PRICE:
$21.00
LOW STOCK LEVEL
ARTIST
TITLE
Recordings 1976-1981
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
VOD 139KM5-LP VOD 139KM5-LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
12/11/2015

Limited edition of 500. Ken Moore (from Baltimore, Maryland) is one of the very early American DIY synthesists and multi-instrumental talents. Moore started to explore electronic music in the mid '70s while working in various (progressive) rock formations. In 1980 he established his own label, Anvil Creations, and in the following four years released approximately 20 tapes of solo and collaborative works he had recorded between 1973 and 1983. His solo work of that era bridges abstract electronic music with synthesizers and Mellotron and more psychedelic rock-based material he had primarily produced in the early to mid '70s. He also collaborated with Baltimore synthesist Stuart Rosenzweig (who played in a Tangerine Dream-style band called Tangent that also released a number of cassettes in the very early 1980s on Rosenzweig's Baltimore-based label Tangent Tapes) and founded the progressive rock duo Moore/Myers with David Wayne Myers. Moore was also very active in James Finch's International Electronic Music Association (IEMA), which started in 1979. Besides newsletters with contact-lists for subscribing musicians or reviews of cassettes, IEMA also organized festivals for musicians and released a series of seven IEMA collective/group compilation tapes containing musicians of the IEMA. Ken Moore was the man behind those tape compilations and their distribution. This A-side of this LP covers the first sessions between Rosenzweig and Moore, with guest bassist Mark Chance, recorded in 1976 at Anvil Creations Studio. Using analog monophonic synthesizers, Rosenzweig (MicroMoog synth, electric piano, and Mellotron) and Moore (MiniMoog synth, ARP String Ensemble, and Lowrey organ) created what would become Our Own Universe. This was cutting-edge stuff in the late 1970s, and the material here proudly stands the test of time. The B-side covers the pair's second meeting, without a bassist, from about five years later. They spent an entire month recording a series of avant-garde sessions of totally improvised music that they called Eccentric Projections. Some are synthesizer works, while some were created with guitar, violin, drums, bells, cymbals, and harp -- but it's all experimental in nature. Rosenzweig used MicroMoog synthesizer, ARP Omni II, electric guitar, piano, violin, and various percussion of all sorts; Moore used MiniMoog synthesizer, ARP Odyssey, ARP String Ensemble, piano, balafon, floor drums, open piano harp, and percussion of all sorts. Moore released both sessions on his Anvil Creations label as cassettes in 1981.