Various Artists - Musicworks 48 - Warren Burt, Rhys Chatham, Susan Frykberg -1990- (Cassette, Musicworks), Canada

Here's another Musicworks cassette compilation. Musicworks was a journal that focused on Canadian avant-garde music as well as music recorded during music meetings in Canada by foreign musicians. It was founded by Andrew Timar and John Oswald in Toronto. Numerous cassettes were released and accompanied by background information and different articles on music.

This volume includes:

France based American composer Rhys Chatham known for his orchestral works for electric guitars and compositions with guitar, trumpet, keyboards and electronics. He studied under electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and minimalist icon La Monte Young and was a member of Young's group, The Theater of Eternal Music, during the early seventies. Chatham also played with Tony Conrad in an early version of Conrad's group, The Dream Syndicate.

Composer, ethno-musicologist and percussionist Don Wherry who was also part of the improv outfit The Black Auks. Didgeridoo player, flutist and sound sculpture creator Susan Rawcliffe. Composer, performer, video artist, sound poet, writer and instrument maker Warren Burt and electroacoustic composer Susan Frykberg from New Zealand. 

More info on the different pieces in the included liner notes.

Kindly donated by Matthew

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R. Murray Schafer, David Mott And The New Music Co-Op - Music As Transformation -1983- (Cassette, Musicworks 25), Canada

 

 

Here we have another cassette that was released by the Canadian magazine Musicworks that focused on Canadian avant-garde music since the late 70's. Musicworks was founded by Andrew Timar and John Oswald in Toronto. They released dozens of cassettes that accompanied the Musicworks magazine that published on the relation between science, technology, ecology, sonic environments and music.

Music As Transformation was assembled by composer and sound artist Tina Pearson in 1983. It features edits and excerpts by different Canadian composers involved with experimental music, field-recordings, abstract composition and also contains sequences of spoken discourses. Amongst some of the composers that are present are R. Murray Schafer, known for his concept of acoustic ecology, David Mott, a baritone saxophone player and composer from Toronto and Gordon Monahan, a Canadian pianist, visual and sound artist.

The compilation creates its own unfolding narrative blending natural field-recorded sounds with avant-garde composition within an existential or reflective framework based on the experience of environments and life-cycles. It takes the listener on a subtle transformative trip through sounds of folk traditions, water, rain, fire and other ecological elements weaving in and out of those sound-spaces constantly going back and forth from improvisation and electro-acoustic music into the dark yet sunbursting universe. 

A beautifully assembled piece that can't be titled anything else but Music As Transformation. It reminds me a bit of the music by Darren Copeland that was published on the blog some time ago. Even though the extensive tracklist is available, the cassette has been unindexed to maintain its natural flow.

Music As Transformation - The hypnotic focussing of the word mandala

Kindly donated by Matthew 

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Various Artists - Musicworks 46 -1990- (Cassette, Musicworks), Canada

Here we have a compilation cassette that was released by Canadian magazine Musicworks that focuses on contemporary avant-garde music since the late 70's and is still active to this day. They released dozens of cassettes that accompanied the magazine thoughout the decades.

Musicworks 46 starts with a piece of synthesizer played live by Henry Kucharzyk. The piece is composed by pioneering Canadian female electronic music composer Ann Southam. Since the early 70's she has been involved with electro-acoustic composition in combination with dance and choreography. Her album Sky Sails from 1973 which she made in collaboration with Seán Ó Huigín is a highly sought after record of electronic composition and modern composed collage. It's regarded as one of the more important recordings of Canadian experimental electronic music of the 70's.

The second part of the A-side continues with installation soundworks that were given the name "Very Nervous System". It's a multimedia installation focusing on bodily movements and sound recorded by Canadian artist David Rokeby. There is a sense of artificial interpretation of organic and natural sounds. Those themes are explored in pieces as Waterworks or Gamelaraga. That conceptual sonic exploration of pseudo-natural themes is also used by Fast Forward, a tribal rhythmic project by the American percussionist Paul Wilson, who in this case mostly uses a Trinidadian steel drum in different rhythmic manners.

The compilation ends with a contemporary composed jazz piece composed by Canadian violinist Malcolm Goldstein dedicated to the South African township of Soweto. The piece titled Soweto Stomp was written in 1985 to commemorate the Soweto uprising in 1976 and is dedicated to the black people of South Africa in their struggle for freedom and equality.

Kindly donated by Orpheu The Wizard

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