Musica Elettronica

Of the eight pieces in program, all for small groups of performers, six are of recent years, one in 1995 and "Song of Farewell" even in 1966. These tracks have in common some key characteristics: the parts of different instruments often move in apparent independence from one another, in a contrapuntal way, also rely mostly on sequences of small intervals. The dominant dynamic is "piano", mostly the "pianissimo", the times are generally slow or very slow. All this combines to create a "timeless", an inner feeling of suspension or extension of time, almost of fixity, which is essentially and strongly contemplative.

Alvin Curran - Canti Illuminati - 1982
Classical/Avant-Garde | EAC (FLAC+CUE+LOG) | 260 MB (WinRAR) | 2002 | Cover

Long out of print, this is an overdue reissue of American composer Alvin Curran's third record. Following his involvement in the live electronics performance group Musica Elettronica Viva, Curran embarked on a more personal pursuit utilizing his own voice and a patchwork of minimal synthesizer and field recordings. The two parts of Canti Illuminati show clear affinities to the vocal style of Pandit Pran Nath and Poppy No Good era Terry Riley, while also coming off like a denser version of Takehisa Kosugi's Catch Wave. Curran has had a lifelong affinity to the resonances of foghorns and their sonorities seem to serve as the general underlying drone and pulse of the first section. Curran's vocals, however, are what give the piece its rhythmic push. His tapestry of tape work and synthesizer delays matches the vocal intensity of his delivery; Canti Illuminati pt. 1 ends up most resembling the shimmering dronescapes of late-era Boredoms.
For the beginning section of the second half of Canti Illuminati, Curran brought in a choir; this is probably the least successful section of the disc. That may just be a matter of taste as I generally find chorus' of extended vocal technique to be somewhat corny. However, at about the 10-minute mark of the 24-minute piece the chorus fades away to an exquisitely beautiful extended passage comprised only of Curran's wordless vocals and lyrically minimal piano phrasing. Memorably haunting stuff that devolves at the final two minutes to a little bit of piano improvisation that seems to have been taken from the Great American Songbook. AWESOME!

Delired Cameleon Family is a progressive rock album by the group of the same name, released in 1975 on EMI Records in France. It features musicians associated with the Clearlight project, most notably its leader, pianist Cyrille Verdeaux, and Musica Elettronica Viva member Ivan Coaquette, who joined forces to compose the soundtrack for the film Visa de Censure No. X by French actor Pierre Clementi.