OTTO LUENIG & VLADIMIR USSACHEVSKY – Tape Recorder Music

Description

One of the very earliest and most important examples of electronic tape music to be pressed on to vinyl (alongside the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française musique concrète compilations in France and Jim Fassett’s comedic Strange To Your Ears novelty record) this privately pressed 1955 LP was released on a one-off label owned by businessman Gene Bruck to document a custom made performance at the New York Museum Of Modern Art back in 1952. This facsimile edition of this important LP archives remastered versions of the first recorded unison of Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky and a partnership that founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center at Columbia University in 1959, which would later count Ilhan Mimaroglu, Wendy Carlos, Dariush Dolat Shahi and Alice Shields as its graduates.

The October 28th 1952 performance showcased the debut of the seminal Fantasy In Space based on resampled flute recordings which were manipulated on magnetic tape to create an otherworldly melodic composition, stylistically begging comparison with the early recording of Kraftwerk (made some twenty years later) and bringing a palatable and tuneful alternative to the stark avant garde experiments of their French counterparts. The mechanical construction of the track was even “performed” on prime time American television to celebrate this groundbreaking approach to modern music. Alongside four other tracks the full programme comprises further experiments with manipulated recordings of bells and woodwind instruments subjected to mechanical “augmentation, diminution and retrograding” to create pieces that “cannot be played with conventional instruments.” In the following years labels like Folkways and Desto would also plunder this important session as a milestone in electronic music.

For the purpose of this release Cacophonic have also included the seldom heard 14 minute track A Poem In Cycles And Bells For Tape Recorder And Orchestra which was recorded using the same techniques with the Royal Danish Radio Orchestra in 1956 and released via the Composers Recordings Inc. label founded by Otto himself in 1954 (employing Vladimir in an advisory capacity) and operated for forty-nine years – releasing records by Harry Partch, Alwin Nikolais, John Cage and Alice Shields. Also included on this edition is an expansion of the rare 10? original artwork by legendary graphic designer Ronald Clyne, an early example of his work made before he became in-house designer for Folkways Records rivaling the likes of Blue Note’s Reid Miles for some of America’s most iconic record sleeves.