cubicles LaboratoireMODERNE resources
releases H O M E
 

LC12/b - ELECTRONIC PANORAMA (TOKYO)

Around 1970 Philips had its own recordlabel (as well as its own electronic studio, btw) and it released a series of records with state of the art electronic and electro-acoustic music which were all encased in a shiny silver sleeve. The series was called: Prospective 21e Siecle.
Currently these releases are well sought by collectors of ancient electronic music.
One of these release was a box with 4 records, each presenting the latest or the best of 4 electronic music studios: Utrecht, Warsaw, Paris and Tokyo.

Because this box is very hard to find - it is for sale on the web for $ 1,000!! - and I think it really presents the best of the electronic music from that time I present it here. This is the second release: Tokyo.

From the booklet:
 Since the foundation of the studio of radio NHK, Tokyo in 1954, the development of electro-acoustic music in Japan has shown a constant exchange between national tradition and techniques imported from the West.

The Japanese contribution is especially interesting in the field of combied electronic instrumental music. Japan has a rich variety of traditional instruments, and there are many which blend particularly happily with electronically produced sound.

However, the meeting of the two sound-worlds has been most rewarding in musical froms where both modern techniques and traditional eleemnts are readily adoptable and sometimes singularly convergent. Elements borrowed by Mayuzumi and Moroi from the vocal puntuations of the Noo theatre, or the sound patterns of the shamizen are significant in this respect. Such borrowings might determine perhaps a refined breaking-up of the beat, or afain a stretching of tempo in accordance with the flow of the musical material. From the standpoint of our own western conception of tempo, we still sense an alien quality in Japanese electro-acoustic music.

I have recorded these albums with an Ortofon stylus and a Technics SL1200. The recordings have been input into a computer. I have declicked the recording and applied very mild noise reduction. As a result it is still audibly a vinyl recording. However I prefer this over the scraping away of frequencies that are part of the composition. All files are converted to 192 kb/s VBR mp3 files. JS

(the texts below are from the booklet)
powered by

Title

Duration

File size

Toshiro Mayuzumi - Mandara 10.26 12 mb

Toshiro Mayuzumi (born 1929) is one of the leading composers in Japan today (1970, JS). After completing his musical studies in Europe - notably under Tony Aubin at the Paris Conservatoire - he set out to bring Japanese and Western traditions together. Although a pioneer of electro-acoustic music in Kapan, with his "composition XYZ" (1953) and particularly "Aoi ne Ue" (First No song), he has made himself equally well known in the West through his orchestral music (Nirvana Symphony).

MANDARA for electronic sounds and voices dates from 1969. The title which is borrowed from the vocabulary of Buddhism, evokes the idea of the uncertainty of things here on earth. The work is divided into two sections. The first is composed basically of brief, shrill electronic impulses, toneless sounds gradually impose the sensation fo deep breathing, which effects a transition to the second section of the work.
This is made up of complex vocal polyphony, in which murmurs, cries and ordinary speaking are blended with typically Japanese melodic inflections.
Maki Ishii - Kyoo
 13.21
14.4 mb

Maki Ishii was born in 1936 into an artistic family. In 1958 he settled in Germany, studying at the National Musical Academy in Berlin. He has written orchestral music (Transition), chamber works (Aphorisms), and electro-acoustic music.

KYOO was composed in 1968 and won an award at the National Arts Festival. The title , which means 'echoes' refers to the formal concept of the work: one sound giving rise to a family of sounds which in their turn engender other families, etc.
There are various sound sources: piano, brass, percussion and electronic devices. The instrumental sounds are heard sometimes in their original form and sometimes transformed electronically. The piano in particular is treated in a variety of ways.: played normally, played according to the techniques of the "prepared piano" and finally amplified and transformed instantaneously through microphoes installed inside the frame.
Minao Shibata - Improvisation 9.30
11.7 mb

Minao Shibata - was born in 1916. He studied composition with Sabro Moroi, in addition to pursuing studies in aesthetics and botany. He is at present (1970, JS) a professor at the National College of Art and for some time devoted to the development of new music in Japan. His works include orchestral works and piano pieces.

IMPROVISATION for electronic sounds dates from 1968. The title may seem surprising, since the classic studio technique is to produce sounds independently and then put them together on magnetic tape. However, improvements in equipment have now made a 'live' compositional technique possible. Banks of generators deliver a cascade of constantly changing sound colours which the composer can manipulate on the spot in the manner of an instrumentalist.
Makoto Moroi - Shosanke 13.25
12.5 mb

Makoto Moroi was born in 1930 and studied music with his father, himself a composer of note. Moroi's orchestral and chamber works have earned him awards in a number of international competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Contest. His 'Variations on the numerical of 7' composed in collaboration with Mayuzumi marked the dawn of electronic music in Japan.

SHOSANKE is a suite of 6 variations on a trumpet sound traditionally associated with the Buddhist 'Ceremony of the Water'. Heard at the opening of the work, this sound is subsequently multiplied by electro-acoustic processes, then enhanced in turn by traditional instruments and synthetic sounds. Electronic sound is combined in the second variation with an ensemble of shakuhashi and in the third with shamizen. Shakuhashi and Shamizen then play alone before joining in final polyphony, which brings in the original trumpet sound.
 
 

 
 
       
  no copyrights EARLabs 1999 - <% response.write year(date) %> contact