Episode A
The letter A leads us to talk about AND, Robert Ashley, John Abrams and Allison Cameron in this first episode of our experimental music alphabet!
Episode A Music Credits
Robert Ashley, The Bar from Perfect Lives (1991); John Abrams, Old Good Buchla (2014) and Aenied Music (1988); Allison Cameron, In Memoriam Robert Ashley (2015) and Strumgators (2010); Martin Arnold, Tam Lin (2010).
John Abram’s electronic music is available from bandcamp
Much of Robert Ashley’s music, including everything played on the episode, is available from Lovely Music
Allison Cameron’s music is available from her website
Martin Arnold’s Tam Lin is released by Autumn Records here
Episode B
The letter B leads us to the in-between and composers Antoine Beuger, Martin Bartlett, Gilius van Bergeijk, Olivia Block and Gavin Bryars in the second instalment of our experimental music alphabet!
Episode B Music Credits
Antoine Beuger’s music is available here
Pythagoras Ghost, a collection of Martin Bartlett’s music that includes the piece heard on this podcast is available through the Western Front here
X-OR Records, the company that put out 2 volumes of Gilius van Bergeijk’s music, is sadly no longer in business. However their remaining stock, including both van Bergeijk volumes, seems to be still available at: powensemble.nl/x-or-records/ As Martin says, buy everything you can as fast as you can!
More information about Olivia Block’s music can be found here
More information about Gavin Bryars’ music can be found here
We also referenced Elizabeth Grosz’s Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (MIT Press, 2001) and NPR’s “Composer Olivia Block In Her Own Words” (January 7, 2016)
Episode C
The letter C has Martin and Georgia talking about John Cage, Chance, Cornelius Cardew, Viv Corringham, Raven Chacon, Laurence Crane and André Cormier.
Episode C Music Credits
John Cage is all over the web, including the official John Cage Trust website
You can learn more about the John Cage Trust’s 4’33” app that we talked about here
The two Cage excerpts that we played are from:
Intederminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music on Smithsonian – Folkways Records
Erik Satie: Socrate / John Cage: Cheap Imitation on Wergo Records (Herbert Henck does a fine job with the Cage but what makes this recording a winner is the pairing with the Satie; Hilke Helling and Deborah Richards do a wonderful version of Socrate)
We would also strongly recommend Quatuor Bozzini’s recording of Cage’s string quartets available on their own imprint Collection QB
Cornelius Cardew is also well represented with web references but his music is a bit harder to get at; a good introduction to his work can be found here
For more on Viv Corringham go here
For more on Raven Chacon see spiderwebsinthesky.com
There have been a lot of Laurence Crane recordings coming out in recent years. One of our favourites is his double CD on Another Timbre. The AT site includes an extensive interview with Laurence found here
For more on André Cormier start here
The recording of Cormier’s Zwischen den Wolken that we featured is available through the Canadian Music Centre
Episode D
The letter D has Martin and Georgia talking about Distance, Angharad Davies, Axel Dorner, Hanne Darboven, Jeremy Deller, Kieran Daly and Ryan Driver.
Episode D Music Credits
The ADs by Angharad Davies and Axel Dorner can be found on Another Timbre anothertimbre.com under the title A.D.
For more from Angharad Davies, including Balancing Spring Study #1 (from Six Studies; Confront Recordings), visit her website www.angharaddavies.com/
The excerpts from Hanne Darboven’s Symphony 1, 2 and 3 are recordings from the 1991 world premiere performances at the now-defunct Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto, put together by Christopher Butterfield under the auspices of Arraymusic.
For more on Hanne Darboven see: www.hanne-darboven.org/
To learn more about Jeremy Deller, check out his website www.jeremydeller.org
For more about Acid Brass specifically see: www.jeremydeller.org/AcidBrass/AcidBrassMusic.php
And to see and read about The History of the World, the wall drawing by Deller that inspired (was inspired by?) Acid Brass, visit
http://jeremydeller.org/TheHistoryOfTheWorld/TheHistoryOfTheWorld.php
Kieran Daly’s version of the jazz standard Cherokee is from his digital album
untitled pluff BGM w ossias. Go to: madacyjazz.bandcamp.com
Ryan Driver’s website where you can learn more about him and his work is www.ryandriver.com/ To purchase the three pieces that we played on the show (Whether They Like It Or Not; On A Beautiful Night Like Tomorrow; and Improvisation, go to: basspiano.bandcamp.com/album/bass-piano-iii-ryan-driver
Episode E
The letter E has Martin and Georgia talking about the idea of Experimental, Brian Eno, Eva-Maria Houben, Ennio Morricone, Eve Egoyan and Mark Ellestad.
Episode E Music Credits
For more information on Contact Contemporary Music go to www.contactcontemporarymusic.org/ ; go to their “RECORDINGS” page for more info on their version of Eno’s Discreet Music.
Brian Eno is all over the internet and it’s easy to buy various versions of Discreet Music at various online retailers. Discreet Music includes Eno’s Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel that you heard in this episode.
Eva-Maria Houben is a member of the Wandelweiser collective. Go to: www.wandelweiser.de and http://www.evamariahouben.de/ for more information and to purchase recordings.
Ennio Morricone is another creator whose information and purchase options are all over the internet. The piece you heard on the show is “Come Maddalena” from the 1971 film Maddalena written and directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.
For more information on Eve Egoyan go to www.eveegoyan.com. And certainly search out more information on Judith Weir on the internet or wait for W on Array to Zed.
For more on and from Mark Ellestad go to: markellestad.bandcamp.com/releases
Episode F
The letter F has Martin and Georgia talking about the idea of “Formless,” Morton Feldman, Barbara Monk Feldman, Jürg Frey, Malachi Favors and Susanna Ferrar.
Episode F Music Credits
Filament 1 is a recording made by Filament: who are Sachiko M (no-input sampler and tone generators) and Otomo Yoshihide (turntable and CD player) in 1998. They are also bandmates in the group Ground Zero. There is a fair amount of information about both artists and this recording on the internet.
Morton Feldman is all over the internet. The cycle The Viola in My Life was begun in July 1970 in Honolulu (composed especially for Karen Phillips, resident performer at Hawaii University) and consists of four individual compositions utilizing various instrumental combinations with the viola. We played The Viola in My Life III, for viola and piano.
Canadian composer Barbara Monk Feldman’s The Northern Shore is taken from a recording of the same name and is performed by violinist Marc Sabat, percussionist Dirk Rothbrust and Array Ensemble pianist Stephen Clarke. For more information, go to:
www.moderecords.com/catalog/244_monk_feldman.html
Jürg Frey is a Swiss composer and clarinetist and member of the Wandelweiser group. For more information, see: www.wandelweiser.de/juerg-frey.html and www.anothertimbre.com/freygrizzana.html
Frey’s String Quartet no. 3 (the long piece that finishes this podcast) is performed by Montréal’s Quatuor Bozzini.
Malachi Favors was the bassist for the Art Ensemble of Chicago until his death in 2004 and took part in many other projects, all pretty well documented throughout the internet.
The excerpt from “Peace Be Unto You” (on which Favors plays all the instruments) is taken from his solo album Natural and the Spiritual (1977).
Susanna Ferrar is a woefully underrepresented on the internet. Both pieces on this podcast are taken from her wonderful album A Boy Leaves Home (1997).
Examples of Susan Ferrar’s work can be found at: https://vimeo.com/13958811 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eovrgXjBWk