Browse by Artist: MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA

Artist:	MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA
Title:	Friday
Label:	ALGA MARGHEN (ITALY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	ALGA 073CD

"The MEV group was formed in September 1966 by Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, Frederic Rzewski, Allen Bryant, Carol Plantamura, Ivan Vandor, and Jon Phetteplace. In the beginning they performed compositions by themselves and others which involved the use of electronic sound produced in real time, or 'live' electronic music. In the summer of 1967, they began to work more with improvisation and less with determinate structures. MEV focus more on interpreting the moment, rather than constructing repeatable programs; creating meaningful rituals, not images; becoming involved with the process, the operation, and not with the result of it, or its effects on people. MEV's music is highly eclectic, resisting ready classification by combining elements of improvised music, computer music, world music, jazz and classical composition, without being clearly definable as any one of them. Being creatures of the '60s, MEV members partook of many of the apparent contradictions which the very richness of those extraordinary times, made possible mixing rationalistic social and political theories and action with magic, mysticism and hashish, musically juxtaposing pseudo-primitive rhythmic pulses, drones and chants with avant garde post-serial textures and techniques, inter-connecting organic rhythms of the human body with cutting edge, high-tech synthesizers. But by maintaining an attitude of openness, acceptance, and inclusiveness that allowed for any and all things to co-exist equally, and refusing to regard such dichotomies as contradictions at all, they made what were undoubtedly among MEV, major contributions. For the realization of Friday, recorded in London in May 1969, MEV were Frederic Rzewski (piano, electronics, etc.), Alvin Curran (flugelhorn, etc.), Richard Teitelbaum (Moog synthesizer), Franco Cataldi (trombone, etc.), Gunther Carius (saxophone, etc.). The main theme around this MEV piece is communication. Communication by means of music can be a very efficient means of reaching quick agreement among large numbers of people, because when you call something music, you have tacitly accepted a convention by which it is understood that the sounds that you make have no particular meaning, they are just sounds and therefore free to serve the general purpose of pure communication. Music can bring people together where language divides them. When this happens, the 'concert' will come to resemble other other liberated forms such as the party or the day-off, themselves secular remnants or earlier ceremonies. MEV music is not meant to impress people, but to liberate them. This CD is included in a beautiful digipack full-color sleeve with photos and liner notes. Also included is an 8-page booklet with an essay on Friday by Frederic Rzewski as well as 'MEV Then and Now' by Richard Teitelbaum."

Artist:	MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA
Title:	The Sound Pool
Label:	GET BACK (ITALY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	GET 326

"Musica Elettronica Viva could not be easily defined as one band but closer to a movement based around the idea of free improvisation in the form of experimental, electronic jazz. Originally released in 1969, this is MEV's first album for BYG. A live recording from May of 1969 featuring a free-form ensemble including Constance Abernathy, Michel Asso, Bert, Michael Blake, Barbara Bryant, Carius, Franco Cataldi, Ivan & Patricia Coaquette, Alvin Curran, Chaia Gerstein, Jeff Levine, Jean-Marie Poiret, Frédéric & Nicole Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum and the audience. This is an historic avant-noise document. Original artwork... gatefold sleeve... 180 gram HQ vinyl."

Artist:	MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA
Title:	MEV 40 (1967-2007)
Label:	NEW WORLD RECORDS
Format:	4CD
Price:	$60.00
Catalog #:	NW 80675CD

A fourty-year overview on 4 sprawling CDs. MEV were and still are: Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum, Karl Berger, Allan Bryant, Steve Lacy, George Lewis, Garrett List, Carol Plantamura, Gregory Reeve, Ivan Vandor. "Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) was begun one evening in the spring of 1966 by Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Jon Phetteplace, Carol Plantamura, Frederic Rzweski, Richard Teitelbaum and Ivan Vandor in a room in Rome overlooking the Pantheon. MEV's music right from the start was also totally open, allowing all and everything to come in and seeking in every way to get out beyond the heartless conventions of contemporary music. Taking its cue from Tudor and Cage, MEV began sticking contact mics to anything that sounded and amplified their raw sounds: bed springs, sheets of glass, tin cans, rubber bands, toy pianos, sex vibrators, and assorted metal junk; a crushed old trumpet, cello and tenor sax kept us within musical credibility, while a home-made synthesizer of some 48 oscillators along with the first Moog synthesizer in Europe gave our otherwise neo-primitive sound an inimitable edge. In the name of the collectivity, the group abandoned both written scores and leadership and replaced them with improvisation and critical listening. Rehearsals and concerts were begun at the appropriate time by a kind of spontaneous combustion and continued until total exhaustion set in. It mattered little who played what when or how, but the fragile bond of human trust that linked us all in every moment remained unbroken. The music could go anywhere, gliding into self-regenerating unity or lurching into irrevocable chaos -- both were valuable goals. In the general euphoria of the times, MEV thought it had re-invented music; in any case it had certainly rediscovered it." --Alvin Curran. "This 4CD set, covering the years 1967-2007, comprises the best surviving recorded documents from four decades of performances, personally curated by its three core members -- Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, and Richard Teitelbaum. As such, it is an invaluable historical anthology of one of the pioneering and truly legendary exponents of live-electronic music." Features: "SpaceCraft" (1967), "Stop The War" (1972), "Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Pts. 1 & 2" (1982), "Kunstmuseum, Bern" (1990), "New Music America Festival" (1989), "Ferrara, Italy" (2002), "Mass. Pike" (2007).

Artist:	MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA
Title:	Leave The City
Label:	SPALAX (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	SPA 14968

Spalax have created a subsidiary label (Spalax2) which will be dedicated to the Actuel collection of music, as originally issued by the BYG label out of France. "Musica Elettronica Viva or MEV as they're sometimes called, were founded by Ivan Coaquette (pre-Spacecraft), and also included his wife, Patricia and Birgit Knabe, as well as various other collaborators along the way. The music we find here is an extremely experimental form of electronic jazz which is not a million miles away from the styles of early German Krautrock bands such as Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. Originally issued in 1970." This was the second of 2 MEV albums to released by BYG in 1970, following The Sound Pool (which featured Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum & Frederic Rzewsi amongst others). It features floating, droning free music freakouts of the finest cosmic quality and this reissue is a major event by any sensible standard. A note of explanation from Frederic Rzewski about the various incarnations of MEV: "In 1968/69 MEV experimented with audience participation and took on a number of new younger people, many of whom were not musicians. We wanted to see how far we could extend the idea of free improvisation, surrounding the core group with people who happened to be around. The group expanded and spawned separate communities. In the early 70's there were three MEV's: one in Rome, led by Alvin Curran; one in New York, where Richard Teitelbaum & I were based; and one in Paris, which was organized by the Coaquettes. Birgit nd Nona were members of the Living Theatre, with whom we also hung out a ot, and Stefano was one of the younger acolytes. The record you are talking about was a kind of hippie child who chose MEV as its identity. Nobody ever found out really who was in MEV. At that time, it was part of a movement, and that part of it that was a part of the movement lived and died with that movement." [deleted]

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