Music Of The Spheres

My entry to the world of electronic and late 20th Century classical music occurred years ago when I attended an early performance by composer Morton Subotnick on the University of Michigan campus. At roughly the same time, Frank Zappa’s championship of Edgar Varèse in his liner notes to ‘Freak Out’ drew me deeper into the world of musique concrète. As time went on, my interest and blossoming sophistication grew to include the work of Milton Babbitt, Harry Partch, Conlin Nancarrow, Ingram Marshall, Gavin Bryars and György Ligeti to name a few. Through the years, one of my guilty pleasures was to compile looped mixes of esoteric recorded works along with found sounds, pink noise, random bits of dialogue and the like, employed to subtly engulf the room at night with an ambient, atmospheric backdrop until sleep or dawn’s light eventually found me. I still harbor the interest today, but certainly no longer have the necessary time to construct the dense sound collages that I once compiled. Until I am able to assemble a new montage, I offer 'Music Of The Spheres,' a simple but evocative collection of electronic and orchestral pieces by a variety of 20th Century composers, save one. The mix opens with the terrestrial sounds of 'Tracy' and her beau exploring the spooky subterranean bowels of an abandoned hotel before morphing into a fantastic voyage far into the dreamy void of deep space. The spell is broken much later with the bark of a dog from Frank Zappa's 'Waffenspiel,' gently returning us to terra firma as the soft drone of a single engine propeller plane slowly traverses the lower stratosphere, slowly fading into the far horizon. Johann Strauss' 'Blue Danube' concludes the journey as a fitting release from the evoked ether, Strauss being only composer in the mix not of the 20th Century.

1) Woob/Pluto
2) Terre Thaemlitz/Tranquilizer
3) Pablo Forman/Synergy
4) Michael Frengel/No Pestering
5) John Adams/Light Over Water (Pt.1)
6) Allen Strange/Sky Woman
7) Allen Strange/Jaguar Woman
8) Richard James/Unit #9
9) György Legeti/Atmospheres
10) Adham Shaika/Vapor
11) Frank Zappa/Waffenspiel
12) Edward Reichel/Configurations
13) Johann Strauss II/The Blue Danube (Excerpt)

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