[CP 113-114-115 CD] Creelpolation-2; Singles, Tracks, Sides

March 2022: The first of the "Tracks" discs (CP 114-1) is now available; tracklisting updated to your left! A truly great selection of pieces spanning 1964-1974 by Eckart Bücken/Hans-Helmut Decker-Voigt, Lowell Cross, Helge Jörns, Åke Karlung, Keith Lacey/Bob Townsend/Bill Marine, Paul Martin Palombo, Gerald Plain, Alfred Peschek, Branimir Sakač, & Edwin Varney as discovered across various pressings over the years!

November 2021: Disc two of the "Creelpolation 2" (CP 113-2) is now available, featuring 7" singles & flexis released between 1964 & 1976 by (deep breath) Erik Nordgren, Roberto Gerhard, Robert Whitman, John Cage & Marcel Duchamp (w/ Lowell Cross, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, & David Tudor), Ralph Lundsten & Leo Nilsson, Erkki Kurenniemi & Jukka Ruokomäki, Herbert A. Deutsch, and virtually the entirety of the ca. 1972 BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Malcolm Clarke, Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, Dudley Simpson, David Vorhaus, & Peter Zinovieff)! Tracklisting (thus far) below to your left...

In stock now: (only) the first three discs (of a proposed 6) that will eventually make up the second "Creelpolation"; the idea was that the original "Creelpolation-1" was a disc each of singles, individual pieces, then sides - so "Creelpolation-2" had to be 2 discs of each. As something of a teaser for the eventual/inevitable, I'm offering these scant few copies of the CP2-1 at the component, per-disc price of $8.00 (meaning when the rest are ready they will each be the same) so you're not missing out on anything, just speeding the plough towards availability. Included here on disc one:

Here you will find both sides of the "Yabunirami-No-Concert" single (tracks 1/2), which came with the 1966 Yoji Kuri "cartoon2 c007" book & features the then-couple of Toshi Ichiyanagi & Yoko Ono (on incredible proto-noise ring-modulator harsh noise-blast vocals). This is followed by the Juan Blanco side (track 3) of the privately released 1966 "Estructuras Conmutaciones" single w/ Leo Brouwer, then both sides (tracks 4/5) of Erkki Salmenhaara's 1967 Love-label single "Information Explosion". Right after that (track 6) is the single-side of Kari Rydman's "45 Kierrosta Minuutissa" (1967), covering "HE WHO TWIST" & "Akustinen Harjoitelma".

Then (track 7) it's the first side of the single that came w/ Elisabet Hermodsson's "Mänskligt Landskap Orättvist Fördelat" book, featuring Electronic Music backing by Kurt Lindgren under Hermodsson's poetry. This is immediately followed by both sides (tracks 8/9) of the Jean-Etienne Marie 7" on Disque Ades' singles-series, and it ends with both sides (tracks 10/11) of Jacques Aubert & René Lindekens' "Er Is Altijd Een Vogel In De Ochtend."

At some stage, this entire 6-disc enterprise will be committed to finality, but for now, consider this the Amuse-Gueule of the 5-course meal to come.

[CP 270-271-272 CD] 1η, 2η & 4η Ελληνική Εβδομάδα Σύγχρονης Μουσικής; 1st, 2nd & 4th Hellenic Week Of Contemporary Music

February 2022 release; as with the (eventual) replica edition of the entire 3-LP "Musica Electroacustica Española" series via CP 260-261 CD, here is the complete offering of this totemic 5-LP boxed set, covering the crème-de-la-crème of the '70-'71 season of, largely, Avant-Electronic work by the 60s generation of Greek Composers, as issued originally in the same EMI Odeon program as "Ελληνική Ηλεκτρονική Μουσική - 1, Greek Electronic Music-1" (point of fact: the latter's CSDG 67 catalogue number was directly preceded by the former's CSDG 62-66, making this both the spiritual & the literal precursor to easily the single-most enduring title in the entire C.P. program!)

We've only been able to hear a scattered few of these pieces via the individual copies of CSDG 62 & 63 stumbled upon over the years (as featured on the first "Creelpolation") but now we can revel in the entirety of this mythic releases existence. Honestly, it's worth it for Stephanos Vassiliadis' incredible, side-length "The Secret Songs of Silence (Electronic Music) (1971)" alone, but the proliferation of unbelievably great Early-Electronic & Avant-Garde work here by names you should be familiar with from the series thus far (Kyriakos Sfetsas, Anestis Logothetis, Michael Adamis, Iannis Xenakis, et.al) is unparalleled.

Configured to lay evenly across 3 discs (see the tracklisting to your left for details) & issued as three separately packaged/sleeved discs (each with an absurdly nice "Glossy" 6-panel booklet recreating every spare detail of the box & the 5 LP jackets) with 10 different inserts (4 pages of liner notes, for each LP, in both English & Greek, separately) this is one of the more elaborate and long-needed titles, coming in hot in the series' 2022 victory lap.

[CP 258 CD] Kai Harster; Return To Nature & Other Delights

February 2022 release; this is a true one-off, exactly the sort of record that the C.P. cognoscenti are constantly on the lookout for. The only release... and in fact, Harster's only other discographical credit of note outside of what's presented on this album, is a set of lyrics contributed to a single Eela Craig LP (E.C. of course being the band that Harald Zuschrader & Hubert Bognermayr played in before founding the Elektronisches Försterhaus at which this material was recorded, issuing a couple of records on Austrian E-Music powerhouse Erdenklang.) Otherwise the man is a ghost, and this is the only proof we have of his musical predilections.

While the emotionally wide-open chords that kick things off here will lead you to believe that you're about to undertake a suite of Berlin-School trappings, you couldn't be further from the truth, as the quickly deteriorating arrays of process field recordings, errant synth flourish, and garbled, mutant vocals take this far, far away from the idyllic Northern Austrian countryside into something a bit more personal & transgressive, often landing in similar "One Man Against The World" lanes as our much-heralded Lorq Damon, Steve Birchal, and, yes, of course, Nik Pascal.

Comes in a 6-panel semi-gloss booklet recreating Harster's icy, fearsome gaze in excruciating detail, even presenting a simulacrum of the "Promotional" insert that was included with initial copies of the 1981 Private Pressing.

[CP 199.13 CD] Dan Morehouse, Steve Douglas; Patterns Of Growth, The Music Of Cheops

February 2022 release; handily collecting the only two titles released on Steve Douglas' "Cheops Records, Inc." as CH-2 & CH-1, respectively, this single-disc "199.XX" entrant presents both the lone "Solo" outing by the storied L.A. studio whiz Dan Morehouse's music, issued in 1978 & consisting of two side-length suites of "Automatic Electronic Music" attributed to conceptions along the Fibonacci sequence.

Morehouse is a fascinating figure; a stalwart of Los Angeles' music scene (famously he recorded the two records by Richard Waters' Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band), working out of Clover Recorders & Larrabee Sound he collaborated with everyone from The Meters' Leo Nocentelli to Dwight Tilley to Grover Mitchell (in fact he engineered, mixed, and music-directed many of the titles on Jazz Chronicle). The two pieces herein are exactly the sort of "Trust The Process" work that we've long championed here at C.P. (look no further than Douglas Leedy's "Entropical Paradise", Pythagoron™, or Arnold Aard for similar enthusiasms).

For completions' sake, Douglas' "The Music of Cheops" set, largely recorded inside the Great Pyramid at Giza & consisting of solo wind-instrument improvisations in awe of both the architecture & acoustic of the significant spaces, is a great Deep Listening Band / Stuart Dempster-esque take on solo forms, and is a great complement, included handily on a single disc.

[CP 000.13 CD] Angel Rada, Miguel A. Noya; The Early Uraniun Recordings +

This was the 13th title in the ca. 2003 "Proto-Creel Pone" series, and the first to embrace what we liked to call a "Parallel" approach to a tried & true form/method (in this case so-called "Berlin School" Electronic Music). Originally a simple a replica of Venezuelan auteur Rada's "Second" 1983 Debut "Upadesa" this has now been fleshed out considerably, reproducing the first four releases on his Uraniun Records imprint (the ones that fit cleanly into the then-codifying crucial C.P. date-range) adding 1984's "Viveka (El Doble Album)", 1985's "Solar Concert For Bhagavan", & 1986's "Continuvm", plus (as a bonus-incentive) the similarly charged (actual) Debut album by "Solar Concert" sideman Miguel A. Noya; 1984's "Gran Sabana".

What all of these records have in common is a unique approach to musical time, largely eschewing the sequencer-motorik that perhaps dominated late-70s/early-80s Synth-based music in favor of a rubato, hand-played and dareisay "Romantic" approach that, when coupled with the egregious use of Tape Saturation & wildly variable fidelities (it helps that the physical records utilized herein were well-loved prior to replication; Rada having been something of a staple in the Reckankomplex-era afterparty "Comedown" hours, thus fomenting the idea of the coming C.P. wave being all about specific copies of records rather than idealized versions) and Time-based effect comes across as proper deviation from the norms. It helps that this music was being created, in private, halfway around the world & hemispherically-divided from the "Centers" of Electronic Music, lending a certain home-spun, folkloric tone this is highly appealing.

There are precious few precedents for a wholly original Home-studio Electronic Music that hit the mark in anywhere near as satisfying a way; Nicolas "Nik Pascal" Raicevic's storied Narco run comes to mind, as do those Cultural Noise & Bizarre Ko.Ko.Ko sets, but even then these are all unique outliers against a grander trend of homogeneity (differentiate, say, any number of Innovative Communication LPs from each other: you can't) that just outlines how special & forward-thinking they ultimately were, in retrospect.

[CP 000.12 CD] Robert Ceely; The BEEP Recordings +

This was the 12th of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles, compiling both LPs on Boston-area Composer Robert "Bob" Ceely's BEEP imprint: BEEP 1001; "Instrumental & Electronic Music" (1975) & BEEP 1002; "Piano Variations b/w Totems For Oboe And Tape" (1983), with the addition of the two pieces from CRI SD 328; "Electronic Music " (1974); his only other appearances on record.

Tales of Ceely were prevalent in Boston during the time that C.P. was about to come into existence; he had recently staged a "Nude Electronic Opera" at NEC (where he "made a lifelong friend" of Cecil Taylor shortly after enrolling in 1950) called "The Automobile Graveyard" (with a libretto by Fernando Arrabal, no less) which had local conservatives up in arms for the obvious reasons. After taking on a residency at Studio di Fonologia in Milan (RAI; alongside Luigi Nono, no less) in the early 60s, Ceely became enamored by the possibilities of Electronic Sound, and upon his return to Boston in 1966 established both the Electronic Music department at NEC & his own BEEP studios in nearby Brookline, and inaugurated the "Electric Wednesday" series of concerts in the mid-70s.

These records were fixtured in the 90s Boston Record-Store landscape (one with a magnifying glass can spot what is likely a Looney Tunes price-sticker on the cover; a fair $24.99 paid then) but have all but disappeared from the International landscape in the interim, making this replica edition something of a gem.

[CP 000.11 CD] Michael Siegel; The Sounds of the Office, The Sounds of the Junk Yard

This was the 11th title in the ca. 2003 Proto Creel Pone program, collecting both of Michael Siegel's two 1964 (!?) Folkways releases, "The Sounds of the Office" (FX 6142) & "The Sounds of the Junk Yard" (FX 6143).

I'd long been fascinated by the Tony Schwarz-end of the Folkways spectrum (check the first "Sides" disc of Creelpolation 2) and these two "Mise-en-Scene" titles (complete with pitch-perfect liner notes encapsulating the raw documentation-aspects of the two LPs, ages before Gregg "Neil Hamburger" Turkington caught up with the whole "Boring Field Recordings" ethos maybe 2/3 decades later via his "Sounds of the Convenience Store" & "Sounds of Adult Bookshops" series) are almost too perfect in their channeling of the seemingly banal into a riot of tape-gained everyday sounds & extremely harsh scrap-metal shrieks & explosions. I remember hearing The New Blockaders' "Changez Les Blockeurs" for the first time & thinking that, while of course it's the canonic example of "Industrial's" embrace of the minutiae of everyday mechanization, that it didn't hold a candle to "Junk Yard" in its overblown, gained blasts (I'd also read somewhere that this was one of Evan Parker's favorite records, and somehow now that make perfect sense).

This vaunted C.P. edition collects both titles in all of their glories (the "Textured" booklet is a nice touch) complete with two separate inserts covering both booklets (the descriptions of the events unfolding in sound read like poetry).

[CP 005 CD] Gregor Schnitzler, Conrad Schnitzler; Conrad & Sohn, Convex +

February 2022 réédition: long-in-the-works/tooth refresh of this canonic early C.P. banger, collecting all of the material that Gregor & Conrad Schnitzler issued both collaboratively & in solo modes ca. '81-'82 across both the "Conrad & Sohn" & "Convex" LPs (as issued on Gregor's "Private" imprint) but also via a series of compilations including "Berliner Berlin In Berlin" & "Elektronik Sampler" and the mythic "The Russians Are Coming" single by the trio of Gregor, Con, and Peter Baumann (updated tracklisting to your left) ...

Now for a bit of fun... Thus far the Creel Pones have all been academically-inclined in some way. For contrast, here’s a repro of a very bizarre one-off private-press LP “Released” in 1981 by one-time Tangerine Dream / Kluster associate Conrad Schnitzler and given only to friends and family. The B-side is pretty odd, even for Schnitzler, with its pitched up vocals & arbitrary lo-fi synth drippings; but the real prize is the A-side featuring his teenage son Gregor on electric bass and completely fried vocals (in English no less) as run through Conrad’s massive modular synth rig.

These are actual “Songs”, most 3-6 minutes in length, usually a single vamp that gets coated with all sorts of nonsense-ranting from Gregor, considerably more damaged than any willfully bereft “Electrocash™” vocal cadence (see: Miss Kittin, etc.) only actually damaged; Gregor’s vocal refrains are often repetitive to the point of nausea (see: “Countdown ... in the Underground ...” ; ad infinitum), his social commentary so far off the mark (“White People ... Black People ... they like you... they hate you!”) it pretty much has to be heard to be believed.

Most people i’ve played this for have agreed that this is either the best record ever made or one of the worst (always a fine line); personally I hear all of the promise of the Art-Damaged DIY home-recorded electronic punk revival that was lost as soon as “Liquid Sky” became the benchmark (and not Suicide, The Primitive Calculators, Storm Bugs, Attack under Attack, etc.) Regardless of your taste, your jaw will be wide open for the duration; certainly an eye-opener for those familiar with Schnitzler’s canon.

[CP 113-114-115 CD] Creelpolation-2

November 2021: Disc two of the "Creelpolation 2" is now available, featuring 7" singles & flexis released between 1964 & 1976 by (deep breath) Erik Nordgren, Roberto Gerhard, Robert Whitman, John Cage & Marcel Duchamp (w/ Lowell Cross, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, & David Tudor), Ralph Lundsten & Leo Nilsson, Erkki Kurenniemi & Jukka Ruokomäki, Herbert A. Deutsch, and virtually the entirety of the ca. 1972 BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Malcolm Clarke, Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, Dudley Simpson, David Vorhaus, & Peter Zinovieff)! Tracklisting (thus far) below to your left...

In stock now: (only) the the first & second discs (of a proposed 6) that will eventually make up the second "Creelpolation"; the idea was that the original "Creelpolation-1" was a disc each of singles, individual pieces, then sides - so "Creelpolation-2" had to be 2 discs of each, and this, the first disc of singles was the only one to reach fruition (it's a slow, lonely, time-consuming game putting these together; believe you me).

SO; as something of a teaser for the eventual/inevitable, I'm offering these scant few copies of the CP2-1 at the component, per-disc price of $8.00 (meaning when the rest are ready they will each be the same) so you're not missing out on anything, just speeding the plough towards availability. Included here:

Here you will find both sides of the "Yabunirami-No-Concert" single (tracks 1/2), which came with the 1966 Yoji Kuri "cartoon2 c007" book & features the then-couple of Toshi Ichiyanagi & Yoko Ono (on incredible proto-noise ring-modulator harsh noise-blast vocals). This is followed by the Juan Blanco side (track 3) of the privately released 1966 "Estructuras Conmutaciones" single w/ Leo Brouwer, then both sides (tracks 4/5) of Erkki Salmenhaara's 1967 Love-label single "Information Explosion". Right after that (track 6) is the single-side of Kari Rydman's "45 Kierrosta Minuutissa" (1967), covering "HE WHO TWIST" & "Akustinen Harjoitelma".

Then (track 7) it's the first side of the single that came w/ Elisabet Hermodsson's "Mänskligt Landskap Orättvist Fördelat" book, featuring Electronic Music backing by Kurt Lindgren under Hermodsson's poetry. This is immediately followed by both sides (tracks 8/9) of the Jean-Etienne Marie 7" on Disque Ades' singles-series, and it ends with both sides (tracks 10/11) of Jacques Aubert & René Lindekens' "Er Is Altijd Een Vogel In De Ochtend."

At some stage, this entire 6-disc enterprise will be committed to finality, but for now, consider this the Amuse-Gueule of the 5-course meal to come.

[CP 254 CD] Euskal Musikalarien Uhin Berria, IV Concurso Arpa De Oro

Double-disc set compiling two separate, yet relatable early-70s issues of Avant-Electronic music by (largely) Basque Composers, centering on the work of Antón Larrauri; the tying bridge between both releases...

While the work of Spanish Composers such as Luis De Pablo, Andrés Lewin-Richter, & Eduardo Polonio has been prevalent in the C.P. offerings over the years, there is precious little recorded Experimental & Avant-Electronic music by those from the Basque region, making this set so special. If it were for Larrauri's "Munduak" alone (12 minutes of scraping, echo-laden chaos) this would be worth the price of admission, but given the gamut run from "Live" Electronic excesses, scraping Free Improv & Extended-Technique pieces, and errant Sound Poetry flourishes that dot the proceedings herein, this is an extremely wild ride.

[CP 253 CD] Kent Carter; Network

Issued in 1986 as the 10th entrant in the Régis "Bernard Lamastre" Raymond Justin Marie Charles Delaye-helmed (see CP 199.12 for further context) French Library Discobole's (essentially a sub-label under Illustra-Son, tied to the eponymous Editions Régis DELAYE) "Treasures of Music" series, this seemingly improbable set of untethered, multi-rhythmic-cell Electronic music by the American Free Improvising Bassist Kent Carter cleanly presages much of the oncoming wave of asynchronous / decentralized "Dance" music of the mid-90s onwards by a good decade...

That the Derek Bailey / Carla / Paul Bley / Noah Howard / Robin Kenyatta / Steve Lacy sideman & Spontaneous Music Ensemble / Jazz Composer's Orchestra / Un Drame Musical Instantané member had the conceptual wherewithal in the early-mid-80s to lay down such an absurdly prescient suite of, essentially, "Deconstructed Electro" and then have it buried in this catalogue of "Sound Illustration For Radio-TV-Cinema" is somewhat criminal; that it incorporates an almost comically pitch-perfect timbre-set of gurning FM-synthesis & crispy analogue / digital percussion (even if I want to link this to the algorithmic work of Laurie Spiegel - esp. the whole "Concerto Generator" / Hal Alles synth world - it's timbrally way closer to Nobukazu Takemura's 90s work) & even moreso, at times reminiscent of the Afro-Futurist synthesis of Francis Bebey & William Onyeabor (the "Globe" on the front cover putting the African Continent front & center is 👨‍🍳💋). Many of the "Automatic" pieces sprinkled throughout cleanly mesh the whole League of Automatic Music Composers scene w/ the then-nascent BGM / Video Game score world in a super-appealing way, lending echoes of Wim Mertens / Soft Verdict's "For Amusement Only" & Joel Van Droogenbroeck's "Video Games & Data Movements" & there's even a pair of proper (if all-too-brief) Electro-Acoustic assemblages at the tail-end of each side!

Personally speaking, in the decades that I've been trawling the Library sector for interesting & unexpected productions (I've gone through maybe 500 titles since discovering this wonderful, often frustrating world of music a few-three decades back) I've only found a handful of things that have truly surprised me, and this is amongst the best & most rewarding; a simply unbelievable record that cleanly bridges the whole Ictus / Incus / Emanem world with IDK Mega Wave Orchestra, Joan Wildman Trio, and later the whole SND / Mark Fell axis.

[CP 199.12 CD] Alexandre Kush, Bernard Lamastre; Secrets, Quiet Times

Released the same year as Kent Carter's masterful "Network" (CP 253 CD) on the adjacent Lamastre-helmed Discobole, French Production-Library Illustra-Son issued this pair of collaborations (recorded at "Studio Family") between Régis "Bernard Lamastre" Raymond Justin Marie Charles Delaye & the shadowy "Alexandre Kush" (who, as it turns out, is none other than the French Free Jazz musician Michel Alexandre "Misha" Lobko, whose early-80s Synth & Sax duo dates w/ Raymond Boni & Tran Quang Hai & his Private-Press solo outing "Troglodyte" are well worth investigating) back-to-back as #IS 860 912 / 913.

Long held (in escrow) by yours truly, many have come forth to nominate these for the C.P. program proper (based largely on the too-good-to-be-true LP covers, which, I have to say, have slowly & surely looked better & better with each passing year, and are absolutely stunning here in their Double-A-Side C.P. configuration) but, for 15 years, I held the line at the incorporation of the much-maligned "Devil's Xylophone" (aka the Yamaha DX7) as the sole C.P. deal-breaker; a tenet broken by the appearance of Jan Beran's "Aniseikonia, Zeitsplitter, Etüden" a few short years back & now that the floodgates are fully & truly wide open there has been a newfound embrace of its 6-Operator timbre-set (even if I'm pulling rank by placing this one in the CP 199.XX serié).

Subtitled "Musiques D'Angoisses Et De Tension," ("Music Of Anxiety And Tension") the first of the two LPs appearing here (with its 8-bit Max Schreck rendered in its pitch-perfect Amiga Deluxe Paint glory) is an appealing simulacrum of the post-DX "Synth Horror" spec as doled out in the films of Charles & Richard Band, John Carpenter, et.al & works the Ops to maximum effect, conjuring up rising swarms of detuned digital gunk & excessive "snappy" ADSR bonk to maximum effect. The second title grants us exactly what it says on the tin; a pastoral / plaintive suite of music that dareisay borders on "Hokey" in places (trust me; if you grew up with this sound-palette beaming at you in 15s intervals during your weekly Saturday morning cartoons instead of seeing it as an exotic artifact of a time-before you'd understand) while psychically implanting visions of the supplied / charming Cyan Provençal townscape (again, massively downsampled to wonderful effect) as an aesthetic waypoint.

Given the prospective edgelording of the latter (which we simply could not omit due to the forces at play) the C.P. P.T.B. have opted (much like the Roosenschoon / LaPierre collection a few "Dots" prior) to offer these two shining beacons of laser-tight 1986 aesthetics as a "Two-For-One" incentive as they're a few minutes Ouest of neatly fitting on a single disc.

[CP 104 CD] Bernard Parmegiani, Josep-Maria Mestres-Quadreny; Espaces Sonores Nº 1, Música Electroacústica, Doble Concert, Socrate +

2021 reédition of this all-timer mid-period C.P. classic, now augmented with Mestres-Quadreny's 1971 Edigsa-label (check CP 254 for more Edigsa action) "Doble Concert, Invenció Movil II, Quartet De Catroc, Micos I Papallones" set (also featuring an Ondes Martenot piece performed by Arlette Sibon-Simonovitch alongside a series of Kagel-esque extended-technique masterpieces performed by Siegfrieds Behrends & Fink) along with two early Electro-Acoustic pieces by Mestres-Quadreny, "Peça Per A Serra Mecànica" (1964) & "El Teler De Teresa Codina" (1973) & a painstaking restoration of Parmegiani's thought-to-be long-lost score to Robert Lapoujade's 1968 Experimental Film "Socrate" (from a less-than-stellar source; my condolences) on a second disc (alas the C.P. P.T.B. could not find a copy of the Kiosque D'Orphee single, even if the artwork of said is neatly presented here; instead you get the entire audio track of the 60-minute Jacqueline Plessis edit, with the sections of Roger Hanin's "commentary" edited out) featuring French Free-Jazz titans Jean-Louis Chautemps, Michel Portal, Gilbert Rovère, Charles Saudrais, & Bernard Vitet!

Long one of my all-time Holy Grail cannot-find-a-copy titles is the LP in question here; the 1969 EMI-label Arlette Sibon-Simonovitch recital / vehicle “Espaces Sonores Nº 1”, offering a side of specially commissioned pieces each by spanish composer Josep(h)-Maria Mestres-Quadreny & INA-GRM heavy Bernard Parmegiani.

Just the idea that Parmegiani had composed a tape piece using only Sibon-Simonovitch’s virtuoso Ondes Martenot playing was enough to make me sweat; that it ended up being one of his finest, cutting some woofer-rattling square-wave droning with sheer batshit blasts of white-hot static & space-age, upper-register lacings of electronic filigree only makes this issue a sheer essential for the Parmegiani buff - mainly as it’s not included on the recent “Complete Works” box !!!

Was half-expecting the Mestres-Quadreny pieces to be fluff - unfit for such a heady pairing - but frankly the levels of free percussive bombast (Sylvio Gualda, as always, sounds fantastic throughout) & almost Alice Coltrane-esque Ondes Martenot fluidity make them the perfect “Humanist” counterpoint to the A-side’s largely alien lanes.

[CP 159 CD] Hans Otte, Takis, Nam June Paik; On Earth, Klangraum Takis, Duett Paik/Takis

2021 reédition, now including the (only) other Edition Kölnischer Kunstverein title, Takis & Nam June Paik's "Klangraum Takis" b/w "Duett Paik/Takis" (EKK-1) on a second disc! The C.P. P.T.B. hemmed & hawed for a minute around how to configure them, but seeing as the Takis/Paik concert happened a week after the Otte exhibition, they're here in chronological (rather than catalogue-number) order. Includes a newly reconfigured 6-panel booklet containing every stray detail/element from the two LPs (including a simulacrum of the original mailer these exact copies shipped to their prior owner in ca. 1979, as drop-shipped directly from the EMI Electrola plant) & the signatures of all three Artists blown-up to legibility, as well as the "Stamp" of Paik's Berlin Atelier!

Monster Holy-Grail Sound-Art / Sound-Sculpture / Live-Electronic / Drone Masterpiece by German Composer Hans Otte, one of two titles issued by the Kölnischer Kunstverein's in-house imprint (as EKK-2) - the other being the Nam June Paik / Takis "Duett Paik/Takis / Klangraum Takis" LP - featuring excerpts of a staging of the piece "On Earth" given there on June 13th, 1979.

Bookended by a narrative / descriptive overlay spoken by Elisabeth Weber & Wilfried Grimpe, the piece quickly ascends into a whir of subtly animated electronic timbres, seemingly emanating from a series of flat black cubes laid out on the gallery floor. The result is that of a more tuned-in version of Roland Kayn's massed long-form works, heavily utilizing the space's gorgeous acoustic as a resonant filtering agent.

[CP 199.02 CD] Scott A. Wyatt; Collections I & II +

2021 reédition of this early 199.X title, now including both of the Scott A. Wyatt "Collections" issues (the second covering the years 1976-1987) along with the (excellent) 1979 piece "All For One (for Percussion with Tape Accompaniment)" as issued by Wyatt on the "Chamber Music" set via his Private-Press Veriatza imprint; all on two discs!

Second title in this 199-x series - itself dedicated to working through titles that had been languishing in limbo in the Creel Pone "nominations" sector for some time while specific "Golden Circle" Cabal members feud bitterly over their possible inclusion - offering the only LP by Scott A. Wyatt, following the fantastic "in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios" set.

Released at the tail-end of the 1970s on the Academic "University Brass Recordings Series" (UBRES), this collection of - just as it says on the tin - "Electronic Music With and Without Instruments" by composer Scott A. Wyatt - director of the Experimental Music Studios, School of Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champlain & student of Randall McClellan & Herbert Brün - regales us first with a flighty, four-part side-length suite entitled "Four for Flute" incorporating John Fonville's eager embouchures with a mighty four-channel tape of assorted, mythic distorted bonks and misted bleep.

From there, we're treated to the extended, three-part "Menagerie" for solo electronics, attributed to such faunae as "Tree Clams," "Air Stones," and "Moonsheep" - before a rousing, Xenakis-esque "Two Plus Two" pits twin percussionists against an array of synthetic & tape-munged plosives. It's this side that gives the whole set its weight; Wyatt's unusual palette - much string synth, and what sounds like errant Buchla-bongo zap - puts him squarely in the current of cosmically-tinged, rust-belt, "third generation" American composers often singled-out by this series; his work fits comfortably alongside that of Jack Tamul, William Hoskins, Edward Zajda, et.al.

Aside from the music, I love the aesthetics at play herein - all mutant swirls & skeumorphics on the cover, met with the trad 3-column rundown of the concepts of the works included by noted composer Ben Johnston, replete with a Dick Higgins quote.

[CP 069 CD] Gregory Jones, Roy Sablosky, Standard Of Living, Norman Salant, Mary Kelley; No Imagination, Six Songs, Sax Talk, Greetings Five +

2021 reédition of one of my personal-favorite early C.P. titles; in perhaps the most egregious case of mission-creep extant (you will certainly be cursing the scorched earth below you halfway through the "Sax Talk" feature-full-length, as I most certainly did) this set now treats you to the (only) other release on the pair's "Vinyl" imprint, the 1982 "Six Songs" EP by Standard Of Living (aka Gregory "Rad Solar" Jones solo, w/ Colleen Hinks, Gene Gabriel, Jon Velcro, & Sablosky in the producer's chair!) This is followed on disc one by the first half of the 1984 "Sax Talk b/w No Night" 12" by Norman Salant (engineered by Jones, and featuring a quartet of Remixes of the titular tracks by both Jones & Sablosky that get into some great Serge-squeal zones while remaining fairly firmly planted in that whole mid-80s Dance-Rock Emulator II mould ala Paul Hardcastle, François Kevorkian, or even Keith Levene).

On the second disc you'll find the other half of the Salant "Remixes" single, then (sorry; not sorry) the entirety of the "Sax Talk" full-length from the same year (featuring either Jones or Sablosky on every track, largely on "Serge" & "Synthesizer Programming") followed by NYC-area musician Mary Kelley's 1988 MaSo "Greetings" series (where it appeared alongside similar ventures by Durutti Column, ACR, The Mekons, & LPD) single "Greetings Five" (again, with both Jones & Sablosky heavily featured throughout on "Emulator II Programming" & "Synthesizer") followed by (deep breath) the (short) Kelley track " The Meaning (Dub)" as featured on a Stampa Alternativa single (alongside Controlled Bleeding & Blaine L. Reininger, no less) issued w/ the book "Coast to Coast: Punk/Rock Images" by F-Stop Fitzgerald the following year.

The Creel Pone P.T.B. have done just an absurd job "Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-ing" us from the raw art-school squelch of "No Imagination" into Avant-leaning SSW moves in a couple of easy steps; this New Edition even comes with an accordion-fold replica of the three-page Mary Kelley "Press Kit" (inc. a "Signed" 8x10 photo, a page of "Descriptions" of each track, and a stamped page w/ her (then) Brooklyn address & phone number!) that came with early Promo copies of "Greetings," all to hammer down just how absurd this whole prospect has become in this Year of Our Lord 2021; Enjoy!

Upon first glance at this Creel Pone reproduction of an obscure 1980 private-press Synth / Art-noise LP - originally issued on “Vinyl Records” - two things caught my attention: the phrases “Electronic Instruments designed by: Serge Tcherepnin” & “Special thanks to California Institute of the Arts”, both in small text on the back of the jacket - as I understand it, Serge Tcherepnin himself was on faculty at CalArts from the early 70s until he left for San Francisco to start the serge company in 1975. I imagine that he donated one of his instruments to his Alma Mater, ultimately resulting in Roy Sablosky and Gregory Jones here - both students of Morton Subotnick - logging time on said beast, which they used to render this remarkably prescient set of pieces entirely for “Electronics” (with one notable exception.)

The album opens with the spacious / serene “No Moon No Mirror,” uncannily resembling something out of the post-desktop / Max-MSP mold, only done in the late 70s & in real time with the aforementioned modular mega-beast. From there we’re re-directed 180º to “Intro (Summer Names),” a 16-minute blast of acid / feedback guitar & cracked monotone monologue, barely audible above the din, replete with a bit of Alvin Lucier-lineage psycho-acoustic interference - the feedback tone appears to be “playing” another guitar lying in the space before it’s picked up and viciously strummed ad infinitum for thegreater part of the piece. It's a Post-Punk / Art-school recasting of Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” that needs to be experienced to be believed! On the flip, we’re treated to “Diverted to Frankfurt” - 9 relentless minutes of 12-fold overdubbed variable-width square wave LFO action - surprisingly engrossing - before the epic 16-minute “Forced” lays down some seriously crispy-fried comparator-skree that erupts into a frenzy of Power Electronics ala Philip Best’s early “Consumer Electronics” material, albeit predating said by a few years.

This one’s definitely for the art-noise crowd; a great mix of Academic Electronic “Concept” and jagged Youth-Noise, completely killer. A record that seldom gets talked about in either circle, which this replication addresses.

[CP 152 CD] Filipe Pires, Jorge Peixinho, Candido Lima; Canto Ecuménico, Litania, Homo Sapiens, Elegia a Amílcar Cabral, Sand Automata, Legends Of Neptune, Oceans

2021 reédition of this mid-late period C.P. classic, now including all three of the Electro-Acoustic titles issued by Diapasão as part of their "Discoteca Básica Nacional" series, adding Jorge Peixinho's "Elegia a Amílcar Cabral" (#6; two entirely different takes of a powerful piece composed the day of the P.A.I.G.C. founder's murder in Conakry, realized on the EMS Synthi 100 at IPEM utilizing only 12x Sine-Wave Generators & onboard reverb/filtering) & Candido Lima's "Sand Automata, Legends Of Neptune, Oceans" (#33; three incredible, noisy takes on static-leaning synthesis) to Filipe Pires' "Canto Ecuménico, Litania, Homo Sapiens" (#13) honoring the (loose) chronology of the composition dates (if not exactly the order of issue); enjoy!

Composed at the GRM - the two B-side pieces, both in 1972 - & at his own “Private” studio in Porto - the A-side, 1979 - this trilogy of Musique Concrète pieces by the Portugese composer Filipe Pires was initially issued in 1980 as part of Imavox’s “Discoteca Básica Nacional” series (#13), alongside Jorge Peixinho’s epic “Elegia a Amílcar Cabral” (#6) & Candido Lima's "Sand Automata, Legends Of Neptune, Oceans" (#33).

“Canto Ecuméncio” is a beautifully chaotic & extended ride, wherein we’re taken through a brutalist, man-on-the-street voyage through various folk-forms in an overdriven & ultra-present manner, positing itself as the spiritual heir to Logothetis’ “Fantasmata 1960” - with which it shares a strikingly similar energy and/or timbral / thematic bent - worth it for the price of admission alone; in many ways its the agitprop anti-"Presque Rien" / "Music Promenade".

The two GRM pieces are slightly more nuanced, showing Pires as a fine studio technician as well as exhibiting an excellent conceptual sense - "Litania’s” sheet-metal grapplings are the stuff of legend, rivaling only Xenakis’ “Bohor” in its presaging of Industrial forms - but I’m personally the most enamored with the pause-pregnant eruption-eerings of “Homo Sapiens” - as fine an example of the possibilities of the tape-studio at the turn of the 70s as any, sharing Dockstader’s affinity for the between-the-stations telemetries of radio transmissions amidst clattering piano & percussion juxtapositions.

[CP 106 CD] Klaus Ager; Sondern die Sterne sind's +

2021 reédition of this totemic mid-period C.P. chestnut, augmented with a second disc including the (only) other two Electro-Acoustic pieces of Ager's issued in the LP era: the 29-minute "Hoshi Für Fünf Blasinstrumente Und Tonband" (from "Dokumentationsreihe Des Österreichischen Komponistenbundes #20;" composed during 1974 & 1975) & the 13-minute "CLB512" ("for Klarinette Und Computergeneriertes Tonband, recorded 12 October 1986.") along with the bonus of the 15-minute "Wind Um EinGrab" (3 Lieder mit Vor-, Nach- Und Zwischenspielen Nach Texten von W. Zrenner for Flute, Guitar, Percussion and Soprano, recorded 19 February 1985) now offering 100 minutes of Ager's Electro-Acoustic music!

Creel-pro of this mid-70s Aulos LP, with Klaus Ager’s three-part “Sondern die Sterne sind's” - recorded in the “Computer Music” studio at EMS Stockholm from 1974-1976 as well as the Electronic Studio at Salzburg’s “Hochschule Mozarteum” - slowly unfolding over the A-side & two shorter chamber pieces, “I Remember a Bird” for clarinet, trombone, guitar, piano, percussion, and tape & “Metaboles i” for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano on the other.

Rising from a whisper, the first movement of “Sondern” slowly builds from a sustained bell-sound - with cymbal harmonics interjected into the electronically-created syntax - into fairly head-compressing mid-range drone. This recedes & the gorgeous second movement kicks in, rife with more enharmonic relationships between the tones beating slowly in & out of phase before a slightly crispy wave of analogue tones ushers in & brings a subtle, bubbling rhythm.

Finally, sparse, feedback-oriented “Ringing” synthesized bird-song takes a few minutes to clear the air before a big, pulsating wall of screaming high-res filter smear & augmented pulse-wave stasis bring in a big ‘ol miasma of electronic drone. This whole piece has the energy of Gunner Møller Pedersen & Roland Kayn’s extended work, albeit edited down for a more palatable, session-able length; it’s a great slab of electronic drone-sound that seems to have slipped through the cracks un-checked - kudos to Mr. P.C. C.P. for the unearth.

[CP 000.10 CD] Electronic Panorama; Paris, Tokyo, Utrecht, Warszawa

This was the tenth & easily the most desirable of the first wave of ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles, cleanly replicating all four LPs of the "Deluxe" French variant of the epoch-defining 1970 "Electronic Panorama: Paris, Tokyo, Utrecht, Warszawa" boxed set, right on down to the foil-stamped fold-out "Brochure" detailing the covers & titles of the rest of the series up until that point (reproduced wonderfully & legibly here on its own "Half-Panel;" if you've ever tried to scan a mirror you'll understand just what an undertaking it was to recreate this effect).

This & the eight individual LP-side labels are cleanly presented across a gorgeous 6-panel Metallic "Pearlized" booklet, with a (hand-cut & stapled; never again) 20-page insert recreating both the French & Dutch (if you squint & look just right you'll see the "Black" panels are actually twice-printed with both the "Full-Bleed Red" AND "Black" designs unique to each territory) with the music presented in full across three "Shiny-Top, Black-Bottom" discs (again, to attempt to recreate the raw splendour of this record-artifact as object-of-desire).

Short of including the versions/edits on the "Electronic 2000" LP (which, despite the rumours going around the mill, are identical to the versions on the box & are not included, although I spotted the tracklisting "Hanging" off the face-art on the third disc as something of a red-herring) I can't see how anyone looking for this oft-unobtainable "King James Bible" of Electro-Acoustic music will be in any kind of sour state around this exacting replica.

[CP 000.09 CD] The Sounds Of Sound Sculpture

This was the ninth "Proto Creel Pone" title, a replica edition of the second title (bookended in both directions with LPs by the series' director & co-curator here, David Rosenboom, who appears as performer throughout) issued by the Aesthetic Research Center of Canada in 1975, offering one of the first collections of works nestled amidst the nascent "Sound Sculpture" idiom as assembled by "Sound Sculpture" author John Grayson as recorded at the Vancouver Art Gallery throughout the year.

This comes as in a six-panel "Matte" booklet with a 12-page booklet covering tons of photos & documentation of the included works, which include familiars (Bertoia, the Baschets) & even now relative unknowns (Stephan Von Huene, Reinhold Pieper Marxhausen, and especially David Jacobs, whose near-side-length "Hanging Piece" is without a doubt the star of the show here).

[CP 000.08 CD] The Wind Harp; Song From The Hill

This was the eighth of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles, comprised of this canonic afterparty 4am drifter, improbably issued in an impossibly deluxe package (the perennially ring-burnt Gatefold sleeve, wonderfully recreated here, absolutely busting at the seams with two printed inner sleeves & a 6-panel fold-out poster) in 1972 by Max Youngstein's United Artists (as #UAS-9963), where it appeared bookended on the left by (I shit you not) Jan & Dean's "Anthology Album" (UAS-9961) & Bob Willis & Tommy Duncan's "Hall Of Fame" (UAS-9962), then on the right by Steve Winwood's "Winwood" (UAS-9964) & (deep breath) Woody Allen's "The Night Club Years 1964-1968" (UAS-9965).

Consisting of four sides of ecstatic spectral drift (issued here in order across two discs; initial pressing was LP1 - Side 1/4, LP2 - Side 2/3 in a similarly improbable "jukebox" fashion) "performed" by Ward McCain's titular sculpture, "recorded using EV 365 and 650 microphones on an Ampex 351 laced with Scotch 206 tape, edited and Mixed at Aengus Studios, Fayeville, Mass" this is one of the all-time great acoustic drone records, single-handedly birthing the whole "Aeolian Harp" phenomenon as witnessed on records by Robert Archer, Garlo, Sverre Larsen & the like (all of whom presumably got their cues from this blessed proposition).

Note that you have the option of picking this up with or without the oft-missing poster (tucked into its own resealable sleeve for "safety") for authenticity's sake, reproduced as an eye-popping, absurdly-glossy 9.5" x 14.25" dorm-room-wall ready number.

[CP 000.07 CD] Franca Sacchi; Ho Sempre Desiderato Avere..., Essere +

This was the seventh of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles, collecting both of Italian Composer Franca Sacchi's Private Press (Edizioni Toselli [F.S. 001, 1973] & Edizioni Musicala [F.S. 002, 1975], respectively) LPs of Instrumental Works (the former consists of two extended pieces for Solo Piano; the latter Flute & "Inside" Piano ruminations). Although primarily known for her Electro-Acoustic works (as issued in the interim by Die Schachtel) these two suites of Minimal Modern Compositions are extremely inviting; intimate & laced with the sort of extended techniques & intuitive-leaning explorations more commonly associated with Free Improvisation.

The disc concludes with a bonus track covering a related-but-unrelated flexidisc included with Marcello Morandini's 1968 monograph offering just shy of 4 minutes of in-situ recordings of "Seven Sonorous Canes hung in front of a panel in such a way that the visitor can strike them and make the musical notes do/re/mi/fa/sol/la/si" as performed/captured/edited by Sacchi that year.

[CP 000.06 CD] U.S. Steel Cello Ensemble; Sounds Of Nothing, Bitter Suites

This was the sixth of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles, compiling both of (then) Boston-area Sound Sculptor & Composer Robert Rutman's mid-late 70s Private Press affairs (the former on "Art Supermarket", the latter on "RutDog") on a single disc. Credited to the U.S. Steel Cello Ensemble (after the giant swaths of sheet metal of Rutman's devising bowed & struck to create these unearthly timbres) these sessions are the apex (still) of the intersection between self-built Experimental Instrument designs & ungodly low-end shriek. While the latter of the two LPs was in fact reissued by Holidays on vinyl about 8 years back, the former has been a tough pull for decades.

[CP 000.05 CD] Ros Bandt, Live Improvised Music Events; Improvisations In Acoustic Chambers, Soft + Fragile

This was the fifth of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles, compiling both of Sound Artist Ros Bandt's Move-label LPs from 1981 & 1983 (respectively) working adjacent to Pauline Oliveros et.al's "Deep Listening" ethos by recording & performing in acoustically-significant spaces littered around the Australian Outback (the first half of "Improvisations" was "recorded inside a water storage tank on June 22nd 1979 at Kardella farm near Korrumburra, Gippsland, Victoria using Sennheiser binaural microphones on a dummy head and a Nagra 1VS - the tank itself is also played and recorded along with the sounds of the environment," the second "recorded inside a wheat silo on October 20th 1979 at Young township, Lambing Flat, NSW using condenser microphones and a Nagra 1VS.

[CP 199.10 CD] Hans Roosenschoon, Gerald LaPierre; If Music Be, Shades Of Burgundy

At the lofty "10" position in the cursed Creel Pone 199.X series is this doomed double-pack, collecting a pair of early-mid-80s South African pressings that were the source of fierce debate (for close to a decade) amongst the C.P. cabal surrounding what was, and what wasn't, ripe for the series.

Personally speaking, I feel that Hans Roosenschoon's A-Side-length "If Music Be (for Tape Collage)" is the single worst Musique Concète piece I have ever heard, consisting of clunky FM assemblages & the most dry-toast recitatif this side of an Industrial film, but I understand how the postmodern forces of schadenfreude (something we typically avoid) can lend an enjoyable rush of endorphins, even if the material itself is questionable (for example, when the piece descends into a hamfisted "heroic" arena-rock choogler w/ apropos "hands in the air" guitar solo, I kind of die on the inside more than a little bit). The non-Electronic B-Side fares better, with a certain post-Darmstadt embrace of clustering and extended instrumental & ensemble technique, but yeesh... Gorgeous cover though, replicated here beautifully.

Compiled on its own disc, conceptually adjacent perhaps solely due to its geography (this and the Roosenschoon are, to my knowledge, the lone two SA pressings of Early Electronic Music), LaPierre's "Shades of Burgundy" (what a title, Jesus) set fares marginally better, including a spate of wonderful material recorded in the University of Natal's Electronic Music Studio in 1981. Seemingly the innocuous issue of an Academic Composer ushering in the new funding year, there is a darker energy at work than is immediately evident, as witnessed by this bizarre blink-and-you'd-miss-it snippet from the liner notes (presented here free of context):

For this alone, the PTB have decided to grant access to the entirety of both titles, in a first-of-its-kind "Twofer" double-disc-at-single-disc-price, perhaps as an incentive to quiet those voices of doubt lurking within...

[CP 257 CD] Dereales, Mario Migliardi; Caratteristici (Temi Per Situazioni Diverse Realizzati Con Apparaecchiature Elettroniche)

Eight years after collaborating on the score of the 1962 Roberto Bianchi Montero film "Tharus figlio di Attila" (AKA "Tharus, Son of Attila", AKA "Colussus and the Huns") Alexandre "Dereales" Derevitsky & Mario "Vidulesku" Migliardi were once again paired up for this priceless Fonit "Serie Usignolo" title, almost lost amidst the label's series of "Antichi E Arcaici" ("Antique & Archaic") libraries of, largely, Medieval music (to which the pair contributed, separately, to the "Stile Monodico E Melopeico" & "Stile Medioevale E Settecentesco" volumes). Bookended in either direction by a set of two-three "C 26X" titles by the beyond-prolific Giampiero Boneschi & his Mitridate alias, it would be easy for your eyes to glaze over long before you arrived at this stellar, if all too-brief slice of scorched-Earth Electronic Sound, with each contributing a separate side-length program of "Features (Themes For Different Situations Made With Electronic Equipment)."

It's frustrating that this is Derevitsky's only foray into Experimental music; his touch is harsh and unforgiving, and it would have been amazing to hear more in this vein. That said, while Migliardi is largely known for his scores to a series of "Cult Westerns" (Cesare Canevari's 1970 "¡Mátalo!" & Lorenzo Gicca Palli 1971 "Il Venditore die Morte" AKA "The Price Of Death") he did revisit this avenue to compose a series of Abstract & Avant-Electronic works for Vittorio Cottafavi's 1972 RAI Miniseries "A come Andromeda" (AKA "A For Andromeda") all of which were issued on disc a few years back. Regardless, this replica edition (available at the C.P. "midline" initiative/pricepoint given its brevity) sums up the more outré stylings of each extremely well, and we're lucky to have even this brief glimpse into the more transgressive tendencies of each.

[CP 259 CD] Industriale, Ecologico

Reproduction of possibly the most elusive of the early CAM Avant-Garde titles, this collection of, largely, Electro-Acoustic work, issued in 1973 as CML-025, highlights the work of an amazingly prescient bank of Italian Avant-Garde Film & Music figures, including Daniele "Men Of The Sea / Sharks And Men" Patucchi, Mario "Peones / Tartuga / Zimbelius" Molino, Mario "Benna / Psycorama" Nascimbene, Tito "Orfeo 9" Schipa Jr., Giovanno "Vasco Ugo Finni" Fusco (fresh off of scoring "Deserto Rosso" with...), Vittorio "Organum Quadruplum" Gelmetti, Ennio "Dansavio / Leo Nichols" Morricone (honestly a dream to finally find that elusive Morricone Early Electronic gem out there in Library-land!), & Ugo Calise sticks to the RAI-centric production methods throughout and is just lousy with haunted atmopsheres and grimy overmodulated lines.

This Creel Pone replica edition keeps the Minimalistis aesthetics of the original edition intact, offering both the Cover/Rear details as well as the Multi-Language Inner Sleeve on its own two panels. Great to finally knock off this last missing piece of the CAM puzzle after the C.P. replications of the Andres Lewin-Richter, Vittorio Marino, & Marcello Giombini titles of recent/yore!

[CP 265 CD] Ulrich Blume; Ground Your Ears, Collage Abstracte

Here's an interesting proposition (especially when the C.P. P.T.B. have been scouring the globe for this exact sort of thing for 16 years now): a somehow hitherto unknown "Private Press" LP released in Germany ca. 1983 covering Ulrich Blüme's "Impulsive Music Electronical Created" ("IMEC", for short), incorporating structures from a decidedly first-gen post-Berlin-School approach with aspects of nascent home-recording freedom(s) and (most attractively) a wannabe/pseudo-academic flair that has C.P. written all over it (there's even a fine bit of motorik blurt that belies its origins in the off-world tape-trader proto-social networks of the early 1980s, which is also extremely appealing!) Shades of Raicevic-ian glorp galore, esp. in the hand-played feeling figures and general wander-about synthesis & application of seemingly every time-based effect, in sequence...

This precious gem, with its black-and-white paste-on aesthetics perfectly preserved in its own clear CPP "vitrine", is aided & abetted by the 2nd Acoustrone outing (ACT 002 UB) from a few years, continuing cleanly, chronologically-speaking, covering five pieces from just after"Ground", all of which come across as more aesthetic & experimental, pushing for a perceived "Kunst-Ton" feel which is not without its merits. Both albums are represented on a single 6-panel booklet, with a reproduction of the "Promotional" insert included w/ the initial copies of "Ground".

[CP 266 CD] John Van Rymenant, Michael Galasso; Memory Stop, Scan Lines

Closing out the CP XX6 program (for now) is this compendium of the two Igloo LPs of "Electronic Music for Contemporary Dance" by John Van Rymenant (with Michael Galasso assisting on the latter) as issued by Daniel Sotiaux in 1982 & 1984, respectively.

Ages on the C.P. radar, the ways in which this music was denied (early on) then fully embraced (over the past half-decade) speak volumes as to how attitudes have shifted within Experimental Electronic Music, with a newfound emphatic response to this, at times, rhythmic (others; free & clear) grid-based program. There's an impeccable display of patch-programming & timbral details evident throughout these records that feel unparalleled; the clipped shifting/ratcheting figures and woozy, wandering "melody" lines definitely belie a more outré approach than your average "Minimal Synth" outing. The conceptual framing of this material as music for movement makes perfect sense given the unbroken stretches of discernible meter, always overlaid with multiple clashing/asynchronous time-bases.

This Creel Pone edition presents all original details from both LPs on a single 6-panel booklet, with both albums (magically/neatly) filling a single disc.

[CP 000.01 CD] Dariush Dolat-Shahi; Electronic Music, Tar and Sehtar

Back in late 2003, long before the idea of doing this on a slightly less meager scale was a glimmer in Mr. P.C. C.P.'s eye, we made a couple-ten replica editions in a now-familiar spec of a few key records ("Sounds of the Junkyard/Office", "Worlds Within Worlds 1-4", the Edition X "Black Record", "Electronic Panorama", etc.) purely for friends & family/edification purposes, all of which are now collectively known as the "PCP" ("Proto Creel Pones").

Was surprised to find a few stray copies of the first title here while unboxing what remains of the C.P. master cache (decimated; largely lost in the move back from Australia in early 2019). This is course one of my personal all-time favorite records & has been reissued both on a CD-R by Smithsonian-Folkways as well as an LP pressing by the Boomkat folks in the interim; I'm putting these up here purely for the completists (listed/stickered here as "Creel Pones" as why not) and as I prefer the bright, sparkling fidelity of this painstaking restoration of a less-than-fully-minty OG copy to the SF needle-drop & the Dead-Cert restoration.

[CP 000.02 CD] Basil Kirchin; Worlds Within Worlds, 1-4

This was the second of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles made for the installation (after the Dariush Dolat-Shahi) and the first to feature two LPs "sandwiched" together to form a 5/12th scale imaginary/fantasy-league-baseball version of a 2LP set featuring both of Basil Kirchin's Early 70s forays into Free Improv laced Tape Music, thus defining the "Double-Sided" aesthetic the series would adopt a good 3 years later w/ the CP-0X0-0X1 titles.

As with the Dariush, the handful of surviving copies here are solely for the completists, as the music in question has, in the interim, been reissued by Trunk & Superior Viaduct, respectively.

[CP 000.03 CD] La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela; 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM, 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta

... just a handful of this genuine article, the third of the ca. 2003 proto-Creel Pone (PCP) replica editions (some of you hawk-visaged readers may remember the "Ne Glasba" version that, briefly, made its way to MMS; this is essentially the same, replete with the black-on-black disc & that spectacular-looking/feeling "Pearlized" metallic-seeming print-stock) comprised of an unnumbered copy of Marian & La Monte's first LP (aka "The Black Record/Album") as issued by Heiner Friedrich & Philippa de Menil in Munich in 1969 (a year before they produced the second edition of the canonic Fluxus book "An Anthology of Chance Operations") prior to the pair moving to NYC & establishing the DIA Art Foundation with Helen Winkler in 1973; now stickered as a Creel Pone as why not ...

[CP 000.04 CD] Oscar Vargas Leal, David Espejo Aviles, Juan Carrillo; Cromo Metrofonia No. 1, Cometa 1973

This was the fourth of the ca. 2003 "Proto Creel Pone" titles made for the "Extremely Frustrating" installation (something of a Reckankomplex-centric "NWW List" in & of itself) featuring both variants/pressings of this gorgeous 1973 Mexican Discos Pax LP suite of music made on Oscar Vargas Leal & David Espejo Aviles' Quarter-Tone instruments, created with the aid/guidance of Composer Juan Carrillo.

It may surprise you to learn that the focus this early on was not solely on Early Electronic Music as it later became; in fact, a fair majority of these early attempts came from more of a Sound Art / Experimental Instrument / Private Minimalism bent, as witnessed by the swarm of detuned acoustic harmonics across both pieces herein, the result of Leal & Aviles' experiments in building a pair of gigantic microtonal, essentially, Cimbaloms/Harps...

Incredible music, clearly in the canon of "Holy Minimalism" and/or "String Drone," and other than Aki Onda's efforts as of recent, Carillo is an oft-neglected figure that deserves wider respect; hence the resuscitation of this "Proto" Creel Pone.

[CP 245 CD] Gino Marinuzzi Jr.; Musica Ed Elettronica, Muraglie Di Ghiaccio, Figure Geometriche

Marinuzzi was an American-Italian Composer of, mostly, lyrical film music, although he famously scored Mario Bava's impeccably costumed 1965 epic "Terrore Nello Spazio" (aka "Planet of the Vampires", itself becoming something of a classic in the Early Electronic Sci-Fi Soundtrack canon alongside "The Day The Earth Stood Still" & "Forbidden Planet") featuring some very deep & wonderful Syn-Ket work by the instrument's namesake, Paolo Ketoff.

It's presumably with the same machine that Marinuzzi created the auspicious sound designs that were later compiled into the 1971 "Musica Ed Elettronica" library (which appears alongside Il Gruppo member Egisto Macchi's "Città Notte", Bruno Nicolai's recently-reissued "Marquis De Sade's" & Oronzo "Rino" de Filippi's "Nel Mondo Del Lavoro" on Sermi Film Edizioni Musicali's legendary "SR Records" series as #SP 131) which breaks cleanly from the lineage of late-60s Italian Moog-discovery works by Umiliani & Boneschi et.al.

Added at the tail-end of the single-disc (as why not) is Marinuzzi's other SR title, "Muraglie Di Ghiaccio, Figure Geometriche" from 1968 (SP 111) featuring a more linear application of motif & harmony, with brief flourishes of more outré tendencies...

[CP 247 CD] Renaud Gagneux, Jean-François Gaël, Alain Savouret; Sonoriages, Musiques Sur La Place, Musiques De Table, Musiques En Bandes

A good decade in the making, here is (at last!) a compendium replica edition of all three titles issued by Chant Du Monde in 1985 via their "Sonoriage" series, focusing on Sound-Collage & Musique Concrète works, offering an EP-length suite of pieces each by Composer & Pierre Mariétan / GERM collaborator Renaud Gagneux ("Musiques Sur La Place", #100137; he also plays piano on Françoise Barrière's "Ritratto Di Giovane", lovingly replicated as CP 193-193.5), Guitarist, Composer, & Sonorhc member Jean-François Gaël ("Musiques De Table", 100138), & the vastly underrated INA GRM-aligned Composer Alain Savouret ("Musiques En Bandes", #100139; seriously, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of his 1977 "L'arbre Et Caetera" set, easily one of the studio's unique aesthetic highpoints, rarely discussed) as composed at the G.M.E.B.

This all comes on a single disc (the C.P. PTB have opted for the simplicity of the side-per-track organization method here ala the "Creelpolation" discs, mainly as to protect you from a bunch of 10-second single-blip ID's; so it's Gagneux tracks 1&2, Gaël 3&4, Savouret 5&6) housed inside a six-panel booklet offering detail of the singles & booklets spread out in exhausting detail...

[CP 249 CD] Marcello Giombini; Overground, Synthomania

A few years back, when this current, third-wave of Production Library revivalism began to take root, I was surprised to see such a fuss being made over Giombini's "Astromusic Synthesizer" (a later, early 80s Forever library much in the vein of Mort Garson & Paul Beaver's "Zodiac;" in the same way as Goblin's "Suspiria" is in the vein of "Tubular Bells") which was the subject of the multiple, warring factions of simultaneous bootleg pressings that usually define a zeitgeist nowhere near in sync.

Surprise, mainly as I had always considered Giombo's two early-70s CAM (Creazioni Artistiche Musicali) libraries as the high-water marks of the series (of course, alongside Andrés Lewin Richter's "Space Electronics / Ligatures / Electronic Mystery", Vittorio Marino's "Fugue of Light", the seemingly endless wave of Giampiero Boneschi "A New Sensation In Sound" sub/series and of course the towering "Industriale • Ecologico" comp; the rest are trash) far worthier of the same attention and rampant historical revivalism.

Lo and behold; here is a fine replica covering both of said, sandwiched neatly onto a single-disc (CAM's tend to be shorter; the TRT is just over an hour) presented as issued in 1973 as CML-032 & 033, respectively; voila.

[CP 252 CD] Colette Magny, André Almuro; "Avec" Poème, Poésie De Cruauté

One of the longest-suffering titles in the C.P. "Queue" (mainly as a copy of the original edition has eluded all of us, for over a decade) is this astonishing 1966 collaboration between canonic Avant-Garde chanteuse Colette Magny (whose two Chant Du Monde titles, "Feu et Rythme" & "Répression" feature the legendary French Free Jazz rhythm section of Barre Phillips & Beb Guerin along w/ François Tusques & are all-time bonafide classics in the chansonnerie-meets-freedom genre) and Electro-Acoustic composer André Almuro (a name that should be known to you via his two Boîte A Musique titles replicated as CP 067 & 097 respectively) issued in 1966 by Mouloudji (on his eponymous vanity label; in a miniscule edition, natch) as EMZ 13510.

As a bonus, this replica edition also includes Almuro's "Poésie De Cruauté" collection (also issued on Disques Mouloudji, EMZ 13514, 1966) featuring three of his own texts alongside those by Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet, Jean Cocteau, Olivier Larronde, & Federico García Lorca over/alongside Almuro's desiccated, wraith-strewn Electronic landscapes & even a few solo-Electronic numbers. Aside from Almuro's reading of Jean Genet's "Le Condamné À Mort" (ditto, Mouloudji, EMZ 13518, 1966) which was reissued both on LP & CD via the Bourg label (get in touch; I think I still have a handful of copies lying around) this should complete the remaining pieces of the Almuro puzzle, for now...

[CP 260-261 CD] Musica Electroacustica Española 1, 2, 3

Gorgeous reproduction of these three vinyl compilations released by Circulo De Bellas Artes in the mid-late-80s (as CBA #5, #7, & #11, respectively) offering canonic pieces of Spanish Early Electronic Music composed between 1961 & 1987 by a who's who of said:

ZAJ co-founder Juan Hidalgo, Andrés Lewin-Richter, Mauricio Sotelo Lieve, Ramón González Arroyo (his only other Electro-Acoustic piece aside from "De La Distance" on the "Archives GRM: Le Temps Du Temps Réel" disc), Juan Pagán, frequent Jorge Peixinho collaborator Enrique X. Macías, Adolfo Núñez, José Manuel López, Jacobo Durán-Loriga, Gabriel Brncic, José Antonio Orts (great piece on the "Inventionen 2000: Berliner Festival Neuer Musik" disc on Edition RZ), Daniel Zimbaldo, José Iges (amazing piece on the "Luna Y Panorama De Los Insectos" tape on Actéon), and José Manuel Berenguer (check the first piece on Polonio's "Bload Stations * Syntax Error" ...)

Comes as a Double Compact Disc-Recordable inside a Six-panel booklet offering the apropos hyper-detail of the original-issue aesthetics on the outers (blow-ups & color separations of the track/detail-listings on the inners) complete with a 6-panel accordion-fold booklet covering all three inserts...

[CP 255 CD] 3ª Bienal Americana De Arte

Summer 2021, 55th-anniversary reproduction (conveniently issued as CP 255) of this absurdly rare 1966 "Private" festival edition assembled for the titular October 1966 event held in Córdoba, Argentina.

Covering (disc/LP-1) Tape & Electronic Music by organizers Horacio Vaggione & Pedro Echarte, along with pieces by José Vicente Asuar, Edgardo Cantón, Alcides Lanza, and international participants Gerald Strang, Gordon Mumma, & Lejaren Hiller followed by (disc/LP-2) performances of largely instrument-and-tape pieces by Virgilio Tosco, Oscar Bazán, and international participants Morton Feldman, Ernst Krenek, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, and John Cage by Vaggione, Echarte, Bazan, Antonio Tauriello & Gerardo Gandini.

It should go without saying (esp. given the personnel) that this music has gone almost entirely unheard in the interim, offering up a King's Ransom in Latin American Early Electro-Acoustic music to the initiated. An undoubtedly appealing prospect, and along with the Tacuabé "Composiciones Electroacusticas" series (CP 130-131) & the various Cuban surveys (CP 120, CP 170-171, 220-221) this should fill in the (many) gaps.

[CP 256 CD] Godfried Willem Raes; Bellenorgel, New Self-Made Electroacoustical Instruments

The penultimate issue in the epic Creel Pone Igloo campaign (for now) is the recorded debut of Logos Foundation founder Godfried Willem Raes, produced by Igloo founder Daniel Sotiaux during the 1978-79 season, and issued in a paltry 100-copy edition as only the label's fourth release (after Jean-Paul Ganty's readings of Artaud, Jarry, Bréton & others; Arthur Petronio's zorched tape-munge Sound Poetry; and the set of André Stordeur's home-brew Analogia that kicked off this program in fine style) replete with the explicit, open-world missive from the Composer himself that: "I declare this record free from any copyright, public performance, broadcasting and copying allowed when source mentioned."

The first side covers the titular sculpture, framed as "A Slightly Different Music-Box" and consisting of an ear-shattering array of, essentially, electro-mechanical door chimes triggered by a sentient network of solenoids & processed through "self-made" circuits that all appear to share the same control layer (Raes' voice appears to be triggering aspects of the installation). While the complexity and absurdity of the range of sounds conjured via this particular sound-sculpture has its origins in the work of Jean Tinguely & Molohy-Nagy, the output is far more abrasive than said's controlled kinetics, reminiscent of a runaway vessel careening down a mountain switchback to its doom.

The second side is given over to four individual Analogue Electronic instruments/pieces and acts as something of a demo-reel/calling-card, with Raes' often tongue-in-cheek sensibilities very much on display at this early age. "VCS 2000" appears to convert input signals (stray, overloaded percussion sounds) into a filter network that renders it into a fine mist of DC offsets and shrieks, recalling the contemporaneous "Crackle" work of relative neighbor Michel Waisvisz. "On One String Only" (for "Klavimonochord" & "Transformational Regenerative Synth) runs non-tempered steel improvisations into an array of Electronic modifiers, yielding a consistent bucket brigade clock whine & the associated artifacts. "Out Of A Tiny Box" (for "Synthelog") offers a selection of single-channel stereo-chatter that rises into a fine wash of FM'ed matrices. Finally, "Dudafoon" offers an erratic scrabble that, while reminiscent of Hans Reichel's daxophone work, accelerates into a maze of motorized audio-rate grind.

As is C.P.'s methodology, this 2021 replica edition concerns itself solely with an individual copy of this fine record (these were individually silkscreened in varying degrees & hues of color; it took the Cabal 3 or 4 passes to source this particularly blessed variant) and includes the double-sided insert as a pair of fully legible panels in the inner gatefold.

[CP 243 CD] Hero Wouters; Fiction

Covering his scores for the films of Gerard Holthuis, W. K. Broer, & Ronald Beer & Floor Peters, the 1981 Herophone LP in question being replicated here was the only proper mass-market solo outing by Panta Rhei member Hero Wouters (though he did issue a further tape-only set 5 years later, "Laios / Een Zaak Van Leven Of Dood", partially reissued 15 or so years back by Enfant Terrible; and of course the three P.R. tapes "Mental Designs", "Birthday Music", and "Weird Duck" were Herophone productions).

The majority of the proceedings here are comprised of the titular "Fiction" score, realized by Wouters with/in an ensemble comprised of Neel Holst (Sax, Vocals), Ron Jansen (Drums), Willem Hagen (Piano), & Holthuis himself (Piano, Effects) and perfectly encapsulating the claustrophobic, alternate realities of the film's synopsis (handily excerpted on the sleeve):

A man working at a nuclear reactor is involved in an accident caused by gross negligence on the part of the management. He decides to go underground and to provoke a nuclear accident. His aim is to set an example and to show what happens if something really goes wrong. At the same time he is confronted by someone from his past. Fiction deals with the feelings of fear and uncertainty that the 'problem' of nuclear energy may cause. In the film the line between fiction and reality becomes blurred. This is not a neatly rounded story, but an attempt to express the sence (sic) of anxiety and uncertainty.

The remainder offers a series of wry processed rhythm-box études (that fall from the same tree as Conrad Schnitzler's 70s/80s work; "Rot" comes to mind) & the sort of diaristic room-toned extrapolations of "musical" elements and raw Musique Concrète forms that yield short, sharp juxtapositions between the narrative arcs via "found" audio footage and fidelity-challenged "field" performances by the group. There's even a fair bit of Krautrock-tinged synth détournement, short segments of Chansonnerie, and even an honest-to-goodness Psych number or two (the range & sudden arrival of such canonic forms reminds me a little bit of the two Philippe Doray et Les Asociaux Associés LPs bundles as CP 215, fans of which would do well to investigate herein).

[CP 227 CD] Hatten; Voice Print

... in the great, yearlong idea-incubation session that preceded this extensive wave of 15th Anniversary C.P. titles (a new "Dot" a week is scheduled each week clear through the end of September) one of the Cabal members suggested we check out this entirely inscrutable, beguiling selection of rough-hewn tape-edits, metallic echoes, and barely whispered meta-textual spoken fragments as issued in 1971 by Samuel "Sarant Pansamurs" & Sims Rogers Amico via their then Philadelpia-based Middle Earth Books (from 1969 onwards they published works by Patti Smith, John Wieners, Robert Creeley, Gary Snyder, & Tom Pickard) whose manifesto speaks volumes about the then-current Zeitgeist:

In a blind act of love, hoping to reconcile private and public life, Middle Earth Books was born in a basement bookshop in 1969. Ideas surfaced; concepts equidistant from Tolkien and The Whole Earth Catalog. From an underground philosophical position, ”guerrilla warfare” could be waged on the dominant media culture. Somewhere behind the scenes was the motivation to bring visual and conceptual information together. Eclecticism/Juxtaposition/Pataphysics.

Conspicuously absent from the epoch-defining "Broken Music" catalog (in which this music & the edition itself would clearly find its audience) this ended up, of course, one of the greatest discoveries in recent times, opening up a huge wormhole.

Tom Hatton, a childhood friend of Amico's, began collaborating with Marcia Kocot in 1967 (their work is still on display at Larry Becker Contemporary in Philly) as "Hatton & Kocot". Together they produced chapbooks such as "Paper Dolls, Book One and Two" (1970) ("comprised of risqué collages in Richard Hamilton-like interiors"), staged & exhibited large-format photography, and worked with Amico on a 16mm film "Into Another One’s Skull" ("which recorded Tom Hatton’s Airplane Event"). It was during this time that Hatton wrote the "script" & recorded/executed "Voice Print"; originally used as the soundtrack to several films, the idea of pressing it to vinyl (in an elaborate gatefold with a striking "all black" interior, recreated here) only to be used to create a Marclay-esque "spike" of copies of the LP itself highlights its lifespan as an "Anti-Record", which belies the care & compassion that went into meticulously creating the impeccably folded sonic narrative of the embedded music.

[CP 225 CD] Gabriel Brnčić; Chile Fértil Provincia..., Cueca Para La Exaltación De Jorge Peña Hen, Destierro, Cielo+

... a gentle, sensible pairing of Chilean Electro-Acoustic Composer & Violist Gabriel Brnčić's two Spanish LPs compiled across two discs (incidentally, this is now the first "CP XX5" title to take up more than one! The C.P. P.T.B. just kept turning up more & more relevant material and BAM here we are at this absolutely embarrassment of riches) issued a few short years after his relocation to Barcelona in 1974.

Issued on LP & Cassette in 1979 by Gonzalo de la Puerta's Ambar label, "Chile Fértil Provincia... b/w Cueca Para La Exaltación De Jorge Peña Hen" pairs the titular pieces in a somewhat unholy alliance: "Chile" is a side-length Musique Concrète number largely involving Brncic's Synth & Tape Manipulation work (created in his "Laboratorio De Sonido") cut in a jagged trajectory alongside traditional Chilean Folk performances by Juan Carlos Villegas, Jorge Sarraute, Jordi Mestres, & Alejandro Lazo. It's an amazing agitprop piece on par with Pequeño's "¡Ahora!" & fits well alongside Juan Blanco's similar melding of folk & abstract forms. This is followed by "Cueca", which turns out to be a piece for two "Classical" Guitarists (performed here by Eulogio Davalos & Miguel Angel Cherubito) wherein the two flit around their respective fretboards in figures ranging from typically showboat-oriented bright & spiky tangents (reminiscent of those McLaughlin Shakti records) to a series of quite discordant scratches & scrapes, the sort that wouldn't be out of place on a Wilhelm Bruck & Theodor Ross realization of, say, a Kagel or Lachenmann piece.

This first disc of the set is augmented by a pair of pieces; first, a live performance of Brncic's "Memento, Mortus Est! For Clarinet, Violin And Electronic Sounds" by Efrain Guigui & Israel Chorberg recorded at the Center for Inter-American Relations on April 5, 1969 & issued on said's "At The Center" compilation later the same year... then a restored version of his Tape piece "El túnel (a Ernesto Sábato)" Composed at CLAEM, Instituto Di Tella (Buenos Aires, Argentina) in 1970.

The second disc covers the 1980 "Destierro Y Cielo" set (incidentally also issued on both LP & Cassette by the Hemis ferio label; the same that issued both the Anna Ricci and/or Andrés Lewin-Richter LPs replicated as CP 160-161 a couple of years later) cover the titular side-length wind-swept suites for solo Synthesizer (the former) & a sordid Viola / Synth duet (the latter). The second disc is closed out by Jesus Villa Rojo's performance of his 1986 piece "Tonalidad Dominante (La Bemol)" for clarinet and magnetic tape, with "Electronics [Processing]" performed live here by Brncic himself.

This Creel Pone editions presents the artwork of all four interrelated original editions (along with their respective gatefolds & inserts) across 6 panels; you're definitely going to need one of the Fresnel Lenses from either "Creelpolation" or the Clark Gesner to properly glean the appropriate contexts...

[CP 199.11 CD] Frédéric Nyst, Pablo Palazuelo, Yumi Nara; Le Nombre Et Les Eaux

After a sizable gap, the Creel Pone "199-X" series resumes with this out-of-nowhere title that sort of blindsided the C.P. cognoscenti w/ its prior un-knowable-ness & confluence of cultural mile-markers...

Programmed by Belgian composer Nyst at the Xenakis-helmed CEMAMU (Centre d’Etudes de Mathématique et Automatisme Musicales) using said's UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique CEMAMu) image-to-sound software synthesis tool, "Le Nombre Et Les Eaux" linearly converts the noted Spanish painter Palazuelo's "Trans-Geometría" forms & gradients, along with vocal interpretations of said by Soprano Yumi Nara (whose realizations of pieces by Globokar, Messiaen, Redolfi, Xenakis, Chaynes, and others are well worth looking into; she also appears on Ghédalia Tazartès' "Une Éclipse Totale De Soleil" & "Voyage À L'Ombre" & Jean-Claude Eloy's "Butsumyôe / Sappho Hiketis") into smears of coarse-grained digital sound, the rough-hewn peaks, valleys, and interlaced parallelograms into a swath of, essentially, proto-noise grappling.

Fits neatly alongside prior C.P. chestnuts such as Günter Maas' "Klangbilder, Bilder und Klangbilder", Daniel Arfib's "Musique Numérique", & Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson's "La Jolla Good Friday I-II" in its streamlined, seasick adherence to alternate, non build-release forms. This Creel Pone replica edition micro-manages the sunbleached spread of Palazuelo's cover/rear images at the appointed 5/12th scale, along with the two gorgeous geometric wonders in the inner gatefold & the LP sides/labels.

[CP 246 CD] Arthur Pétronio

... continuing the survey of the legendary Belgian Igloo label's output, this late 70s collection of, primarily, mid-60s Tape Music & Sound Poetry from the Swiss Artist Arthur Pétronio was only the imprint's second release, and has remained one of the most elusive.

Appearing on both the massive, epoch-defining "Futura: Poesia Sonora" 7LP boxed set on Cramps the prior year (his entrant, "Cosmosmose" appears here) as well as the 1975 "Poesia Sonora" LP (ditto, "Sortilèges") Pétronio's garbled, noise-addled collage echo the work of François Dufrêne (at his wildest) & Henri Chopin (at his most de-ranged), rife with the kinds of low-groan-moaning heard on Henning Christiansen's "Symphony Natura" & wild, speak-in-tongues hysteria that reminds of the Dieter Kaufmann/Gunda König pieces or even Le Théâtre du Chêne Noir in its embrace of batshit abandon.

This Creel Pone replica edition includes the (outsize) booklet along with a proper, no-contemporary-revisionism recreation of the OG sleeve; a late highlight!

[CP 248 CD] Mentocome

Privately issued on the band's own Giraffe imprint at some point in the early 80s, this, the lone outing by the duo of Axel Grube (later of Mutterfunk) & Rainer Rabowski (proprietor of the fantastic Klar! 80 tape series, and alongside Charly Morrow & Grube, the core of Roter Stern/Star/Belgrad) under their Mentocome alias is a beguiling assortment of exceedingly minimal figures for synth & metallic pinging echo that is about as far away from the contemporaneous Zickzack scene as you can possibly imagine.

Presaging much of the coming wave of digital sound design by a good decade plus, the tracks herein dovetail between perceivable low-end rhythms and tiny fragments of clipped sound designs that are eerily prescient of the more conceptual aspects of Mille Plateaux and Raster/Noton etc. In fact, I can only really think of the Nuno Canvarro "Plux Quba" LP as something being in anywhere near the same orbit as this, and even that's a stretch! This Creel Pone replica edition recreates the album's original aesthetics; all faint drum-scan reductions of tributaries and brachium along with the outsize insert displaying the duo's post-Wilhelm-Reich ethos/manifesto.

[CP 242 CD] Ann Southam; The Reprieve, The Emerging Ground +

Timely replication of the other Ann Southam LP (following the "Sky Sails+" entrant 40 "dots" ago as well as her work on the "Electronic Music By Canadian Composers" set) covering the storied Canadian Electro-Acoustic composer's work for the Toronto Dance Theatre as commissioned by Patricia Beatty during the mid-70s & early 80s.

The main two pieces here; "The Reprieve (1975)" & "The Emerging Ground (1983)" are gorgeous, flowing abstractions of Electronic Sound, rife with pinging, ecstatic resonances that remind me of both Douglas Leedy's automatic-music classic "Entropical Paradise" as well as the tail-end of Warner Jepson's "Totentanz".

This set also includes a further two pieces composed for Dance as requested Beatty & Peter Randazza, "Seastill (1979)" & "Rewind (1984)" as well as an excerpt of a 1974 piece, "Walls and Passageways," all with the same sense of flowing grandeur.