Browse by Label: XI

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Four Full Flutes
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 101CD

Here is the complete CD catalog of this superior NYC composers collective label (aka Experimental Intermedia); although pretty low-profile, there are some amazing releases on this label in the spirit of long, droned tones and advanced new music composition. Don't let the title to this Niblock thing throw you off -- this is massive trance music and a key work in the unspecified field of "pure sound". "...adjacent tones beat violently against one another while clouds of harmonics hover above the wavering drone. When the piece ends, it takes the listener a few moments to recover. This physiological experience, when the ossicles slow their vibrating and the membrane hairs come to a standstill, is probably the only aspect of the music not regulated by the score. The four pieces on this 80 minute CD are for multiple tracks of alto flutes, flutes, flutes and alto flutes, and bass flutes, performed by Peter Kotik, Susan Stenger, and Eberhard Blum."

Artist:	KLUCEVSEK, GUY
Title:	Flying Vegetables Of The Apocalypse
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 104CD

Klucevsek is the well-known experimental accordion player, his playing bridging a style supposedly influenced by "Henry Cowell-style tone clusters; the eerie difference tones of 'acoustic phenomena' composer Pauline Oliveros; the hypnotic phasing and locomotive ostinatos of early minimalism; low register drones punctuated by high register yips, in a manner of Scottish bagpipe and Bulgarian accordion music; dark, Gyorgi Ligeti-ish sound clouds...; a Morton Feldmanesque sense of grand gesture, and of microscopic movements; an appropriation aesthetic shared with John Zorn and other NY avant-gardists..."

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	Music By Phill Niblock
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 111CD

"Features The Soldier String Quartet performing in 'Five More String Quartets', a piece for five multi-tracked string quartets and in 'Early Winter' for flute, bass flute, string quartet and synthesizer, also featuring Susan Stenger (flute) and Eberhard Blum (bass flute)." This is purely awesome drone work and one of the loudest, most commanding minimal works you could ever dream of basking within, even living up to the following: "Dense, elusive trance music distinguished by its singular methods of construction and the intricacy of the relationships of its components with a surprising flux of pulsing adjacent tones which convey a stunning range of acoustic phenomena."

Artist:	CAMERON, ALLISON
Title:	Raw Sangudo
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 112CD

Debut release of music by a new Canadian composer, who has studied under the likes of Andriessen, Rzewski and James Tenney. "Her compositions can be characterized as rigorous study forms with which specific sound worlds are explored. She experiments with the physicality of sound on various instruments, using pithy material to exploit instrumental colours. Most of her works to date have been written for a variety of chamber ensembles encompassing both traditional and unusual groups of instruments." "Cameron writes chamber works...with no themes, few gestures, rarely a rhythm aside from slow, steady beats. Fragile and suspended, underlaid by long, long chords, they would be almost metaphysically gloomy if they weren't so colorful. My favorite, 'A Blank Sheet of Metal', starts off like slowly pulsating Feldman before dissipating into near stillness and a chord repeated at surreally extended intervals. The music reminds me of the painter de Chirico's sad surrealism." -- Kyle Gann.

Artist:	CHILDS, MARY ELLEN
Title:	Kilter
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 114CD

Debut collection of works by this MN composer, includes various pieces for solo, duo and small ensemble, performed by: Guy Klucevsek (accordion), the SoHo Quartet (Mary Rowell, Mark Feldman, Lois Martin, Erik Friedlander), Relache (clarinets, saxophones, bassoon, accordion, voice, perc.), Anthony de Mare (piano), Kathy Suprov (soprano), Dora Ohrenstein (soprano), Phillip Bush (piano). "An enveloping and entrancing audio quilt composed of organic reeds, sylvan accordion, timepiece xylophone, seductive polyrhythms, and somewhat histrionic wordless vocals...accomplished, beautiful work that creates its own little universe." --Tom Surowicz.

Artist:	LAINHART, RICHARD
Title:	Ten Thousand Shades of Blue
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 115CD

Double CD (for the price of one) of beautifully processed electronic sound, one of the quintessential XI releases. "Lainhart's music rings true to the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music. It brings with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. It's a music that is beholden to no one, yet informed by a diverse sphere of appreciations, rich in both intellectual and emotional interest, at once distant and interior, actual and implied." - Ron Goldberg. Featured works: "Bronze Cloud Disk" (1975, for multitracked, processed bowed tam-tam); "Two Mirrors Face One Another" (1976, for multitracked, processed bowed Japanese temple bells); "Cities of Light" (1980, for multitracked, processed voice); "Ten Thousand Shades of Blue" (1985, for realtime interactive computer music system; "Staring at the Moon" (1987, for realtime interactive computer music system with bowed and struck vibraphone); "Walking Slowly Backwards" (1989, for vibraphone).

Artist:	LOGOS DUO
Title:	Works
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 117CD

Eight works by the long running Belgian duo of Godfried-Willem Raes & Moniek Darge. "Their live performances often make use of musical instruments designed and built by Raes, who is a very inventive and prolific instrument builder. His designs range from all kinds of acoustic and digital/electro-mechanical sound sculptures to the most sublime controlling and sound generating devices." Fascinating sound mixtures utilizing percussion, computers, synthesizers, organ, ethnic instruments, piano, etc.

Artist:	LOCKWOOD/RUTH ANDERSON, ANNEA
Title:	Sinopah
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 118CD

"Split release by two prominent post-1950 composers, offering one piece per, inspired by the mountain sacred to the Blackfeet nation of northwestern Montana. Annea Lockwood gives us the 45 minute 'World Rhythms', endless percolating monitor-click and tone-wash (w/vague dawn-of-man/time overtones) by way of non-repeating location recordings of water, wind, fire, distant gongs, birds, etc... Nice. Similar yet completely different from her previous works (including the magnificent Glass World LP on Tangent which was reissued to great effect recently via the What Next?/Nonsequiter Foundation). Ruth Anderson's piece, 'I come out of your sleep' floats around the negative-space concept before, well, before nothing. Impressive in the purest sense, non tampered/tempered. A fine display of raw sound documenting the furthering in concept of these important composers." --Hrvatski. "'I come out of your sleep' follows a tradition of sound poetry, or text-sound, begun in part by Kurt Schwitters' 'Ursonate', expanded by Henri Chopin, John Cage, and Bernard Heidsieck, by Charles Amirkhanian, Carles Santos and Jackson MacLow, with seminal works in this area. These abstract pieces are formed directly from the sounds of the text used or created, with the full gamut of consonants, vowels and inflections, along with compositional techniques of process, repetition, patterning and overlap." --Anderson

Artist:	RADIGUE, ELIANE
Title:	Triologie de la Mort
Label:	XI
Format:	3CD
Price:	$25.00
Catalog #:	XI 119CD

Classic 1998 release, restocked. "Trilogie de la Mort is a work in three parts. The first, Kyema, was originally released by XI in 1992. The 2nd and 3rd parts, Kailasha and Koum� are being released for the first time and the trilogy now makes its debut as a whole [this 3CD set is being sold for the cost of 2 CDs to make up for the prior availability Kyema]. 'Kyema' is inspired by the texts of Bardo-Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead). This work evokes the six intermediate states which constitute the 'existential continuity' of the being. 'Radigue's 'Kyema' explores electronically the full range of existence, going beyond death and back into the exuberance of physical life, expanding the musical consciousness of the uninitiated, leading one in a cyclical voyage through a myriad of tones, drones, and warbles where the end is only the beginning.' -- Neil Strauss. 'Kailasha', the second chapter in the work, is structured on an imaginary pilgrimage around Mt. Kailash, one of the most sacred mountains in the Himalayas; considered as a path to other spheres of existence. 'Koum�' makes up the last part of the trilogy and emphasizes the transcendence of death. It is the descent to the deepest, where the spark of life is. There, Death is born. Death becomes birth. Activity re-beginning. Eternity, a perpetual 'becoming'."

Artist:	GOLDSTEIN, MALCOLM
Title:	The Seasons: Vermont
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 120CD

"Two pieces recently converted to digital, one a group setting from 1983, the other a solo from 1997. This recording of 'The Seasons: Vermont', which had previously existed in excerpt form on a Folkways LP, features the veritable OO/XI/What Next? dream-syndicate of Robert Black (bass), Mark Steven Brooks (wood flutes, electric guitar, percussion), Joseph Celli (oboe (extended, perhaps?), English horn, ocarina), Malcolm Goldstein (violin), Tom Guralnick (tenor, soprano & bass saxophones, vaccuphones), Brian Johnson (vibraphone, percussion), and Kenneth Karpowicz (intensified vocalizing, accordion). Said grouping waltzes through all four quarters in a Vermont hour, emoting on freely occurring sonics/timbres/genres in said state and plagiarizing nature in general... The other piece, 'Soundings for solo violin; is all scrape/pluck/drag; a call back to the composer's work with Fluxus villains like Philip Corner and meta-musicians such as James Tenney. Fine sounds all around." --Hrvatski

Artist:	NIBLOCK, PHILL
Title:	YPGPN
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 121CD

"YPGPN (Young Person's Guide to Phill Niblock) is the long-awaited re-release of a 2 CD-set that was a joint production by the UK based Blast First label and The Wire magazine in 1995. It includes the following works: Held Tones (1982-94) Barbara Held, flute; Didjeridoos and Don'ts (1992) Ulrich Krieger, didjeridu; Ten Auras (1994) Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone; Ten Auras Live (1994) Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone; A Trombone Piece (1978-94) James Fulkerson, trombone; A Third Trombone (1979-94) Jon English, trombone; Unmentionable Piece for Trombone and Sousaphone (1982-94) George Lewis, trombone and sousaphone. Phill Niblock and his music have been with us now for quite some time. In 1972 he guided an audience that had come to the New York venue the Kitchen for a concert of his compositions, to his loft... Now, some thirty years later, Niblock's work continues to draw new audiences. What is extraordinary about this, is that the principles of his music have not changed much over the years; that with the long timespan covered by each piece and the sparseness of the musical material and its elaboration, one could be forgiven to think that it is at odds with contemporary hasty tastes. In fact, just because of that, it has the power to draw attention to itself. The apparently immobile string of tones that is basic to his compositions, has a singular mesmerizing quality." -- Rene van Peer

Artist:	PANHUYSEN, PAUL
Title:	Partitas For Long Strings
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 122CD

"CD documentation of Panhuysen's steel-wire sound installations & their subsequent agitation-related overtones, 3 separate instances ('Partita for 16 long strings of equal length,' 'Partita for 16 long strings of equally diminishing length,' and 'Partita for 16 long strings proportionally tuned') recorded in 1997 @ Het Apollohuis. Each new Panhuysen/Apollo set is always met with much consternation/euphoria/varying points between from those 'in-the-know', little expressed variance here. 'Size and volume are directly related to the range of pitches that comes through. The materials used have a strong influence on the overall sound. Styrofoam does the job very well. I had similar experiences with a sheet of lead, slate and balloons, which all sounded surprisingly good. Aluminum produces a resonance that I can only describe as idiosyncratic. It had a complex timbre that is entirely its own, with many peaks at separate frequencies. Birds love it.' -- Panhuysen. Aye, and indeed they should." --Hrvatski

Artist:	JOHNSON, TOM
Title:	The Chord Catalogue
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 123CD

"Extreme and, one would think, extremely simple. A lesser man would have arranged those 8178 chords in some symphonically meaningful, or else quasi-random order. But Johnson proceeded methodically up the chromatic scale from two notes at a time, three, four, and so on to 13. By the time we reach 10 note chords, the information overload was such that the differences were hardly perceptible, a situation reminiscent of serial music. Far from being heavy handed minimalism, The Chord Catalogue was a pointed lesson in music history and the relativity of perception." -- Kyle Gann, Village Voice "I have often tried to explain that my music is a reaction against the romantic and expressionistic musical past, and that I am seeking something more objective, something that doesn't express my emotions, something that doesn't try to manipulate the emotions of the listener either, something outside myself. I like to think of The Chord Catalogue as a sort of natural phenomenon -- something which has always been present in the ordinary musical scale, and which I simply observed, rather than invented. It is not so much a composition as simply a list." -- Tom Johnson

Artist:	BAND, ELLEN
Title:	90% Post Consumer Sound
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 124CD

"Ellen Band creates sound and music pieces for performance and concert settings, installation, sculpture, and tape. Deeply inspired by the infinitely complex textures, rhythms, and colours within the so-called ordinary sounds of everyday life, she uses the technique of field recording to collect the source material she uses for her pieces. She then fashions works that reflect the imagistic, mnemonic (memory), and psychoacoustic properties of sound. With a strong background in 20th Century experimental music and sound art traditions, she crafts sound works which transform familiar sounds into new contexts and forms for listening to, perceiving, and experiencing sound."

Artist:	CORNER, PHILIP
Title:	40 Years And One: Philip Corner Plays The Piano
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 125CD

Solo piano works, performed by the composer, recorded in 1998. "Philip has vision, he did something nobody else did, he brought the expressive into indeterminacy (he calls it 'non-compulsive indeterminacy'). He's also one of the only composers I know who can give you a handful of worlds (notes) for a score, suggestions and alternatives for a realization and create wonderful expansive vistas of music and sound. Philip loves sound(s), he really listens and relishes (cherishes) the sensual aspects of perception. When he plays the piano there is a tremendous sensitivity (sensibilit�), his own art of touching and caressing the keyboard. He also loves embellishments, whether in Korean classical music or in the late French baroque of Marin Marais or Fran�ois Couperin. There's humor too, he's very funny (as many of his 'fluxus' performances and art works will show) and his universal and non-conformist approach to life is extremely refreshing in a (music-al) world still dominated by the dull mainstream of academia." -- Anton Lukoszevieze. Featured pieces: 1. 7 Joyous Flashes (3:45) 2. Concerto for Housekeeper (5:58) 3. Short Piano Piece IV (2:51) 4. Short Piano Piece IX (2:07) 5. Short Piano Piece XIII (1:50) 6. Flux & Form No. 2 (solo) (4:01) 7. Flux & Form No. 2 (3 versions mixed) (4:39) 8. Pulse: a 'Keyboard Dance'/C Major Chord (25:43) 9. "perfect" (on the strings) (21:49)

Artist:	MONTGOMERY, GEN KEN
Title:	Pondfloorsample
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 126CD

"2 cds for the price of 1. These two discs represent some of Gen Ken Montgomery's sound art and compositional work from 1981-2001. Pondfloorsample is a collection of sonic explorations utilizing common devices meant to hold something other than sound. As with much of his sound work, the sonic material contains many sounds of everyday life. Having composed extensively for multi-channels, Pondfloorsample was specifically designed as a stereo audio piece enabling Montgomery to reach a larger audience. His work always begins with listening to the world. He works within processes, defining a set of conditions by which a piece will unfold itself. Sometimes he takes the familiar - sounds of icebreakers, radiators, laminators, egg slicers, bath drains, etc. - amplifying their familiarity, all the time asking us to hear the world a little differently. Other times he constructs a vapor of mesmerizing sound that is entirely disassociated with things that you know or instruments that can be visualized. These are sounds that you can see. He has a Cagian appreciation of ambient noise."

Artist:	SCHUMACHER, MICHAEL J.
Title:	Room Pieces
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 127CD

"Much has been written to guide listeners through the course of a preconceived form. Although Michael J. Schumacher's music is distinctly his own it has been inspired by David Tudor and Morton Feldman as well as La Monte Young. Like their music it is about hearing sounds in themselves, about allowing the ear to register sonorities and then the hearing imagination may go to work, navigating amongst temporal realities and imaginary spaces, negotiating between a sense of control and perceived randomness, stasis and movement, finitude and limitlessness, Schumacher thrives on those creative tensions. At its most personal and expansive his singular music has the capacity to convey 'intimate immensity.' Room Piece provides a unique solution and musical experience in reference to 'the room.' Generated by a specific method and possessing a decidedly emotional character, Room Piece is not merely 'ambient music' but creates a bridge between the 'eventfulness' heard in Cage-ian and serial music, and the new American drone music that has arisen intuitively to create the sound of a vibrant universe with rich interior activity." 2 CDs for the price of one.

Artist:	LICHT, ALAN
Title:	A New York Minute
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 128CD

"Alan Licht wears many hats. Over the years, he's been a curator of music as well as a tireless performer. And he's as well-known an author as he is a musician. It's one thing to have eclectic tastes; it's another to make a practice of them. While Licht's earlier records have seamlessly melded his improvisational guitar playing with extended plundered sounds, A New York Minute takes things a few steps further. Instead of fusing the many sides of Licht into one monolithic mega-mix, this disc separates them into discreet compositions. There's a lot more at stake here: the guitar pieces are showcased as guitar pieces and the plundered works are just that. The conceptual tendencies in Licht no longer hide behind his talent as a guitarist; likewise, the guitar pieces are no longer propped on hooky concepts that take our attention away from his fretwork. The good news is that both work: Licht is as strong a conceptual artist as he is a composer." 2 CDs for the price of one.

Artist:	BEHRMAN, DAVID
Title:	My Dear Siegfried
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 129CD

"David Behrman has been active as a composer and artist since the 1960s. Over the years he has made sound and multimedia installations for gallery spaces as well as musical compositions. Sam Behrman and Siegfried Sassoon met in 1920, when Behrman, then a young writer working at The New York Times, was sent to interview Sassoon at the start of the English poet's postwar American lecture tour. In that tour Sassoon was billed as 'England's Soldier-Poet.' He had a reputation both as a war hero and an anti-war poet and peace activist. Many years later, each author wrote about this youthful meeting, which inaugurated a long-lasting friendship and a correspondence, mostly conducted via trans-Atlantic letters between England and America, which continued into the 1950s. My Dear Siegfried provides a performance environment in which musicians interact with texts by the two authors and with music software designed to respond to the performers' actions. The texts and the software elements are arranged as a linear thread along which the piece progresses. In QSRL a sensor listens to what the performer is doing and a computer music system provides responses to information the sensor takes in. Viewfinder is a sound installation using software based on homemade synthesizer music of the early 1970s. In 'A New Team Takes Over', homemade synthesizer modules were used in this piece to distort recordings made off the air of press conferences by members of the new Nixon administration following the American election of 1968. 'Touch Tones', from the early days of music done with the help of newly-available, small, inexpensive 'microcomputers,' made use of a kind of primitive artificial intelligence scheme. 'Pools of Phase Locked Loops' was one of four pieces made in response to commissions to the artists of the Sonic Arts Union (Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma and me.) The recording is from a live performance at Radio Bremen in May 1972."

Artist:	BURT, WARREN
Title:	The Animation of Lists and the Archytan Transpositions
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 130CD

"There are any number of ways to hear Warren Burt's music for tuning forks; as many ways as there are listeners, probably. The most immediate one is simply to revel in its beauty and enjoy the music as sound. Or, to be more accurate, as clouds of sound; sonic colors that momentarily hover here and there, as they move slowly across the musical horizon. Of course, Warren Burt's music may also be heard as the mature work of a major experimental composer, one secure in his craft, and still filled with a sense of sonic adventure. An explorer in sound. A composer willing to experiment with multiple versions of the same piece, not to mention one who allows chance to determine the precise placement of the composite pitches of his three individually composed lines. I listen to the combinations of tones, each aggregate of which -- because the tuning is acoustically pure and non-tempered -- sounds clearer and more colorful, with unique personalities, and, sometimes, more of an edge. In this tuning, the chance-determined pairings of the composed lines always ring true, with even the dissonances vibrating cleanly, free of acoustic distraction, and with no sonic clutter to muddy up the sound. And within this microtonal world, sounds combine without losing their individuality, as the music slowly reveals its pitch and rhythm in slow, unhurried, chance-determined clouds of sound. In Warren Burt's hands, these tuning forks become some strange new instrument, complete with its own exotic tuning system, singing its songs somewhere on the verge of memory." 2CDs for the price of one.

Artist:	ROGALSKY, MATT
Title:	Memory Like Water
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 131CD

"The six (or seven) pieces on these CDs document live performance works which span 1996 to the present. Most of the solo pieces are structured improvisations, in that they have a broad form which is repeated from performance to performance while the detail is always quite different. Conceived as two halves of a single piece, 'Resonate (noise)' and 'Resonate (tones)' seamlessly crossfade from one to the other. Both are sustained-sound pieces, the first exploring noise textures, the second exploring dense, quasi-orchestral harmonic territory. The three works entitled Kash are all related in that they employ the same original software instrument (of that name) initially developed in 2001 and still in use today. This software enables me to interact with live performers (or other sound sources) in fluid and lively improvisational situations, accumulating and processing fragments of low-level sounds (the 'spaces between the notes'). 'Kash (vln)' is a collaborative improvisation between myself and violinist Jane Henry. 'Sprawl (western magnetics)' is a document of a live solo performance. 'Transform' is a manipulation of a live radio signal, tuned to any music station; the frequency content of the source radio program is brought out by a series of tunable delays which create strong harmonic resonances."

Artist:	WATSON, DAVID
Title:	Fingering An Idea
Label:	XI
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 132CD

Disc 1: 'Dexter.' Music for highland bagpipe. Highland Bagpipes: David Watson, Matthew Welch, Michael Mahoney, Brendan O'Rourke, Rob Brazius, Richard Baughman. Disc 2: 'Sinister.' Music for acoustic and electric guitars. David Watson, acoustic & electric guitars. "Fingering an Idea (a phrase pulled from a Chris Mann piece) resulted from a Phill Niblock invitation to make a double CD for bagpipe and guitar. A bagpipe CD is a particular challenge. A high beam spatial explorer, it is the kind of unstable phenomena that is hard to enjoyably reproduce on your stereo player. The first pipe recording session was an ensemble piece, the score including walks around the concert hall. The second, a solo multi-track session. The third with Rob Ramirez, recorded material was played back in the concert hall through an eight-channel MSP patch. A carnival of colliding pans, exits and entrances, re-recorded for stereo. For 'Sinister,' an old cassette recorded at Amica Bunker was the original germ. A sequence of re-tuning and de-stringing, starting with six strings pitched across a whole-tone and ending with an improvisation on one string. This old piece was dusted off and reworked through an image of bell-ringing, another outdoors vernacular." --David Watson

Artist:	SCHUMACHER, MICHAEL J.
Title:	Five Sound Installations
Label:	XI
Format:	DVD-ROM
Price:	$34.00
Catalog #:	XI 133DVD

Five Sound Installations is a DVD-ROM (for MAC and PC) that contains 5 sound compositions generated in "real time" by a computer algorithm. The works are: "Room Piece Twenty-Four"; "Noema"; "Steiner Suite"; "Unintending"; "Scene." "Sound Art, algorithmic composition, chance operations, multi-channel sound systems, immersive installations, computer music; these terms all intersect at a point defined by the new XI release 5SI by MJS. Schumacher is a composer, curator (he runs Diapason, NY's only 'sound art' gallery), and performer, and has been creating computer-generated installations for close to 20 years. His output includes 5 solo CDs, but these were by necessity adaptations of works designed for more or less 'permanent' listening situations, in which auditors could explore various modes of listening within sound environments. These works were composed with installation settings in mind, they had no 'beginning-middle-end' (even out of order) in the traditional sense. For the CD releases, the pieces needed to be manipulated in various ways to accommodate the medium. A better way needed to be found. Schumacher has always been interested in creating algorithmic works that extend the boundaries of the genre, investing them with 100s of constituent parts that form sonic mobiles in space and time. Now he presents the ambitious (and technically savvy) listener with a means to experience Schumacher's installations in the home, through up to 8 separate speaker channels and for as long as the computer keeps running. No question, this is not an iPod experience! For some, just understanding the reason for such a project will be difficult. But the composer and XI believe that the time is apt for challenging a complacent public and industry. This release, more than anything else, is a challenge to break boundaries in both content and distribution, a call for a new way of thinking about sound in the home, which is more than ever the predominant place for listening." NOTE: These compositions must be installed on a computer to be heard. Instructions are enclosed. Minimum system requirements: PC: Windows XP, Vista, 1 gig processor speed, 5 gig free disc space. Mac: OS 10.3 or higher, 1 gig processor speed, 5 gig free disc space.

Artist:	FIRST, DAVID
Title:	Privacy Issues (Droneworks 1996-2009)
Label:	XI
Format:	3CD
Price:	$25.00
Catalog #:	XI 134CD

"Featuring Chris McIntyre and Peter Zummo, trombones; 'Blue' Gene Tyranny, keyboards; and The Black Jackets Ensemble. 'This was something unexpected and truly different: pulsing electronic textures that derived their rhythm from the beating patterns of closely-tune pitches -- as if Alvin Lucier and Philip Glass had gone on a blind date to CBGBs' David put the beat in beating patterns.' - from the liner notes by composer Nic Collins (on his initial exposure to First's music in 1987).
Long overdue overview of composer David First's drone works. This special and specially priced set (3 CDs for the price of 2) is comprised of nine works composed between 1996 and 2009. '1996 was the beginning of a new period for me,' says First. 'I had spent the prior five or six years creating a lot of music for other players and larger ensembles -- culminating in 1995 with a couple of mountings of my opera, The Manhattan Book of the Dead. I was a little burned out on this and decided to return to a more personal, intimate format -- one that ended up including an even more extensive exploration of tunings, alternative compositional softwares and how my playing techniques interacted with these things. I think I just wanted to go deeper and have more control over the results. During the ensuing years I've had a few pendulum swings -- forays into beat-oriented pop music with lyrics & vocals and, of course, the re-animation of my rock band from the late 70s -- the Notekillers. But I've continued, through all of the changes, to maintain my grounding in my love of the drone & associated acoustical phenomena -- a love affair that began in my teenage psychedelic years and will, no doubt, be a most significant aspect of my music path for as long as I am at it. The tracks here represent almost every major work created from 1996 to the present and I'm grateful that they will be heard by a wider swath of people than those who lived in NYC or happened to be at one of my touring performances during these years.'"

Artist:	MORROW, CHARLIE
Title:	Toot!
Label:	XI
Format:	3CD
Price:	$25.00
Catalog #:	XI 135CD

"Charlie Morrow (b. 1942) is a sound artist, composer, sound poet, event maker. Charlie Morrow is a conceptualist whose music and sound work explores many styles and forms, from events for media and public spaces to commercial soundtracks, new media productions, museum installations and programming for broadcast and festivals. Assembling expert project groups, Morrow employs a collaborative style that fuses arts, artists, and environment. Charlie Morrow, for an artist who has been making music for over 50 years, has been vastly underrepresented on recordings. This 3CD retrospective set attempts to rectify that situation to some degree. The 15 works on these discs span the years from 1957-2007 and include: Morrow's first major work, 'Very Slow Gabrieli,' a super slow motion performance of G. Gabrieli's 'Sonata Pian e Forte' for double brass ensemble; 'Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleves,' a beautiful polychromatic, almost tactile collage where chattering sparrows and mellifluous songbirds join the measured undulations of devotional voices. Brass rings out over cradles of bells, doves coo, gulls mew and the wash of the tide ushers in the late medieval intricacies of dulcimer, recorder and viol. You can experience the sound made by herds of instruments through the two instances of Wave Music included in this set. As well as environmental works, chanting pieces, audio collages, and so much more."

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Artist:	VIERK, LOIS V.
Title:	Simoom
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 102CD

Artist:	LEACH, MARY JANE
Title:	Celestial Fires
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 107CD

Artist:	FORWARD, FAST
Title:	Same Same
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 108CD

Artist:	FULLMAN, ELLEN
Title:	Body Music
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 109CD

Artist:	MACLOW, JACKSON
Title:	Open Secrets
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 110CD

Artist:	GOODE, DANIEL
Title:	Clarinet Songs
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 113CD

Artist:	ZUMMO, PETER
Title:	Experimenting With Household Chemicals
Label:	XI
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	XI 116CD