sound expanse

resource guide 22: Robert Ashley

Posted on March 4, 2014 by jennie

reference:
website
Lovely Music
UbuWeb

films/profiles:
4 American Composers
YouTube film
Music with Roots in the Aether
Arte Sonoro
Cheval

interviews:
October 1969
May 1998
December 1979
November 1983
March 1993
October 2011
November 2011
2012
2013
2013

articles and books:
Music with roots in the aether: Interviews with and essays about seven American composers
Outside of Time/Außerhalb der Zeit: Ideas about Music/Gedanken über Musik
Post-Cageian Experimentation & New Kinds of Collaboration
Robert Ashley: 1930 – 2014
Robert Ashley (American Composers)

Robert Ashley: Yes, But Is It Edible?

pieces:

Film Music: “The Image in Time” (1957)

Piano Sonata (Christopher Columbus Crosses to the New World in the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria Using Only Dead Reckoning and a Crude Astrolabe) (1959-79)
Spotify play play

The Fourth of July (1960)

Film Music: “The Bottleman” (1960)
disc YouTube

Film Music: “The House” (1961)

Maneuvers for Small Hands (1961)

Public Opinion Descends Upon the Demonstrators (1961)

Something for Clarinet… (1961)

Complete With Heat (1962)

Details for Two Pianists, IIb (1962)

Detroit Divided (1962)

Fives (1962)

Trios (White on White) (1963)
SoundCloud

in memoriam … ESTEBAN GOMEZ (quartet) (1963)
YouTube Spotify play play

in memoriam … JOHN SMITH (1963)

in memoriam … CRAZY HORSE (1963)

in memoriam … KIT CARSON (1963)

Boxing (1963)

Big Danger in Five Parts (1964)

Combination Wedding and Funeral (1964)

Film Music: “Jenny and the Poet” (1964)

Interludes for the Space Theater (1964)
play

Kittyhawk (An Antigravity Piece) (1964)

The Lecture Series (aka “Joyroad Interchange”) (1964)

The Wolfman Tape (1964)
disc

The Wolfman (1964)
disc disc YouTube Spotify play

The Entrance (1965)

Film Music: “My May” (1965)

Orange Dessert (1965)

Unmarked Interchange (1965)

Untitled Mixes (1965)

Waiting Room (1965-78)
SoundCloud SoundCloud

Night Train (1966)

Frogs from That Morning Thing (opera)1967)

She Was A Visitor from That Morning Thing (opera) 1967)
SoundCloud Spotify play play

That Morning Thing (opera) (1967)
Vimeo play play comment

Recorded Sound Tracks: “Dr. Chicago” (1969-71)

Film Music: “Overdrive” (1968)

Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon, originally from the opera, That Morning Thing1968)
YouTube play

Trial of Anne Opie Wehrer and Unknown Accomplices for Crimes Against Humanity1968)

The Wolfman Motorcity Revue (1968)

Film Music: “Portraits, Self-Portraits and Still Lifes” (1969)

Fancy Free or It’s There (1970)

Film Music: “Battery Davis” (1970)

Illusion Models

Morton Feldman Says (1970)

In Sara Mencken Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1972)
typewriter disc YouTube Spotify play comment

String Quartet Describing the Motions of Large Real Bodies (1972)
YouTube

Revised, Finally (April, 1961-April, 1973), for Gordon Mumma (1973)

How Can I Tell the Difference? (1974)

Night Sport (1975)

Over the Telephone (1975)

Music with Roots in the Aether (1976)
disc

What She Thinks (1976)
disc

Perfect Lives (1978-80)
Vidas Perfectas
openbook disc disc disc YouTube

The Park, Episode I, Perfect Lives (1978-80)
disc YouTube YouTube YouTube Vimeo

The Supermarket, Episode II, Perfect Lives (1978-80)
YouTube Vimeo
The Bank, Episode III, Perfect Lives
YouTube
The Bar, Episode IV, Perfect Lives
disc YouTube
The Living Room, Episode V, Perfect Lives
Vimeo
The Church, Episode VI, Perfect Lives
Vimeo
The Backyard, Episode VII, Perfect Lives
disc

Automatic Writing (1979)
disc YouTube YouTube

Ideas from The Church (1979)

Music Word Fire And I Would Do It Again Coo Coo: The Lessons (1981)
disc disc disc

The Lessons (1981)
disc

Atalanta (Acts of God) (1982-91)
openbook disc disc Vimeo

-The Anecdotes: Max, Willard, Bud (1982-87)
-Au Pair
YouTube
-The Character References
-The Etchings
-The Flying Saucer Dialogues: Max, Willard, Bud
play
-Mr. Harris and The Headlines
-The Rotations
-Empire (The History of Tomato Soup)
-The Max Anecdote
-The Producer Speaks

Atalanta Strategy (1984)
disc disc

Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) (1985)
disc Spotify

Odalisque (1985)

el/Aficionado (1987)
disc Spotify

Basic 10 (1988)

Problems in the Flying Saucer (1988)

Superior Seven (1988)
Spotify play

Yellow Man with Heart with Wings (1990)
disc YouTube

Outcome Inevitable (1991)
Spotify play

The Song (1992)
disc

Tract (1992)
Spotify play

Van Cao’s Meditation (1992)

Factory Preset (1993)

Now Eleanor’s Idea (1993)
disc

Foreign Experiences (1994)
disc

Balseros (1997)

When Famous Last Words Fail You (1997)

Dust (1998)
disc YouTube Vimeo

Your Money My Life Goodbye (1998)
disc YouTube Spotify

Celestial Excursions (2003)
disc YouTube YouTube Spotify Vimeo

Tap Dancing in the Sand (2004)
disc SoundCloud Spotify play

Hidden Similarities (2005)
Spotify play

Concrete (2006)
disc YouTube Vimeo Vimeo

for Andie Springer (2010)
SoundCloud

World War III Just the Highlights (2010)
play

Berceuse (2011)

Mixed Blessings, Indiana (2013)
SoundCloud

Quicksand

Crash
disc

The Fox
YouTube YouTube

Resonant Combinations
SoundCloud

The Old Man Lives In Concrete
Vimeo comment

Chiyoko Szlavnics: Gradients of Detail

Posted on February 6, 2014 by jennie

Tomorrow, Friday night at 11:00 PST (and available to stream for a week), Music from Other Minds will feature two new releases from World Edition. I’ll tell you about one of them.

Gradients of Detail is the first CD dedicated to Chiyoko Szlavnics’ work. It is a stunningly beautiful sound world, with committed and spot on performances by Ensemble MusikFabrik, the Asasello Quartet, and Dirk Rothbrust.

(a)long lines: we’ll draw our own lines is music to immerse oneself in, strange and familiar, radical and inevitable all at once.

Her Teeth were White is a very different sort of piece, written for solo percussion. At the heart of it, at least to my ear, is the juxtaposition of very regular attacks with unpredictable, resonant decays.

Gradients of Detail is relentless and terrifying, and deeply compelling. It’s like being in the midst of rapidly changing atmospheric conditions. There is a break, and then a new set of weather conditions erupts. This is music that you feel, not just in your ears but in your whole body.

You’ll want to own this CD as an object. The booklet includes an insightful essay by Eugen Blume, and it is full of drawings (17 of them!) that are integral to Szlavnics’ compositional process. You can order the CD from World Edition, or directly from Szlavnics for €20 by clicking on the image of the CD cover below and paying through PayPal. And when it says shipping is included in the price, that’s for anywhere in the world. Anywhere.