Random Radio 013: electrophotomural



The original methods and creation of electronic music was
sound-based and not rhythm-based (as it is today for most
people under 30 years old) and so there’s a generational
difference when it comes to a definition of “electronic music.”

This mix is a layered exploration of some rather rare early
works that explored sound thru various experimental
methods of good old fashioned cut and splice tape music
and electronic sound generating techniques that gave us
a wide variety of early electroacoustic music.

Instead of presenting individual works one after another,
this mix is a layering of over three dozen excerpts of works
in order to present a kind of audio mural that isn’t necessarily
meant to be a 3 hour plus focus of attention anymore than you
would spend a lot of time spotlighting each square inch of an
interesting painting. Future mixes may feature whole works
taken from the many hundreds of recordings that I have of
these early, lesser known works, but these are a few highlights -
some with special meaning for me growing up listening to them.

For example: the mix starts with Frank Garvey’s album “Omnicircus”
which, along with his album “Labyrinth” (which is excerpted
beginning about 2 hours, 36 minutes into the mix), I purchased
from him in the late 70s at a concert of video art he did in Chicago.

About 1 hour 27 minutes in, there begins an excerpt from Douglas
Leedy’s “Entropical Paradise” - a three LP set on the classical label
Seraphim from the early 70s. These six-sides/six-pieces box sets
were later available in record stores for $1.99 each and because
it was something that I used to stack up on the turntable at night
to fall asleep to, I bought at least 3 more copies at that cheap price.

The very last piece on the mix is from an album that I had some
difficulty trying to sell to record stores in 1980 when I was working
for a very small independent record distributor. It’s “No Imagination”
from Gregory Jones & Roy Sablosky. I liked the record very much
and had to try to sell it thru sheer enthusiasm rather than try to
explain the glories of pulse generators and the Serge Modular.

Anyway, get comfortable, read a good science fiction book and let
the various segments of early electronic sound mixed with acoustic
instruments, the occasional field recording, poetic text reading, or
mind-bending sonic assault dive-bombing into softly massaging
near-silences take you into the early world of electronic sound when
composer-performers had a tangle of patch cords and tape that they
needed to wrestle with in order to realize what was in their heads.