Various Artists – Electronic Music

Outstanding set of early electronics on the ever-popular Folkways label. It’s hard to imagine the nerdish looking dudes pictured in the included booklet would be the ones producing these totally bizarre sound structures.

The first song, “Dripsody,” makes you aware of the kind of experimentation the folks at the University of Toronto’s Electronic Music Studio were capable of in the early to mid 1960s. From the booklet:

This record was made from the sound of the fall of a single drop of water. The original tape record, about half an inch long, was copied at various speeds to produce sounds having fundamental frequencies from 45 CPS to 8,000 CPS.

The rhythmic figures which imitate the rhythms of dripping water were written down in musical notation and set up on tape by splicing together prints of the right pitch. The records so obtained were combined in a variety of ways. The first sound heard on the disc is the unaltered original record.

Another personal favorite is “Pinball” which, you guessed it, was created entirely from sound recordings of pinball machines. The tapes which contained the recordings were then altered through the use of ring modulation, reversal effects, and other various filters.

If you have any sort of appreciation for primitive electronic sounds you should probably attempt to track this one down. Highly recommended.

Tracklist:
Dripsody – Hugh Le Caine
Dance R4 / 3 – Myron Schaeffer
Summer Idyl – Arnold Walter, Harvey Olnick
Noesis – Robert Aitkin
Fireworks – Val Stephen
The Orgasmic Opus – Val Stephen
Collage – J.D. Robb
Pinball – Jean Eichelberger Ivey
Inferno – Victor Grauer

I’ve included some close-up scans of some of the artists included on this record. (1) Jean Eichelberger Ivey, (2) J.D. Robb