Browse by Artist: FERRARI, LUC

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Éphémère I & II
Label:	ALGA MARGHEN (ITALY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	ALGA 081CD

"Presented here for the first time, Éphémère I & II' (for tape, or to be played with various instruments) are two previously unpublished masterpieces which represent for several reasons a very specific moment in the creative life and catalogue of Luc Ferrari. Even if Luc Ferrari's perfect skill in creating some of the most beautiful sonic works ever is now well known to the large audience appreciating his music, the undetermined character marking the two works presented here is quite surprising. Luc Ferrari was tempted in the mid-1970s by the idea of leaving the final realization of these pieces open to the performer's intervention (a perspective he decided not to develop in future researches). 'Exercises d'Improvisation', a score conceived in 1977 and unreleased for almost 35 years (first recorded this year by the GOL collective with Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari for an LP to be issued on PLANAM), directly comes from the two works presented here. Éphémère I' (or 'L'ordinateur ça sert à quoin?' i.e. 'What's the use of computers') is a 27 minute piece for tape only, created in 1974, conceived as a kind of electronic drone superimposed by fragments of multi-language whispered voices that creates the thrilling effect of a 'sea-like' continuum. Éphémère II' (or 'Lyon 75' after the only recorded realization) is a 51 minute tape piece with guitar improvisation. The electronic repetitive structure reminds some of the most radical works of American composer Terry Riley, while the guitar sounds, first resulting as live manipulated pointillistic impulses, develop into a blues sonority superimposing the tape drone and creating a heavy psychedelic atmosphere of the most sublime kind. The end of this long suite lead us back into more abstract and live-electronic sonorities. This very intense work can be placed in a context between scored music and totally improvised music. First press limited to 500 copies in tri-folded digipack sleeve. Please note: these 2 previously unpublished pieces revealing a hidden part of Luc Ferrari poetics are not included in the INA 10CD boxset. Only available on this CD edition."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Labyrinthe De Violence/Dance
Label:	ALGA MARGHEN (ITALY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$31.00
Catalog #:	MARGHEN 027LP

One-sided release. "'Dance' was part of a sound/visual installation called 'Labyrinthe De Violence.' Previously unpublished, this radical experimental work has now been released on LP record in collaboration with the New Media Dept of Centre Pompidou (National Museum of Modern Art) in Paris for 'Oeuvres sonores 2,' a 2-day-event organized by Emanuele Carcano at Beaubourg on April 5th & 6th, 2009. 'Labyrinthe De Violence' was an installation for tape sounds and 2 slide projectors conceived in 1975 by Luc Ferrari. The installation was a visual and sound metaphor of violence within contemporary civilized society. Four different rooms with a central space created the spatial context of this work. The specific environmental sonority (1. 'Violence;' 2. 'Pollution;' 3. 'Profit;' 4. 'Mechanism' / 'Paysage' / 'Danse') created for each of the four rooms naturally superposed themselves in the central space. 'Dance' was one of those sonorities, minimally constructed using 2 different sounds: a very low electronic drone deeply resonating for the whole duration with, in the end, the accumulation of deconstructed sequences played by Luc Ferrari on an electric organ. Documenting one of Luc Ferrari's most beautiful and mysterious sonic works, this LP edition will be the first in a series of Alga Marghen projects presenting a still undiscovered side of the poetical universe of this fundamental composer. This 1-sided LP, issued in an edition limited to 500 copies only."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Interrupteur/Tautologos 3
Label:	BLUE CHOPSTICKS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	BLUE 001CD

1999 release, repressed; the debut release on Dave Grubbs's reissue-oriented label (moving forward from where Dexter's Cigar left off). "Ferrari -- along with Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, François Bayle, and others -- is one of the pioneers of the particular style of tape music known as 'musique concrète'. More significantly, he must be counted as one of the most complexly, most idiosyncratically compelling of post-War composers. Ferrari has time and again ranged far afield of musique concrète, and Interrupteur/Tautologos 3 is one such foray into instrumental music. But what a setting-forth! Mon dieu! These particular realizations came about through Ferrari's directed improvisations of Konstantin Simonovitch's ensemble, and the recordings were originally released in 1970 by EMI in their 'Perspectives Musicales' series. 'Interrupteur' is largely static music, a music of long tones periodically interrupted by aleatoric events. If it references musical minimalism (particularly Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Robert Ashley), this surely counts as an intuitive, very personal result. 'Tautologos 3' pursues the idea of the superposition of cycles of different lengths that, once set into motion, will continually result in new events. Conventionally understood, a tautology is a redundancy in which the same meaning is expressed in different works; the same things are 'said' repeatedly in 'Taulologos 3', but as the context shifts through the displacement of the various cycles, how could there be no gain, no furtherance of both logic and sensation? In a world: exhilarating.""Interrupteur" is from 1967 and features the following instrumentation: English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, French horn, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, two percussions, two electric organs. It is one of the most outright powerful and devastating recordings within the avant garde realm. "Tautologos 3" is form 1970 and features: flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, viola, cello, double bass, electric guitar, electric organ & vibraphone.

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Cycle Des Souvenirs (1995-2000)
Label:	BLUE CHOPSTICKS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	BLUE 008CD

First ever release of a large scale electroacoustic piece five years in the making that revisits numerous periods from Ferrari's five decades of work. From the composer's liner notes: "I have been composing a new series of works under the general title Exploitation des Concepts. The point is to take concepts I have been experimenting with throughout my entire life as a composer, and to put them to use in every possible direction: in instrumental as well as electroacoustic music, in video, in multimedia installation, in new technologies as well as old ones.... These Exploitations go in all directions: the Tautology, superimposed cycles, the minimalism of the Presque Rien series, architectures of chance, anecdote, narrative, everyday sounds, arte povera . . . souvenirs . . . etc. -- all these concepts that have always preoccupied me but which until now I hadn't really exploited. So we find images of my childhood, my street, my subway; places I passed through and which struck me enough to record them, certain villages in Italy or the sea in Portugal; of my present, too: workplaces, my souvenirs, my house. The Cycle des Souvenirs also means that all the elements are structured in cycles which, when superimposed, produce chance encounters." -- Luc Ferrari.

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Far-West News (Episodes 2 and 3)
Label:	BLUE CHOPSTICKS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	BLUE 016CD

"Far-West News is the late Luc Ferrari's three-part aural travelogue of time that he and his wife Brunhild Meyer spent in the American Southwest in 1998. Far-West News strains familiar categories of genre; as Ferrari himself writes, 'It's not a report or a soundscape, not a Hörspiel or an electronic work, not a portrait or a recorded reality exhibit, not a transgression of reality or an Impressionist account, not a so on or so forth. It's a composition....[C]omposition in some cases, especially in mine, and increasingly in my life, is a perverted game with the truth.' There you go. File under 'perverted game.' Far-West News is constructed from field recordings, narration, and overlaid electronic music fragments. The electronic interruptions read as representations of musical accompaniment that likely existed in Luc Ferrari's brain to keep things interesting -- herky-jerky musical phrases are slathered ex post facto atop the sounds of a foundry, a Garth Brooks-ish singer-songwriter, a walk in Death Valley. These David Lynchian sonic interruptions of the everyday have a found object quality that's central to Far-West News. There's a steady macro-rhythm of cars passing along the highway, recalling the basso continuo of the train in Glenn Gould's The Idea of North. In his dual role as composer and tape editor, Luc Ferrari had a supreme knack for musicalizing the comedy of linguistic confusion. Luc and Brunhild, Far-West News's main characters, treat locals and yokels alike -- with exquisite visitor-hospitality. Lewis and Clark, meet Bouvard and Pécuchet. This could be a case study in cross-cultural sociality. Far-West News takes place during the lead-up to the Clinton impeachment -- innocent time -- and Lewinsky looms over the landscape. It's all punctuated by Luc's laugh. Far-West News, like Ferrari's classic Presque Rien No. 1, is a work of landscape. Where Presque Rien No. 1 presented a landscape wiped of speech, Far-West News revels in the locals' voices and their choice of words."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Les Arythmiques
Label:	BLUE CHOPSTICKS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	BLUE 019CD

"Les Arythmiques is one of the final works created by electroacoustic composer Luc Ferrari. A starting point for the piece was the challenge to represent in sound the jolt of electricity that had been sent across his heart to treat his arrythmia. The sound that he finally crafted to his satisfaction is the crackling, vaguely terrifying one that jolts Les Arythmiques into life and reappears throughout to interrupt the proceedings at the most unlikely moments. The sound environment that the electrical shocks interrupt is that of the EKG's regular beeps, the distant tolling of a church bell, and even more distant sounds resembling birds. In other words, it's the sound of enforced rest, of a patient immobilized. This relatively small repertoire of concrete sounds is examined with a disorienting repetitiveness that brings to mind the mobile-like quality of many of Ferrari's electroacoustic works. Here that quality is combined with the lightning-quick stabs associated with Erik M and Otomo Yoshihide, two artists with whom Ferrari collaborated in his final years. Les Arythmiques ultimately moves beyond the hospital room by delving into an archive of remembered sounds. Murmurings in Italian give way to the English-language interjection 'Are y'all familiar with the parts of a saddle?' -- the composer's reflection on material gathered in the American Southwest for his Far-West News series. Ferrari's characteristic humor is here, particularly in the superimposition of diverse sound environments. But Les Arythmiques also possesses a nagging unease, a persistent gravity that both listener and composer cannot shake. Les Arythmiques was included as part of the ten-CD box set Luc Ferrari: L'Oeuvre Électronique (Ina GRM). This is the first time that it has appeared as a separate release."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Volume 1: Chansons Pour Le Corps
Label:	MODE
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	MODE 081CD

2007 remastered reissue version; originally released in 1999. Includes "Chansons Pour Le Corps" (1988-94; for voice, clarinets, percussion, piano and synthesizer; Elise Caron, voice), and "Et Si Tout Entière Maintenant" (1986-87; symphonic tale for voice, orchestral sound and tape; with texts by Collette Fellous; Anne See, voice; Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique; Yves Prin, conductor). "The works on this disc show a combination of Ferrari's musique concrete and instrumental styles. The point of departure for 'Chansons Pour Le Corps' was a series of spontaneous interviews with women on the subject of female form which Ferrari recorded in the Jardin du Luxembourg. It's a great image, a young woman out for a Sunday afternoon stroll approached by a man wondering if she might allow him to record her talking about various intimate parts of her body. The interviewees were invited to speak about their eyes, hands, breasts and sex, and those who accepted did so with extraordinary candor. Novelist and radio presenter Colette Fellous was then asked to write texts based on the tapes to be set for soprano and ensemble interspersed with extracts from the original interviews. 'Et Si Tout Entière Maintenant' a 'symphonic tale' for voice, orchestral sound and tape is an extraordinary work. The orchestral score was performed, recorded and then treated electronically in his studio, though the orchestra is never deformed beyond all recognition. This is incorporated into the piece along with the authentic sounds of the Swedish icebreaker and its crew, and Fellous' spoken text. What results is typical Ferrari genre blending, inhabiting a region somewhere between fact and fiction, documentary and poetry, orchestral and electronic music."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Exercices D'Improvisation
Label:	PLANAM (ITALY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$27.00
Catalog #:	PLANAM FERRA

"Luc Ferrari conceived this work in 1977 as a sequence of seven individually or collectively improvised exercises for tape and any instrument or group of instruments. Never performed before, Exercices d'improvisation have been released by the GOL collective and issued now on LP by PLANAM. The seven exercises follow each others in a suite of growing intensity where GOL acoustic and electric instruments react to Luc Ferrari's tape, lively re-interpreted by Brunhild Ferrari: from a more meditative form, the music turns into free mental spiraling sections to finally culminate in a live musique concrete drama. The tracks were recorded at Ferrari's Atelier Post-billig on April 12th and 13th, 2010, a few days before the world premiere performance at La Maison Rouge in Paris. Exercices d'improvisation on one hand presents a new perspective on Ferrari's music and on the other pays a panorama-like tribute to his rich and eclectic corpus; somewhere between 'Tête et Queue du Dragon' and 'Tautologos' with a touch of 'Danses Organiques'. GOL was formed in 1988 in Paris by Jean-Marcel Busson, Frédéric Rebotier, Ravi Sharda and Samon Takahashi. On this record GOL play flutes, electric guitar, bass guitar, melodica, janotron, ocarina, nagara, electric guembri, vocoder and message box. This LP is the forth in the 'gollaboration' series after records by GOL with Dumitrescu/Avram, with Charlemagne Palestine and with Charles Hayward of This Heat fame. The front sleeve shows a four colour wild collage by the French artist, film-maker and Ferrari's collaborator Jacques Brissot based on photo sessions done by Myriam Tirler, who also shot the back cover and inner sleeve images presenting GOL members and Brunhild Ferrari in Kagel-Exotica-like appearances. The edition limited to 350 copies also includes an insert with the complete score by Luc Ferrari. Please note: this previously unpublished work revealing a hidden part of Luc Ferrari poetics is not included in the INA 10CD boxset. Only available on this LP edition."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Archives Génétiquement Modifiées/Société II
Label:	ROBOT
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	ROBOT 039CD

"Robot Records is honored and pleased to present two historic compositions for the first time on CD by the late, great Luc Ferrari. The programme opens with 'Archives Génétiquement Modifiées' (Genetically Modified Archives), a work for 'memorized sounds' from 2000. This composition (subtitled: 'Exploitation des Concepts No. 3') was the third in a series of later pieces in which Mr. Ferrari revisited aspects of his early concepts and compositional strategies to create wholly new works. The result here is a very bizarre, sensual, and beautifully-paced electroacoustic work of aural memories and (re)collections created by Mr. Ferrari utilizing sounds from his vast archive of musical activities. After a short intermission, the program continues with a true highlight of Mr. Ferrari's early instrumental work entitled 'Société II' from 1967. Subtitled: 'Et Si Le Piano Était Un Corps De Femme'/'And If The Piano Were The Body Of A Woman' (for 4 soloists and 16 instruments), this composition appeared opposite 'Presque Rien' on the legendary Deutsche Grammophon LP. 'Société II' may be viewed as an erotically-charged piece of musical theater where the soloists 'compete' for the attention of a woman (the piano). This concerto, with its gestures and a fantastic kaleidoscope of styles and color, shows the extravagant qualities of the piano in its 'harmony, imagination, and brutality.' Packaged in a full-color digipak with a 20-page bilingual (French/English) booklet featuring Mr. Ferrari's early artwork, notations, and program notes, along with an extensive commentary by Jim O'Rourke and Jay Sanders. Remastered sound with audio restoration by fellow INA GRM alumnus, Jean Schwarz. A wonderful glimpse into the world of one of the most legendary, unique, and inspiring musical figures of the 20th century."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Les Anecdotiques
Label:	SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SR 207CD

"Even if his art is historically linked to the musique concrète school, Luc Ferrari (born in Paris in 1929) is above all a man with a freedom of spirit rarely equalled in the history of music, who has repeatedly left what he excelled at for new territory still unexplored; thus he is par excellence the composer of new fields of investigation. Ferrari joined the Groupe de Musique Concrète in 1958 and remained a member until 1966; he collaborated with Pierre Schaeffer in setting up the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (1958). By 1963-4 he had begun Hétérozygote, an extended tape piece in which ambient sounds unfold in narrative form, suggesting a dazzling variety of incidents, all unexplained. He was Professor of Composition at Cologne's Rheinische Musikschule from 1964 to 65. In 1965 and 1966 he produced Les Grandes Répétitions, a series of television documentaries with Gérard Patris on the subject of contemporary music, specifically Olivier Messiaen, Edgard Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hermann Scherchen and Cecil Taylor. Luc Ferrari's diverse work and aesthetics continue to have a singular impact on the young generations of electronic musicians and artists. The corpus of his work is immense and includes hundreds of compositions of all kinds. Les Anecdotiques -- his last composition -- is a vast sound-film of more than an hour who explores in 15 steps the intensity of re-composed sounds from his continual travel around the world -- with electronic additional structures."

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Son Mémorisé
Label:	SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SR 252CD

This is the second of three Sub Rosa releases of instrumental works by this important artist. Luc Ferrari is considered one of the most legendary musical figures of the twentieth century, whose work and aesthetic continues to influence several generations of contemporary composers. Director of the Groupe de Recherche Musicales which he established with Pierre Schaeffer in Paris from 1958-1966, he is also one of the masters of musique concrète who influenced and expanded the genre with electro-acoustic instrumentation. Right from the start, the idea had been to release three very different CDs: one hörspiel, one of concrete music (new and older pieces) and one CD of instrumental works. Les Anecdotiques was the first step: a vast sound-film of more than an hour that explores in 15 steps the intensity of re-composed sounds from his continual travel around the world, with electronic additional structures. This album is the second step -- one that offers a retrospective -- the previously unreleased "Promenade Symphonique dans un Paysage Musical" from 1976-78, the final "Presque Rien #4" and a fresh reflection dating from the last months of 2002, "Saliceburry Cocktail," a large-scale composition exploring the idea of hideout, scrambled listening -- a tortuous entanglement of concrète and electronic. The forthcoming third and final release will be three recent instrumental compositions for electronics, piano and viola which were recorded under Luc's supervision -- the last works he ever recorded, as he passed away in August 2005.

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Didascalies
Label:	SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)
Format:	CD/DVD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SR 261CD

This is a new version of Didascalies, previously released as SR 259CD. This version has the same music as SR 259CD, but with new cover artwork, plus a bonus DVD disc (European PAL-format only, sorry). Didascalies is the last release in Sub Rosa's three-part series of instrumental works by this important artist, now packaged with a DVD featuring Luc Ferrari at work on this -- his last experiment. Luc Ferrari is considered one of the most legendary musical figures of the twentieth century, whose work and aesthetic continues to influence several generations of contemporary composers. Director of the Groupe de Recherche Musicales which he established with Pierre Schaeffer in Paris from 1958-1966, he is also one of the masters of musique concrète who influenced and expanded the genre with electro-acoustic instrumentation. Right from the start, the idea had been to release three very different CDs: one hörspiel, one of concrete music (new and older pieces) and one CD of instrumental works. Les Anecdotiques was the first step: a vast sound-film of more than an hour that explores in 15 steps the intensity of re-composed sounds from his continual travels around the world, with additional electronic structures. Son Mémorisé was a retrospective of concrète and electronic compositions. Didascalies brings together "Rencontres Fortuites," "Didascalies" and "Tautologos III" -- two recent works for piano, viola and electronics, and one open-ended work -- which featured at a concert at the Boendael Chapel in Brussels. A few months later, this release was assembled with Ferrari's supervision at the legendary Brème studios with final development at La Muse en Circuit. This release also documents the composition of a new version of "Tautologos," Ferrari's last recorded piece, with woven piano and viola breaking down, starting anew in an opposite direction with bandoneon, DX7 and books being closed every two and a half minutes. About a month later, Luc Ferrari passed away. Performed by Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven (piano) and Vincent Royer (viola).

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Didascalies 2
Label:	SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SR 305LP

Vinyl-only release. Performers: Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven (piano); Claude Berset (piano); Vincent Royer (viola). Sub Rosa presents the first release after their Luc Ferrari trilogy. Didascalies 2 is not to be confused with 2007's Didascalies (SR 261CD) -- this is another composition entirely, never published before. "The other day I found a file from 1993, a score for two pianos entitled 'Revenir à la Note de Départ' (trans. 'Getting Back To The Initial Note'). So I decided to turn it into a new composition without changing a single note in it -- it contained very little notes actually, which suited me just fine. So I called it Didascalies 2, in memory of what I had done the previous year: a piece for piano and viola entitled 'Didascalies Tout Court.' That piece was played on two notes, one for the piano and the same one for the viola. It had an obsessive feel. Very, very obsessive!" --Luc Ferrari
Upon his last visit to La Chaux-de-Fonds in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, the composer specifically asked for Didascalies 2 to be performed by La Chaux-de-Fonds pianist Claude Berset and Brussels pianist Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven. The performers developed an event around the world premiere of this release -- the last work by Luc Ferrari not yet played in front of an audience. Didascalies 2 was premiered on October 25, 2008 as part of an anti-tribute to Luc Ferrari in La Chaux-de-Fonds in a version for two pianos and viola. Luc stipulated that toward the end of the piece "an instrument comes in (I don't know which one yet). This instrument should be very powerful and be able to sustain a very loud note (I don't know which one yet)." The musicians chose the viola.

Artist:	FERRARI, LUC
Title:	Cellule 75
Label:	TZADIK
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	TZ 7033

"Irreverent, psychosexual and always fascinating, Ferrari's work manifests itself in texts, instrumental textures, electroacoustic compositions, reportings, films, theatre, etc. It is an honor for Tzadik to release two of his most important works from the 1970s, recorded under the supervision of the composer himself. 'Place des Abbesses,' the first electro acoustic portrait work realized at his home studio in Paris, 1977, is an evocative portrait of a small square between The Sacred Heart of God and Saints and the Pigalle of licentiousness and sex, two familiar Ferrari obsessions. 'Cellule 75' is an explosive, dynamic work for piano, percussion and tape, balancing improvisational spontaneity with the more exacting writing of classical forms."

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