Browse by Artist: MUMMA, GORDON

Artist:	MUMMA, GORDON
Title:	Studio Retrospect
Label:	LOVELY MUSIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	LCD 1093

A collection of six compositions made in electronic music studios from 1959 to 1984. All were composed for concert hall or theater performance with choreography, as well as for distribution on recordings. "Long-awaited CD collection of early electronic works from this Sonic Arts Union member (along with Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley, and David Behrman) and co-founder (with Ashley) of the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music in Ann Arbor, MI (rumoured the first EMS in the US) as well as the ONCE festival(s, 66-74), not to mention his involvement with John Cage and David Tudor as one of the principal composers for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Oh yeah, and Mumma 'was among the first composers to employ circuitry of his own design in compositions and performance.' Features the pieces 'Retrospect' (1959, whose 'Densities' interlude beat B.Gunter et.al to the punch [line] by about 30 years), 'Music from the Venezia Space Theatre' (1964, as brilliant a headfuck as implied), 'The Dresden Interleaf 13 February 1945' (1965, after six minutes of near-silent ghost echoes, one thousand bees invade for exactly 25 seconds, then...), 'Echo-D' (1978, harpsichord and Buchla box sources are given 15 minutes in which to roam freely), 'Pontpoint' (1966-80), and 'Epifont' (1984). Mumma's been one of the more obscured blokes in possession of a misfiring neuro-transmitter set (his 'portable recording apparatus' and related getup puts the MD sham-antics of the Lucky Kitchen set to shame) and what with the 'electron-arhchaica' movement being graced with it's own Ellipsis Arts boxset (like they were all fucking Babenzele Pygmies) you'll surely find a local pen-pal with which to co-tirade on themes of his inherent era genius and contemporary shadow-likeness (as far as output is concerned, although 1987's video-performance of his 1974 piece 'Some voltage drop' wherein 'various parts of musical piece are played on musical saw in an empty amusement park; other part is electronic squeals emitted from accelerometers' would make Gord seem at bat w/old demons) over firelight and fine tawny port. Music, alive, perhaps crawling towards the sun." -- Hrvatski.

Artist:	MUMMA, GORDON
Title:	Electronic Music of Theatre and Public Activity
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	NW 80632CD

"Gordon Mumma (b. 1935) has played a pioneering role in the development and evolution of 'live-electronic' music. 'Live-electronics' as a concept and practice appears to have originated in the United States in the late 1950s, outside the few institutional electronic studios and often in the context of innovative theatre activity. From its inception, it frequently involved two processes: (1) live performance with accompanying or interacting sound materials on magnetic tape; and (2) the use of electronic circuitry as sound-modifying and sound-producing instruments. Beginning with his classic 'Megaton for Wm. Burroughs' of 1963, Mumma's live-electronic and cybersonic works of the 1960s and 1970s, especially 'Medium Size Mograph' (1963) and 'Hornpipe' (1967), display his resourceful use of both live-electronic processes. 'Cybersonic Cantilevers' (1973) extends them to include the active participation of audience members, many of them children and teenagers who were quick to grasp the artistic potential of cybersonic technology, while 'Conspiracy 8' (1969-70) is an early example of live interaction between performers and computer. A major addition to the contemporary music discography, this is essential listening for anyone interested in the history of electronic music."

Artist:	MUMMA, GORDON
Title:	Music For Solo Piano (1960-2001)
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$30.00
Catalog #:	NW 80686CD

Performed by Daan Vandewalle, piano. "Gordon Mumma (b. 1935) is best known for his pioneering role in the development and evolution of electronic and live-electronic music. The piano has played a significant if underestimated role in his career. With a few notable exceptions, this collection by pianist Daan Vandewalle marks the first commercial recordings of Mumma's music for solo piano composed over more than forty years. It provides an important new perspective on his work as a composer. The spare textures, irregular rhythms, and pungent dissonances of Bartók's Mikrokosmos echo in Mumma's piano music. The keyboard music of Bach and Haydn, of Schoenberg, Webern, Ives, Ernst Krenek, Carl Ruggles, and Ruth Crawford also shaped his early piano ideal, as did the experience of superb recitalists in Detroit and Ann Arbor, including Walter Gieseking, Dame Myra Hess, and Glenn Gould. The works of the early 1960s were written for the concert hall, but much of the later piano music is more personal -- the solitary dreams of a long musical life. And like dreams it filters memories -- of music of the distant and recent past, of artistic friendships and loved ones living or dead -- to create a uniquely contemporary approach to the piano. In contrast to Mumma's epic electronic works, his keyboard music is predominantly poetic in its brevity, concentration, and psychological depth. It is music of high specific gravity, each piece a microcosm of finely etched ideas that unfold without literal repetition. For Daan Vandewalle, it is also 'music of dialogue' that communicates -- both with the listener and within itself -- through its deep concern with sound, phrasing, color, dynamic range, and rhetorical nuance."

Artist:	MUMMA, GORDON
Title:	Live-Electronic Music
Label:	TZADIK
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	TZ 7074

"The ultimate document by one of the most important electronic music composers in new music. A lifetime in the making, these meticulously crafted masterpieces include the legendary Mesa performed by avant garde virtuoso David Tudor on electric bandoneon and the first release of the complete version of Mumma's classic composition Hornpipe fully remastered and reworked by the composer himself. One of the most important releases of this or any other year -- absolutely essential music by one of downtown's Founding Fathers."

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