Browse by Label: INNOVA

Artist:	NORRIS, TJ
Title:	Trimix: Tribyrd Installation Soundtracks Deconstructed
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD/DVD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	INNO 121CD

"A living archaeology of Portland, Oregon, would include its abandoned shipyards and warehouses, its layers of graffiti, and industrial detritus. Through the lens and imagination of artist TJ Norris, however, it takes on a sumptuous other-worldliness. He has unpeeled its ever-evolving history -- of culture and place -- in a set of three gallery installations together dubbed Tribryd. Trimix, this CD/DVD set, now re-imagines those events in yet another light. TJ asked eleven international sound artists, including such underground stars as Scanner, SETI, and Asmus Tietchens, to create electronic works that would accompany him on his photo journeys around the industrial Pacific Northwest. These sounds were then remixed and became an intrinsic part of the installations, along with three new video works by such luminaries as Sue Costabile and Ryan Jeffery."

Artist:	FOUNTAIN, JUDSON
Title:	Completely In The Dark
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CDR
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 200CD

[deleted] "First-ever CD release of 'The Ed Wood, Jr.' of radio drama. Original radio dramas (1969-1974) produced, written and directed by Judson Fountain. Produced by Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon. Before TV captured the nation's attention, radio was the most popular form of home entertainment. Nowadays that box offers mostly music, news, and backtalk, but from the 1920s through the '40s, the airwaves boasted drama, comedy, and murder mysteries. Judson Fountain (b. 1952) grew up after the heyday of classic radio theater, but as a child heard vestiges of programs that had enthralled his parents. He developed an obsession with suspense-filled shows like The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and Lights Out!. While most Americans were evolving into couch potatoes, Judson embraced radio as the superior theatrical medium, and felt compelled to single-handedly revive the art. That he lacked training, technology, skilled staff and a budget did not deter him. Ed Wood, Jr. made movies; Judson produced radio dramas. Judson was between 17 and 22 when he produced these extremely primitive affairs. His simple, derivative plotlines employ Halloween kitsch -- spooks, witches, haunted houses -- as vehicles in morality plays about redemption for the honorable and damnation for evil-doers. Judson's work was characterized by cliché scripting, egregious ethnic accents, and inept editing -- all seasoned with copious needle-drops of creaking doors and howling wolves from the timeless Elektra Sound Effects Library. But this extreme amateurishness and unwavering sincerity synergize to great advantage in Fountain's theatricals. There is charm in the clumsiness, and befuddled amusement in the often-abrupt plot twists. Over the past decade, Judson's recordings have circulated among collectors of the bizarre, and in the process have attracted a cult following." CDR release.

Artist:	FOUNTAIN, JUDSON
Title:	Dark, Dark Dark Tales
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 222CD

...And Other Dark Tales! "Radio dramas by Judson Fountain, with Sandor Weisberger. Produced by Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon. Cover portrait by Drew Friedman. Dark Dark Dark Tales offers a second collection of off-kilter, gothic-tinged audio theater by Judson Fountain, the 'Ed Wood, Jr. of radio drama.' Fashioned in the style of 1940s old-time radio plays, these recordings were produced and written by Judson in New York during the late 1960s and early 1970s and released on vinyl LP in limited editions of unknown quantity. Original copies are extremely rare and highly collectible. They are also divinely entertaining. As on its predecessor, the 2004 Innova release Completely in the Dark, Judson delivers most of the voices, including his trademark old hags, young punks, creepy thugs and hapless thieves. These simple morality tales are highlighted by spooky noises provided by needle drops from the classic Elektra Sound Effects Library. Judson's erstwhile sidekick, the avuncular Sandor Weisberger, serves as announcer and occasional leading man. In addition to seven Judson dramas released on CD for the first time, Dark Dark Dark Tales offers a new radio drama, The Nasty Roomer, written by charter 'Fountainhead' Don Brockway specially for Judson and Sandor's reunion appearance on WFMU radio in 1995. In a one-take, live sight-reading, the old friends acted their parts with élan and recaptured the atmosphere of their vintage recordings. Judson's work embodies all the peculiar qualities (and, some might say, charming flaws) of outsider art. That it has attracted a cult following over the years is not surprising, as there's nothing quite like a Judson Fountain drama. Turn off all your lights, and be completely in the dark dark dark!" Includes 16-page booklet.

Artist:	GABER, HARLEY
Title:	I Saw My Mother Ascending Mount Fuji
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 231CD

"Just over one hour and five minutes, Harley Gaber's I Saw My Mother Ascending Mount Fuji (2009, for tape and processed violin and alto flute) offers proof of music's power to transport (the listener) in ways generally associated with film and literature. Fuji's Kaidan-like atmosphere -- the Japanese world of ghosts and spirits -- unfolds slowly in its process of uncovering and revealing a deeper and different spirit world in what might be termed a spiritual journey: The ascension and transformation of the human spirit into pure energy expressed in the form of both musical and non-musical sounds. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Gaber found his own unique compositional language that combined the intensity and extra-musical framing of certain post-war, European Modernism with sparser, more obviously spiritual evocations of Eastern aesthetics, as made manifest in such diverse expressions as Haiku poetry, Sumi-e painting, and even martial arts forms. In 1978, he moved from New York City to La Jolla, CA and stopped making music. Following a two-year hiatus from the arts, he commenced on what was to become a twenty year period of creating an immense body of work in the plastic arts and photography. Much of the work done during that period was informed by his musical instincts and focused, as did much of his later music, on the unity and interrelatedness of things. His predilection for collage work in general reflects and confirms that focus. The years of making art culminated with his largest artistic and personal undertaking in the construction of Die Plage, a photo-collage work of some 5,500 (20 x16 in.) canvases detailing German history in the first half of the 20th Century. With the completion of Die Plage in the early part of 2002, Gaber turned to writing about the project and to filmmaking, first using images from Die Plage for his films and eventually moving on to other subjects. His return to music began with the creation of soundtracks for all his films. Initially, the soundtracks were (again) in a collaged form using, for the most part, music of others, but also incorporating his own music from old recordings and taped performances. His real return to music composition came in 2008 with his original soundtrack for Mein Kamps: Akt V (filmed in Berlin and named after the Berlin bakery chain Kamps). That original soundtrack (existing apart from the film as a strictly musical composition is titled 'Berliner Strassen Gesang') demonstrates a richer, more complex approach to crafting and shaping sound made possible by the use of the computer in composing the work along with the twenty years of rethinking his artistic outlook in general, and his musical thinking in particular. And now, with I Saw My Mother Ascending Mount Fuji, Gaber has returned to music composition. This new work is at once a processing of untimely deaths in his family and a reconsideration of earlier compositions -- Michi for solo violin (1972) and Chimyaku for solo alto flute -- which, in their processed and altered form and in conjunction with an entirely new tape part, project a new level of insight into the essential spiritual nature of sound and its physicality; '...both transcendentally abstract and distinctly human,' as the composer puts it. The ascension of Mount Fuji is a meditative journey, a spiritual odyssey perhaps, as real as it is imagined or metaphoric. The composer, however, leaves those distinctions for each listener to decide for his or herself."

Artist:	PARTCH, HARRY
Title:	Enclosure 8
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	DVD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	INNO 399DVD

"In 1985, Philip Blackburn climbed the stairs to an attic in Iowa City and started trying to make sense of the boxes piled up there. They contained a composer's life's work: scrapbooks, tapes, photos, letters, scores, and film reels -- fragile treasures documenting the 20th century from a most unusual viewpoint, perhaps the world's most original musician: Harry Partch. The idea was to publish them and reveal Harry to the world on his own terms. Not as the crabby, homeless, self-taught microtonal musical weirdo and instrument maker, but as that most American of all artists, a truly independent thinker. With Enclosure 8, the work of bringing them to public attention reaches its apotheosis. The Enclosures series (named for the extras Partch wanted to add to his life-long letter to the world) started appearing in 1995 with a VHS video of four films made in collaboration with the Chicago-based film-maker Madeline Tourtelot. Four CDs, two years and one book later, Enclosure 4 appeared featuring his later films: Delusion of the Fury (his culminating ritual-theater work) and a San Diego Public TV documentary, also on VHS. Now the time has come for these to be issued on DVD, extensively restored, re-synched and digitally-remastered from the extant original prints. Until books and CDs become as obsolete as VHS, the Enclosures series is complete and, taken together with the Harry Partch Collection on New World Records, Partch's entire work is available for the first time. Innova's DVD, Enclosure 8, offers not only a chance to see higher quality versions of previously available material, but it also includes two performances made after Partch's death in 1974: a 1981 staged production of his hitchhiker piece, Barstow, directed by Danlee Mitchell, and a 2006 choreographed version of Castor & Pollux, performed by John Schneider's Ensemble Partch! using replicas of Partch's original set of instruments. Films include: Music Studio -- Harry Partch (1958): Partch takes the viewer on a tour of his Chicago home and plays his microtonal instruments. Includes his demonstration of how the soundtrack for Windsong was made. Windsong (1958): the ancient Greek legend of Daphne and Apollo, transported to Lake Michigan. U.S. Highball (1958; completed 1968): Partch and his ensemble perform a dramatized account of riding the rails during the Depression on a transcontinental hobo trip from California to Chicago. Rotate the Body in All Its Planes (1961): Harry's favorite: a ballet for gymnasts. The DVD is accompanied by a 12-page booklet featuring writings by Philip Blackburn, Danlee Mitchell, and Harry Partch." Total running time: 126 mins. NTSC format, all regions.

Artist:	PARTCH, HARRY
Title:	Enclosure III
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	Book
Price:	$90.00
Catalog #:	INNO 402BK

Reprinted! Originally released in 1997 and now available again. An unbelievable 528 page limited edition artbook, produced by Partch historian Philip Blackburn. "Lavishly produced from original documents in the Partch archives, a portrait-chronicle of Partch's life and work. Includes reproductions of Partch's writings, over 300 photographs by Partch and others, letters (with correspondents including John Cage, Anaïs Nin, Kenneth Anger, and many others) lectures, sketches, reviews, drawings, and more."

Artist:	PARTCH, HARRY
Title:	Enclosure Six: Delusion of the Fury
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 406CD

Finally, the major missing piece of the Partch discography has been reissued! "To mark the 25th anniversary of the composer's death (on September 4, 1974), and just in time for his centenary (June 24, 2001), Delusion of the Fury, the monumental work of ritual-theater that propelled Harry Partch into the limelight, is being released on CD. Originally recorded for Columbia Masterworks and long-since out of print, Innova, in conjunction with Sony Music Special Products, has reissued this central item of American musical history. With the appearance of this recording, the complete works of Harry Partch (1901-1974), one of the most important of American artists, are available for the first time (the remaining works are published largely by innova's Enclosure series and the CRI Partch Collection). Like composer Conlon Nancarrow, Partch had to wait until late in life for his radical contributions to the arts to receive wide attention. With the 1969 production of Delusion he was 'discovered', idolized, and gurufied, as a 43-tone-to-the-octave, ex-hobo, eccentric, maverick, iconoclastic instrument-builder, and a 'philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry.' Hippy hyperbole notwithstanding, Partch was a genuine far-out radical whose time has come. Again. Delusion of the Fury is a 72' totally-integrated, corporeal, microtonal, elemental work of ritual theater, incorporating almost all of Partch's hand-built orchestra of sculptural instruments. Using mime, dance, music, vocalizations, lighting, and costume, Partch presents two tales concerning reconciliation of life and death, one after a Japanese Noh drama, the other after an Ethiopian folk tale. The video release Enclosure Four: Harry Partch (Innova 404) features the film version of Delusion, but this is the first time that the high-quality stereo sound version is available on CD. Perhaps the most astonishing, seductive and compelling of Partch's works, Delusion stands as the 'Choral Symphony' or 'Ring Cycle' do to other composers: a culminating testament to a lifetime of 'doing your own thing.' The 16-page illustrated booklet features Partch's introduction and a new text by conductor Danlee Mitchell."

Artist:	PARTCH, HARRY
Title:	Enclosure 7
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	DVD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	INNO 407DVD

"Harry Partch (like his friend Anaïs Nin) considered his life's work to be a letter to the world. His last act was going to be to add the enclosures. He never got around to it. After 20 years of working on the Partch archives, Philip Blackburn has now completed the seven-part 'Enclosures' series as it were on his behalf. Enclosure 7, the culminating DVD of this multimedia series, is a monumental tribute to the most significant works of this American original and iconoclast. It includes new versions of his late masterworks and never-before-seen footage that bring us closer to the real Harry behind the myth. The Dreamer That Remains is a documentary produced by Betty Freeman and directed by Stephen Pouliot in 1972. Here is the director's original cut along with his commentary. If you've never seen Partch or his instruments before, this is the place to start. 'Delusion of the Fury' was his magnum opus; a lifetime of instrument-invention and ideas of ritual theater were poured into this giant work. The 1971 film has been resynched and the soundtrack remastered in 5.1 surround sound. The CBS LPs of this work came with a bonus album of Harry introducing his instruments. Unavailable for years, this DVD features this talk along with a slideshow of the instruments. 'Revelation in the Courthouse Park' was Harry's fusion of current pop idolatry with parallel (only a little more sinister) scenes of ancient Greece. Now you can see excerpts of the original 1960 Illinois production, replete with gymnasts, fireworks, and transvestites. And finally, if you ever wondered how a simple recipe for rose petal jam could turn into a hobo dance and a diatribe about music critics, you are in for a treat." NTSC-DVD video, all regions; 140 minutes.

Artist:	BRANT, HENRY
Title:	The Henry Brant Collection, Vol. 1
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	INNO 408CD

"At ninety, the composer continues to produce formidable, trail-blazing symphonic works like 'Ice Field', which captured the Pulitzer last year. And his place in the history books is assured. Consider the specs: friend to Copland, Varèse, Antheil, Cowell and Partch, source of inspiration to scores of musicians worldwide, and the composer of over 100 strikingly original spatial works, a dozen of which incorporate truly massive ensembles. Nope, Brant looms large regardless. It's just that the scope and magnitude of Brant's work, its seemingly inexhaustible creative intensity, its expressive deployment of musicians in space, its fantastic combinations of tonal flavors, and, most importantly, its intrinsic listenability, would seem to make it a prime candidate for big-screen exploitation. As matters stand, though, Hollywood's denial is Innova's gain. It is with unbounded delight that we present the first installment of a great and glorious undertaking: a series of CDs featuring some of Brant's major works, most previously unreleased. The Henry Brant Collection, Volume 1, a deluxe 2-CD set featuring a pair of Brant's monumental works, 'Northern Lights Over the Twin Cities' (100 mins, 6 conductors) and 'A Plan of the Air' (25 mins, 2 conductors) provides a marvellous introduction to Brant's world."

Artist:	BRANT, HENRY
Title:	The Henry Brant Collection, Vol. 2
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 409CD

"Let no-one say that Henry Brant, America's senior experimental composer, doesn't have a sense of humor. If Charles Ives had been into Monty Python it would not have reached the heights of epic grandeur and inspired lunacy heard on this second volume of Brant works. Here are three concertos: a triple concerto for Oberlin College's zaniest, a violin concerto for Daniel Kobialka (violin wizard of the San Francisco Symphony), and a double bass concerto for Lewis Paer (who has recorded for Steve Reich and Fame). 'Solar Moth' (a miracle of overdubbing technique whereby Brant himself plays most of the parts) creates some of the mothiest sounds ever heard, at least in this solar system. At the other underwater extreme, 'Ghost Nets' protests the destruction of marine life by driftnet fishing practices. Part Two of The Henry Brant Collection. Certified dolphin safe."

Artist:	NEWBAND
Title:	Harry Partch/Dean Drummond
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 561CD

"A CD featuring works by former cohorts and microtonal pioneers, Harry Partch and Dean Drummond. This stunning new recording, engineered by Grammy-award winner Judith Sherman, is performed by members of Newband primarily on the original Partch collection of hand-made instruments, notable for their sculptural and acoustic beauty. The music integrates declaimed poetry (masterfully performed by Bob Osborne) with colorful instrumental accompaniment. The Drummond pieces are first recordings, the Partch are the first since the 1940s. Partch's "Eleven Intrusions' is a suite of eleven rather short pieces of mixed instrumentation composed from 1946 to 1950. A wide variety of techniques is utilized, from the incorporation of two ancient Greek scales and a Zuni (native American) song to Partch's typically microtonal speech-song settings of texts by a variety of poets."

Artist:	REICH, STEVE
Title:	Music For 18 Musicians
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD/SACD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	INNO 678CD

"1970s downtown New York City and Steve Reich's brand of minimalism are inextricably linked. That is all about to change. His era-defining opus, 'Music for 18 Musicians,' one of his most enduringly popular works with its creamy orchestration and trippy patterns, has found new roots in the heartland. A band of regular Michigan students and volunteers led by Bill Ryan has devoted the last year to perfecting it; in the process, turning it into something of a lifestyle. This hybrid SACD/CD audiophile, surround recording captures every phrase of the work, as though you were hearing it for the first time in your life, farm-fresh. Engineered by Silas Brown on location at Grand Rapids' Victorian temple to great music, the St. Cecilia's Music Center, the work seems newly-minted for the 21st century. Walking around Allendale, Michigan, home of the ensemble, where the land is flat, where one can see for miles and miles and miles, and where this view sometimes seems infinite, the music seems written for the location. The piece is huge, monolithic, yet unencumbered by its hour-long frame, by its huge staff of players and interlocking rhythms and melodies. It stretches long and far and encourages deep breathing and space, as does the home of this recording: The Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble performs 'Music for 18 Musicians' with a spirit and abandon befitting the passion of its composer, inspired by the commitment and experience of its leader, and with the exuberance and vision of its youth. With performances lauded by The New York Times and Bang On a Can marathoners, we now invite you to discover this ensemble, and to rediscover this extraordinary work in its 100% organic glory."

Artist:	GAMELAN SON OF LION
Title:	Sonogram
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	INNO 718CD

"Gamelan Son of Lion is a New York City-based composers' collective and repertory ensemble exploring and expanding the variety of musical styles that may be performed using Javanese and Balinese percussion orchestra. The ensemble has performed around the greater New York area and on tours abroad since 1976. This newest collection of compositions for gamelan features premiers from recent concert seasons as well as a scattering of old favorites from the past. Works by ten composer-performers of the ensemble are represented: Barbara Benary, David Demnitz, Miguel Frasconi, Daniel Goode, Lisa Karrer, Jody Kruskal, Laura Liben, Denman Maroney, John Morton and David Simons. The Indonesian Gamelan is based on a core group of metallophones (gongs and keyboards) in the traditional Javanese/Balinese tunings slendro and pelog, supplemented by gongs and drums. To the beautiful sound of the metallophones many other sounds can be added, according to the composer¹s inspiration. On this CD, in addition to the core gamelan sound, are electronically-processed music boxes in Morton's 'She (Really) Had To Go' and glass instruments in Frasconi's 'Telling Time,' Scottish fiddle and Gaelic song in Benary's 'Jigalullaby,' and a hypnotic kaleidoscope of world music strings, winds and vocal styles in Karrer's 'Kacapi.'"

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Artist:	VA
Title:	Sonic Circuits IV
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 113CD