Two fabulous early electronic works both employing the legendary Buchla Box 100 analog synthesizer and realized at the Tape Music Center at Mills College (now called the Center for Contemporary Music). Alien Bog evokes a place deep in the natural world far from humankind's civilizations -- low gentle thumps at ground level, high cycling bird-like sounds, sustained cricket calls, quick side-to-side flights of unknown critters, and low calls of immense animals in the distance, all cycle contrapuntally to create a peaceful yet ...
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Two fabulous early electronic works both employing the legendary Buchla Box 100 analog synthesizer and realized at the Tape Music Center at Mills College (now called the Center for Contemporary Music). Alien Bog evokes a place deep in the natural world far from humankind's civilizations -- low gentle thumps at ground level, high cycling bird-like sounds, sustained cricket calls, quick side-to-side flights of unknown critters, and low calls of immense animals in the distance, all cycle contrapuntally to create a peaceful yet bizarre environment. The charming Beautiful Soop for reciting voices and electronics incorporates poetic fantasy texts from classic literature: The Jabberwocky, excerpts from Alice in Wonderland, and so on. The voices take on a fantastical aspect when processed through tape-delays (echoes and accumulative modulations), and the voices also are continually mixed with surrealistic and often humorous electronic sounds. After 27 minutes the fantasy build-up reaches an engrossing (and to some listeners, ironic) plateau, and the narrative voice fades, stuck in the repeating groove of a vinyl record. An unpretentious, enjoyable, yet pioneering work. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Rovi
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