Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Resolution: Compose in TextEdit rather than this window; a stray keystroke just ate way too many words. I'll try to reconstruct some of them tomorrow, but here's something else:
Over thirty? Stuck in the same musical bag for too long and getting a little twitchy? Have you run through the three Bs and back to Monteverdi and forward to Mahler and Ives? Are you bored with Perry Como but not desperate enough to embrace "The Stones" or Janis Joplin? Peace.
Under thirty? Are you betting bored occasionally with Jimi Hendrix, maybe a little put off by Jim Morrison? Jaws tired of "bubblegum music"? Want to broaden your horizons without getting trapped in that square symphony and opera stuff?
Good news! There's an area of new music growing that you can listen to without your friends accusing you of selling out to the other side. We don't know what to call it yet and we probably won't until strict "pop" and "classical" and "jazz" categories are ground into dust by the electronic age. But just because we don't have a name for it is no reason you can't go ahead and enjoy it.
Its borders are very hazy and loose. Some of it is being written now by people like Terry Riley and Mort Subotnick and Luciano Berio. Some of it a decade or two old, is just now being discovered; like Blood, Sweat and Tears uncovering Erik Satie or kids grooving to the sound of Harry Partch or Varese.
So, if you've got the musical "blahs," listen. There's enough on this record to keep your adrenalin pumping through 1970. Come on, get with it!
--John McClure
Director of Masterworks
[Liner notes to Wild Sounds of New Music, Columbia 7" seemingly included with a variety of the label's releases. The six tracks are 1:30 to 3:20 excerpts from Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air, Lasry-Baschet's Chronographie, Partch's Castor & Pollux, Berio's Sinfonia: Section III, Reich's Violin Phase, and Nancarrow's Study #7. Lasry-Barchet is by far the least-familiar of these names; but, then, I know next to nothing about sound-sculpture. The relevant albums are blurbed on the opposite side; for example:]
Let magician Terry Riley float you on his tangerine carousel into a sunshine universe you might have dreamed of once when everything was easy and colorful and innocent. The only bad part is coming down.
Over thirty? Stuck in the same musical bag for too long and getting a little twitchy? Have you run through the three Bs and back to Monteverdi and forward to Mahler and Ives? Are you bored with Perry Como but not desperate enough to embrace "The Stones" or Janis Joplin? Peace.
Under thirty? Are you betting bored occasionally with Jimi Hendrix, maybe a little put off by Jim Morrison? Jaws tired of "bubblegum music"? Want to broaden your horizons without getting trapped in that square symphony and opera stuff?
Good news! There's an area of new music growing that you can listen to without your friends accusing you of selling out to the other side. We don't know what to call it yet and we probably won't until strict "pop" and "classical" and "jazz" categories are ground into dust by the electronic age. But just because we don't have a name for it is no reason you can't go ahead and enjoy it.
Its borders are very hazy and loose. Some of it is being written now by people like Terry Riley and Mort Subotnick and Luciano Berio. Some of it a decade or two old, is just now being discovered; like Blood, Sweat and Tears uncovering Erik Satie or kids grooving to the sound of Harry Partch or Varese.
So, if you've got the musical "blahs," listen. There's enough on this record to keep your adrenalin pumping through 1970. Come on, get with it!
--John McClure
Director of Masterworks
[Liner notes to Wild Sounds of New Music, Columbia 7" seemingly included with a variety of the label's releases. The six tracks are 1:30 to 3:20 excerpts from Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air, Lasry-Baschet's Chronographie, Partch's Castor & Pollux, Berio's Sinfonia: Section III, Reich's Violin Phase, and Nancarrow's Study #7. Lasry-Barchet is by far the least-familiar of these names; but, then, I know next to nothing about sound-sculpture. The relevant albums are blurbed on the opposite side; for example:]
Let magician Terry Riley float you on his tangerine carousel into a sunshine universe you might have dreamed of once when everything was easy and colorful and innocent. The only bad part is coming down.
