| $60.84
new to stock as of
december 19th, 2008
threads:
electro-acoustic-improvisation
experimental-instruments
live-electronic
machine-music
1960s-electronic
1970s-electronic
1980s-electronic
free-improvisation
analogue-synth
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| | | new world (usa) #nw 80675 cd musica elettronica viva “mev40” quadruple compact disc set - spacecraft (30:49) 1967
- stop the war (44:39) 1972
- stedelijk museum, amsterdam, pt. 1 (43:07) 1982
- kunstmuseum, bern (24:37) 1990
- stedelijk museum, amsterdam, pt. 2 (44:05) 1982
- new music america festival (30:51) 1989
- ferrara, italy (67:03) 2002
- mass. pike (10:57) 2007
| | click the play button to hear an excerpt of "spacecraft" |
| december 2008 release ; seemingly out-of-nowhere release - a mammoth 4-disc set of otherwise unreleased recordings from mev, dating back to the late 60s !!!
starting with a 1967 recording of “spacecraft” (inarguably the highlight here ; it’s worth noting that this is a completely different take/recording of the piece as featuring on the titular alga marghen disc, here captured at the berlin concert vs. the köln date there) the raucous electro-acoustic banter between allan bryant, alvin curran, carol plantamura, frederic rzewski, richard teitlebaum, and ivan vandor is a force to be reckoned with (utilizing, amongst other things, the first moog synthesizer in europe) ...
comes with an extensive booklet including many texts such as “the spontaneous music of musia elettronica viva,” alvin curran, frederic rzewski, and richard teitlebaum’s composers’ notes, and bios of every performer herein (including later members such as steve lacy, george e. lewis, karl berger, etc ...) and reprints of gig & appearance posters & flyers (see below for a few examples ; would love to have these hanging on the wall here in the office !!!) - i feel like a kid in a candy store going through all of this material (somewhat surprisingly, the later 80s/90s/00s recordings don’t immediately trail off into the kind of general midi / yamaha dx7 tomfoolery you’d normally associate with era “improvised electronic music” - in fact some of the finer moments herein come from the later dates !!!) ...
i’m going to give this set my highest recommendation ; anyone who needs a reminder of just how forward-thinking these ensembles were up to 40 years back need only listen to the first few pieces herein, predating the contemporary electro-acoustic improv wave, industrial music, harsh noise & power electronics, and other such movements held dear here @ mms ... |
| | new world press release... |
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musica elettronica viva - mev40
80675 (4 cds)
allan bryant, alvin curran, carol plantamura, frederic rzewski, ivan vandor, karl berger, garrett list, gregory reeve, richard teitelbaum, steve lacy, george lewis
| musica elettronica viva (mev) was begun one evening in the spring of 1966 by allan bryant, alvin curran, jon phetteplace, carol plantamura, frederic rzweski, richard teitelbaum and ivan vandor in a room in rome overlooking the pantheon. mev’s music right from the start was also totally open, allowing all and everything to come in and seeking in every way to get out beyond the heartless conventions of contemporary music. taking its cue from tudor and cage, mev began sticking contact mics to anything that sounded and amplified their raw sounds: bed springs, sheets of glass, tin cans, rubber bands, toy pianos, sex vibrators, and assorted metal junk; a crushed old trumpet, cello and tenor sax kept us within musical credibility, while a home-made synthesizer of some 48 oscillators along with the first moog synthesizer in europe gave our otherwise neo-primitive sound an inimitable edge. in the name of the collectivity, the group abandoned both written scores and leadership and replaced them with improvisation and critical listening. rehearsals and concerts were begun at the appropriate time by a kind of spontaneous combustion and continued until total exhaustion set in. it mattered little who played what when or how, but the fragile bond of human trust that linked us all in every moment remained unbroken. the music could go anywhere, gliding into self-regenerating unity or lurching into irrevocable chaos—both were valuable goals. in the general euphoria of the times, mev thought it had re-invented music; in any case it had certainly rediscovered it. —alvin curran |
this 4-cd set, covering the years 1967–2007, comprises the best surviving recorded documents from four decades of performances, personally curated by its three core members — alvin curran, frederic rzewski, and richard teitelbaum. as such, it is an invaluable historical anthology of one of the pioneering and truly legendary exponents of live-electronic music. |
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