Search - Cdcm Computer Music Series :: CDCM Computer Music Series Vol. 3 - CMP/EMS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mainly of interest to scholars of the genre

Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 07/26/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This third release in the CDCM Computer Music Series focuses on the late 80's output of both the Computer Music Project and the Experimental Music Studios at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This music demonstrates a range of computer-assisted compositional techniques, from algorithmic composition to computer-controlled synthesis.The disc opens with Salvatore Martirano's "Sampler: Everything Goes When The Whistle Blows" (1985) for Zeta violin and yahaSALmaMAC MIDI orchestra. This is a series of improvisations using different synthesised instruments (plus Zeta violin) laid down on parallel tracks of a digital recorder. The result is 11 minutes of somewhat rambling music of the type you'd probably expect of an elderly late-20th century music academic busking at a party! It is fun, in its way, drifting fairly effortlessly from avant-garde atonal experimentation to jazz improvisation but it is not exactly earth-shattering. Maybe you have to have been at a party with late-20th century music academics to appreciate it?? [Been there! Done that!]John Melby's 1985 tape work, "Chor der Waisen" was realised on an IBM 4341 computer using the MUSIC 360 digital sound synthesis language. Which you can basically translate as a "is the result of many endless cycles of typing and waiting!" The work is reminiscent of much early electronic and computer music of (what some regard as) the "bleep-bloop" school of composition. Its sound world is quite crude and raw by comparison with most modern digital synthesis techniques but I guess that's what the composer wanted. It fair takes me back...Sever Tipei's "Cuniculi for five tubas" (1986) is a computer-composed work for an ensemble of five tubas. The result is a somewhat lumbering ten minutes worth. The interest in this piece derives principally from the range of sonorities it employs, which at times are quite outrageous, especially the further it progresses. Somehow it feels a lot shorter than it is and its ending is quite a surprise."Still Hidden Laughs" (1988), for Synclavier and Yamaha systems, by Scott A. Wyatt uses soaring and surging electronic gestures in a mostly contemplative electroacoustic study. Its rich textures and energetic flow make it about the most interesting work on the disc. The work was written as a musical tribute to fellow composer Herbert Brun on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It is fitting therefore that it is accompanied on this disc by the late Brun's 1981 tape work, "i toLD You so!". This consists of chattering electronic tones and unpitched noises that gradually build into massive blocks of sound in a bold and uncompromising (and at times rather nagging) composition of the kind that was so characteristic of this composer. This has to be the real masterwork on this issue.The final work on the disc is Carla Scaletti's "sunSurgeAutomata" (1987), realised using a Platypus Digital Processor. The composition involved the use of one-dimensional cellular automata to organise a collection of clicks into patterns, resulting in the emergence of first rhythms and later, as the clicks come faster and faster, as pitches - interesting and definitely worth a listen. I wish I could get it out of my head that Ms Scaletti was included on this disc as the token women, though!So: in summary, this disc is something of a mixed bag. All in all, I think you'd have to be very interested indeed in computer music to find much to pleasure you on this disc. Its main virtue lies in the variety of the material presented. It provides, of course, an important record (in spite of its minimal sleeve notes) of its period and should prove invaluable to scholars of the genre. Others should sample before buying."