"VOICE OF THE COMPUTER" - music by Jean-Claude Risset, James Tenney, Wayne Slawson, Max M.V. Mathews, J.R. Pierce, R.N.Shepard and more. 1970.
Original USA pressing of Decca Records LP Decca DL 710180 . Record appears to be (and likely IS) unplayed. Came within a small batch of promo stuff all of the Decca and MCA labels, most of which has 'sample copy' label on back cover (though this one doesn't). Anyway, record and labels are MINT. Cover is STRONG VG++. Back may appear yellowed here but that's just an effect of my scanner; it's slightly faded to off-white but not yellowed or 'discolored'. Original poly-lined inner sleeve is NM.
M.V. Mathews – Masquerades
Jean-Claude Risset – Computer Suite From Little Boy: Flight And Count-Down
Jean-Claude Risset – Computer Suite From Little Boy: Fall
Jean-Claude Risset – Computer Suite From Little Boy: Contra-Apotheosis
James Tenney – Stochastic Quartet
Wayne Slawson – Wishful Thinking About Winter
Roger Newland Shepard – Shepard's Tones
J.R. Pierce – Eight Tone canon
M.V. Mathews – Swansong
M.V. Mathews – Swansong
M.V. Mathews – Slider
Excellent and rare lp with pioneering experimental electronic works composed at Bell Labs on early IBM mainframes (including the 7090 and 7094) during the 50s and 60s, representing some of the earliest ever computer-produced music. Some tracks, like Risset's, are beautiful and complex multi-movement compositions, while others are fascinating studies of microtuning, psychoacoustic phenomena, and mathematical experiments in synthesized sound. This recording documents for the first time the eerie Shepard's Tones (aka the auditory staircase illusion), in which all relative pitch discrimination information has been eliminated from a set of tones, resulting in "an impression of continuously ascending and descending sequences of pitches... whereas in actuality every 12th pitch is identical." In Mathews' Masquerades, the computer takes several precomposed themes and randomly transposes and modulates their elements onto each other; the title of the piece was suggested to Mathews by John Cage. Pierce's work explores the use of synthetic overtones to achieve "control over the way in which the various tones of a chord blend together." Mathews' Swansong is of particular historic value as "the birth cry of interactive graphic composing... the score was drawn directly on the computer using a TV picture tube attached to the computer and a special light pen which allows lines to be drawn directly on the screen of the tube... Only a few minutes ensued between finishing the score and listening to the result. Hence, it was easy for the composer to revise and develop his ideas..." Of course, these principles have become the basis of all modern digital audio software; a couple of decades later, Miller Puckette, while working at IRCAM, would create the Max digital audio graphical programming environment, named in honor of Mathews. This essential lp is the sequel/companion to the equally legendary Music from Mathematics album and ranks among the greatest of early electronic collections!
artist info from album notes etc.: In the late 1950s, Bell Labs hosted the first musicians to experiment with computers, and as a result of the release of this music on lp they later attracted composers Edgard Varese and Jean-Claude Risset to work at their studios. • Risset is a composer, pianist, and theorist who studied music under Andre Jolivet and also studied mathematics and physics; he worked at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez, at Bell Labs where he met Vladimir Ussachevsky and worked with Edgard Varese, John R. Pierce, James Tenney, and Max Mathews, and as the first computer-based composer at the legendary INA-GRM musique concrete studios (center of study for electroacoustic pioneers like Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Francois Bayle, Michel Chion, Luc Ferrari, Francois Bernard Mache, Ivo Malec, Bernard Parmegiani, Michel Redolfi, Ragnar Grippe, Jon Appleton, Jean Michel Jarre, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis). • Pierce was a pioneering early electronic composer, a psychoacoustician, an engineer regarded as the father of communications satellites, and a science fiction author; he worked with Varese and Risset. • Mathews is generally considered the very first computer musician; he worked with Jon Appleton and at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez, programmed the software used to create most of the pieces on this lp (Music I and II), and would go on to invent many digital audio techniques, hardware, and software (including Music 360) as well as inspire the creation of the realtime processing software Max currently in wide use by many musicians and named in his honor. • Tenney studied under Lejaren Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo, Henry Brant, and Varese, and worked with Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Harry Partch, John Cage, and Conlon Nancarrow. • The IBM 7090 computer was also used by Iannis Xenakis and Lejaren Hiller as a compositional tool.
This lp should also be of interest to anyone interested in the roots of digital audio and early electronic music and fans of Gottfried Michael Koenig, Herbert Eimert, Pierre Schaeffer, Bernard Parmegiani, Barry Vercoe, Milton Babbitt, Miller Puckette, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Autechre, Aphex Twin, Paul Lansky, Larry Austin, John Chowning, Barry Vercoe, Charles Dodge, Pietro Grossi, Joel Chadabe, and James Dashow.
keywords: early electronic/ synth/ concrete/ electroacoustic, avant garde/ experimental/ noise, free jazz/ improv, artist records, audiophile, quadraphonic, and 20th century classical
Excellent and rare lp with pioneering experimental electronic works composed at Bell Labs on early IBM mainframes (including the 7090 and 7094) during the 50s and 60s, representing some of the earliest ever computer-produced music. Some tracks, like Risset's, are beautiful and complex multi-movement compositions, while others are fascinating studies of microtuning, psychoacoustic phenomena, and mathematical experiments in synthesized sound. This recording documents for the first time the eerie Shepard's Tones (aka the auditory staircase illusion), in which all relative pitch discrimination information has been eliminated from a set of tones, resulting in "an impression of continuously ascending and descending sequences of pitches... whereas in actuality every 12th pitch is identical." In Mathews' Masquerades, the computer takes several precomposed themes and randomly transposes and modulates their elements onto each other; the title of the piece was suggested to Mathews by John Cage. Pierce's work explores the use of synthetic overtones to achieve "control over the way in which the various tones of a chord blend together." Mathews' Swansong is of particular historic value as "the birth cry of interactive graphic composing... the score was drawn directly on the computer using a TV picture tube attached to the computer and a special light pen which allows lines to be drawn directly on the screen of the tube... Only a few minutes ensued between finishing the score and listening to the result. Hence, it was easy for the composer to revise and develop his ideas..." Of course, these principles have become the basis of all modern digital audio software; a couple of decades later, Miller Puckette, while working at IRCAM, would create the Max digital audio graphical programming environment, named in honor of Mathews. This essential lp is the sequel/companion to the equally legendary Music from Mathematics album and ranks among the greatest of early electronic collections!
artist info from album notes etc.: In the late 1950s, Bell Labs hosted the first musicians to experiment with computers, and as a result of the release of this music on lp they later attracted composers Edgard Varese and Jean-Claude Risset to work at their studios. • Risset is a composer, pianist, and theorist who studied music under Andre Jolivet and also studied mathematics and physics; he worked at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez, at Bell Labs where he met Vladimir Ussachevsky and worked with Edgard Varese, John R. Pierce, James Tenney, and Max Mathews, and as the first computer-based composer at the legendary INA-GRM musique concrete studios (center of study for electroacoustic pioneers like Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Francois Bayle, Michel Chion, Luc Ferrari, Francois Bernard Mache, Ivo Malec, Bernard Parmegiani, Michel Redolfi, Ragnar Grippe, Jon Appleton, Jean Michel Jarre, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis). • Pierce was a pioneering early electronic composer, a psychoacoustician, an engineer regarded as the father of communications satellites, and a science fiction author; he worked with Varese and Risset. • Mathews is generally considered the very first computer musician; he worked with Jon Appleton and at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez, programmed the software used to create most of the pieces on this lp (Music I and II), and would go on to invent many digital audio techniques, hardware, and software (including Music 360) as well as inspire the creation of the realtime processing software Max currently in wide use by many musicians and named in his honor. • Tenney studied under Lejaren Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo, Henry Brant, and Varese, and worked with Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Harry Partch, John Cage, and Conlon Nancarrow. • The IBM 7090 computer was also used by Iannis Xenakis and Lejaren Hiller as a compositional tool.
This lp should also be of interest to anyone interested in the roots of digital audio and early electronic music and fans of Gottfried Michael Koenig, Herbert Eimert, Pierre Schaeffer, Bernard Parmegiani, Barry Vercoe, Milton Babbitt, Miller Puckette, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Autechre, Aphex Twin, Paul Lansky, Larry Austin, John Chowning, Barry Vercoe, Charles Dodge, Pietro Grossi, Joel Chadabe, and James Dashow.
keywords: early electronic/ synth/ concrete/ electroacoustic, avant garde/ experimental/ noise, free jazz/ improv, artist records, audiophile, quadraphonic, and 20th century classical
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