaining instruments. The ballad, "Blues Me," started as an experiment while wondering why tenor saxophone ballads are usually slower than alto and soprano saxophone ballads. At 50 beats per minute, this ballad is at the lower end of most Tenor Ballads. Long Soundscape passages were chosen to reflect the lethargy.

Jonas Braasch is a soprano saxophonist, improviser/composer, acoustician and a dedicated collector of binaural soundscapes. He grew up in the Ruhr Area, Germany's cultural melting pot, and Pusan, South Korea. His saxophone style expands the traditional repertoire [in both Classical Music and Jazz idioms] by incorporating various non-western elements, as well as original extended techniques.

Another aspect of his work is the integration of soundscapes and other concrete elements, a clear reflection of his personal relationship with the environment. This sensibility has inspired him to create complex synthetic sound fields which he then integrates into his compositions. To improve the control over the spatial parameters of these sound fields, he developed a
virtual environment to simulate sound recording techniques based on Virtual Microphone Control (ViMiC).
This recording has been optimized for sound reproduction with headphones.

Binaural motion recordings composed as a dialogue of distances. Live recordings of music for electronic network music ensemble juxtaposed with location recordings of traditional music and environmental soundscapes. Made in Bali, the Philippines, Turkey, Europe, Cuba and America 1991-99.