Electronic Frequencies

1. ROBERT ASHLEY & PAUL DEMARINIS
In Sara, Mencken, Christ, and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1973).
40’40” – Lovely Music, Ltd. ‎– LCD 4921.

2. THE BEACH BOYS
God Only Knows (1966).
2’51” – Capitol Records ‎T 2458.

3. IVA BITTOVÁ
Ne Nehledej (1994).
14′ – Ariola ‎74321 24858 2.

4. RICARDO ARIAS & ANNE WELLMER
die zigarette danach oder doch nicht (2003).
30″ (fragment) – unpublished.

5. AGF
Sedaktiv (2011).
0’55” – AGF016CD.

Info:

ROBERT ASHLEY & PAUL DEMARINIS
In Sara, Mencken, Christ, and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1973)
40’40”

Music by Robert Ashley & Paul DeMarinis
Paul DeMarinis – Moog Synthesizer & Electronics Design
Robert Ashley – Voice
Text by John Barton Wolgamot

Notes to the setting for voice, Moog Synthesizer and control electronics by Robert Ashley and Paul DeMarinis, January, 1973.

Text by John Barton Wolgamot (printed privately in 1944), a poem of 128 stanzas, each stanza the same sentence with four variables, three of which are names or name groups or name constructions, the fourth the adverb of the active verb. To my mind one of the most unusual and beautiful sentences in English.
“In its very truly great manners of Ludwig van Beethoven very heroically the very cruelly ancestral death of Sara Powell Haardt had very ironically come amongst his very really grand men and women to Rafael Sabatini, George Ade, Margaret Storm Jameson, Ford Madox Heuffer, Jean-Jacques Bernard, Louis Bromfield, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and Helen Brown Norden very titanically.”

The permutations of the four variables over the 128 stanzas give the poem a clear musical form (suggesting both fugue and sonata), binding together groups of names and adverbs into structural “themes” that have obvious counterparts in classical western music. Fourteen names (seven each men and women) appear in various number hierarchies throughout the poem. These I understand to be the heroes and heroines of the story. Other names are repeated to form secondary themes. And finally there are hundreds of names that occur only once (all of the great names of Western culture since the Greek philosophers, with the list becoming more compre­hensive and enigmatic as it includes the American literary and musical culture of the early 20th century), whose poetic function is accountable to the very syllable.

The plan for the musical setting of the poem allows for the possibility of any number of densities of events that follow the stanza structure of the poem synchronously, and includes instrumental accompaniment, vocal embellishments and elaboration of the physical environment in any of the sensory modes.
In this realization the sounds of the voice are analyzed by means of peak-filtering (resolution to the single frequency) to plot the rate of occurrence of seven different sound components (plosive attacks, fundamental frequencies, and five harmonics); the products of the filter-analysis are converted to digital information that guides the synthesizer in synchronization with the reading of the poem. The seven tracks of synthesizer activity are mixed together with the voice and distributed over a four-channel matrix; the four-channel product is remixed to stereo for this recording.

—Robert Ashley, 1973
Recorded at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, 1973

http://www.lovely.com/albumnotes/notes4921.html

IVA BITTOVÁ
Ne Nehledej (1994)       Engl. No, do not look

Iva Bittova – voice and violin
Text by Karel David

Ne ne nehledej
sama nevím kam
kam se schovávám
nevím kam
ani já a a ani sen
světlo ani tma
má a ani tvá
ani bílá ani čerň
potom ani hned
tady ani teď
ani tma a a a ni den
tady ani tam
nemám ani mám

Ani já a ani sen
voda ani prach
radost ani strach
ani bílá a a ani čerň
oheň ani led
potom ani hned
ani tma a a ani den
málo ani moc
den a a ni noc
ani já a a ani sen
tady ani tam
sama ani sám
Ne ne nečekej
sama nevím kam
kam se schovávám
nevím kam
Dávno jsem oba tam
a já dávno zpět
potom ani hned
nečekám

Dávno jsme oba zpět
a já dávno tam
sama nevím kam
nevíš sám
Ani tma a a ani den
málo ani moc
den a ani noc
ani já a a ani sen
tady ani tam
sama ani sám
ani bílá a a ani čerň
dobrá ani zlá
ty a ani já
Nehledej mě kde se snadno hledá
neklekej si kde je země měkká
neklekej si kde tě hlína čeká
kde hoří když čekáš klesám i já

V láhvích je hladina zvlněná
mezi dlaněmi peří peřin stisklé
nedýchá ani pírko se nehýbá
k ústům se voda nahýbá
Nehledej mě kde pokaždé čekáš
neklekej si kde je země měkká
neklekej si kde tě hlína čeká
čekáš když hoří když klesám i já

v láhvích je hladina zvlněná
mezi dlaněmi peří peřin stisklé
nedýchá ani pírko se nehýbá
teď výšku nabírá a vzlétá ? letí!

Jak mě teď pohladíš
rukama v ploutve ztuhlé
jak mě teď políbíš
tou vlčí tlamou
jak se ke mně přitulíš
šupinatým tělem
tak co mi odpovíš
co mi teď chceš říct.

https://www.bittova.com/texty-zobraz.php?id=10

RICARDO ARIAS & ANNE WELLMER
die zigarette danach oder doch nicht (2003)
Ricardo Arias – Balloons
Anne Wellmer – live electronic processing
Recorded at 136 High Street in Middletown, CT.

AGF
Sedaktiv (2011)
from the Album Beatnadel

Beatnadel (Beat Needle) is a piercing sonic outburst of razor-edged beats and pilot vocal art. AGF aka Antye Greie is a rare combination of a composer/ producer and vocalist. This is digital songwriting with beat structures and penetrating sound sculptures to inspire the mind. The tracks have been constructed out of large self-designed sample banks, voice, bass, synthesized sounds and discerning effect treatments. The music is sequenced to a large extend and holds an aggressive undertone compared to her recent works. AGF has cut out original tracks with surprise narrative and breathtaking precision in editing and sculpturing the sound. Deconstructed poetry, aggressive beat patterns, tender song writing, drone parts, full frequency spectrum
released October 2011

https://agf-poemproducer.bandcamp.com/album/beatnadel